TY - JOUR

T1 - The toilet paper

T2 - Femininity, class and mis-recognition

AU - Skeggs, Beverley

PY - 2001/5/1

Y1 - 2001/5/1

N2 - This article unpacks the paradoxical and ambivalent meaning and value of femininity; both its theorization and its practice. To do this it draws on specific empirical sites in the UK-women's toilets-to think through the significance of the contemporary politics of recognition, a politics that Nancy Fraser (1995) argues is displacing the politics of redistribution. The first part of the article explores how the appearance of femininity as a form of cultural capital is utilized and theorized. It also shows how femininity is known and judged and frequently mis-recognised through historical classed positions that are premised on appearance being read as a value of personhood. This analysis is then applied to the empirical research, drawing on two different research projects to make its arguments. Using examples of the tension in women's toilets, it shows how the feminine-appearing body is judged on the basis of excess and devalued but also, paradoxically, given authority to shame and judge. The different processes of mis-recognition invoked in the toilets expose the way class underpins any reading of bodies on the basis of appearance.

AB - This article unpacks the paradoxical and ambivalent meaning and value of femininity; both its theorization and its practice. To do this it draws on specific empirical sites in the UK-women's toilets-to think through the significance of the contemporary politics of recognition, a politics that Nancy Fraser (1995) argues is displacing the politics of redistribution. The first part of the article explores how the appearance of femininity as a form of cultural capital is utilized and theorized. It also shows how femininity is known and judged and frequently mis-recognised through historical classed positions that are premised on appearance being read as a value of personhood. This analysis is then applied to the empirical research, drawing on two different research projects to make its arguments. Using examples of the tension in women's toilets, it shows how the feminine-appearing body is judged on the basis of excess and devalued but also, paradoxically, given authority to shame and judge. The different processes of mis-recognition invoked in the toilets expose the way class underpins any reading of bodies on the basis of appearance.

U2 - 10.1016/S0277-5395(01)00186-8

DO - 10.1016/S0277-5395(01)00186-8

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:0034802470

VL - 24

SP - 295

EP - 307

JO - Women's Studies International Forum

JF - Women's Studies International Forum

SN - 0277-5395

IS - 3-4

ER -