A corporeidade feminina em construção sociocultural e histórica: a ressignificação do boca a boca das dietas por um corpo idealizado

Abstract

The research aimed to investigate and reflect on the social resonances that beauty standards and the idealization of achieving a certain corporality present to women. It examined the discourses intertwined in the female imaginary concerning the conception of body shaped by current subjectivity through diets. Based on these premises, the goal was to understand whether it is possible to optimize the deconstruction of beauty standards or aesthetic stereotypes, promises of acquiring an idealized body, and the scene of alterity and intersections in relation to the female body. In this process of (re)shaping the body, we were interested in the discourse produced by the redefinition of diet-related discussions, aiming to analyze if they intensify a beauty standard for women and thus become a device of influence and control over the body. The research methodology employed was qualitative, utilizing the technique of conducting focus groups, optimized in December 2022. The participants were women aged eighteen to seventy, residing in Guarapuava, State of Paraná, and were part of the academic community at the State University of Midwest – Unicentro, highlighting the sample of the conducted investigation. The studies revealed that the discourses taken from the focus groups contextualize women's experiences with their bodies as they interact with societal, cultural, and historical spaces. Through the examination of theoretical references and the analysis conducted, it was found that media discourse on diets influences the construction of a range of body stereotypes, establishing visual imagery standards of how women's bodies should be, resulting in the objectification of their bodies and leading to low female self-esteem, a reflection of an unattainable ideal of bodily perfection. Throughout the research, it was possible to identify and understand that the idealization of a standard body beauty aligns with the construction of the female imaginary, being a body interpolated and produced in a process of meanings and effects, subject to numerous interpretations and representations, anchored in different perspectives of subjectivation and objectification, expressing constituted knowledge of the body and the feminine. The research results are significant, indicating that the discourse production of diets emphasizes the cult of the standardized, thin body, being a concern across all social classes, sectors, and age groups. Additionally, the results point out that the word-of-mouth discursiveness has been redefined and now exists in the virtual space, on social media, and on the internet. Thus, the media environment drives aesthetic consumption and women's dissatisfaction with their bodies, publicizing an unrealistic, unattainable beauty standard. In this sense, diets are understood in this thesis research as a cultural consumption that resonates with meaning effects that glorify the standardization of body beauty, notably, for women. After presenting the discussion, we aim to construct reflective and questioning pathways regarding the body in contemporary times, fostering awareness in an attempt to encourage further debates on the importance of caring for our bodies in the name of health, rather than pursuing an exaggerated cult of the body for improvement, configuring a standard or stereotype promising a perfect yet unreal, objectified body.