Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 27

boasted designs for women “with full figures, emphasis[ing] that their up-to-date designs could achieve
‘height and slenderness” for these consumers.
This shift towards a focus upon the shape of the body resonates heavily with Foucault’s theories
of the body; specifically considering his work in Discipline and Punish (1979) on the ways the individual
becomes self-policing, as (in the case of the prison) punishment as a form of spectacle is diminished and
transformed into an internal process that takes place within one’s mind. Foucault’s theories of power and
the subject come to the forefront here; those that analysed power as that which, rather than being located
within larger sources, came to be known as grounded within the myriad controlling aspects of everyday
life are believed to be the catalyst that inspired postfeminist thinking. Instances of such power include the
multiple ways that the individual controls and disciplines their own body in modern society, excluding
“[them] as an agent of knowledge and social change”. Firstly, Foucault critiques the shift in the way the
individual is considered as a result of Enlightenment thinking, highlighting the “greater levels of discipline
and surveillance over the individual”, through which “those controls are almost completely internalised”.
Foucault’s criticism relates to the arguments that consider how postfeminism’s intertwined relationship
with neoliberalism has shaped and heightened the self-policing women are structurally directed to
partake in. As McRobbie (2004) discusses, popular postfeminist culture such as, for example, Bridget
Jones’ Diary reproduces the self-disciplined female who is always seeking a male companion, and keeps a
diary to reflect “on her fluctuating weight, noting her calorie intake”. Furthermore, Hayes’ (2006) study
on women at Weight Watchers (through a Foucauldian lens), allowed her to explore the ways dieting can
construct a docile body. Hayes found that the dieting subject is written by wider, external societal forces
and she stresses that “we should never lose sight of the fact that [the] focus is on commercial enterprises
whose primary goal is profit”. What Hayes’ work opens up is the ability to see dieting as a method of self-
reflection which could be used for subject creation (as Foucault argues in The History of Sexuality), but
instead this industry immobilises this ability due to the ‘thin’ subject being created externally. With
reference to this, the flapper’s androgynous body shape is one iteration, amongst recurring ones within
modernity, relating to controlling women’s contemporary bodies through diet and self-policing. From this
perspective, the flapper’s potential to be a cultural icon for women’s independence is overridden by her
utilisation as a figure that stimulates women’s self-disciplining and the self-policing of their bodies.
The Silhouette as Lacan’s Mirror Stage
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