Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-8-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Southern Studies
First Advisor
Andrew Harper
Second Advisor
Elizabeth Venell
Third Advisor
Catarina Passidomo
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis explores the relationship between rural, upper-class, Southern, white women and their bodies. In my attempts to understand this relationship, I analyze sources from the fields of gender studies, philosophy, and psychology, utilizing concepts such as the Cult of True Womanhood, the newly-emerging field of body memoirs, and the long-lasting but elusive idea of Southern ladyhood to make sense of cultural expectations of Southern women and their bodies. This research, alongside my use of autoethnography and oral history, serve as an anchor for my analysis of women’s relationships to their bodies, in which I use myself, my mother, and my maternal grandmother as subjects.
This thesis asks both about the tangible physical changes experienced– pregnancy, aging, changes in appearance– and the intangible fluctuations of confidence, strength, discomfort, and embodiment experienced throughout one’s lifetime. In doing so, my intent is to explore regional societal expectations of women as experienced by these three women. Themes of duality emerge– a distance between the presented woman and the inner woman, a separation between outer and inner selves– alongside a complete but inarticulable understanding of what is expected of their appearance and presentation. In all, this thesis hopes to complicate common understanding of women’s lived experiences by attempting to articulate how it feels for these women to live in their bodies. It makes no attempts to speak for all women, but rather anchors its meaning in the simple act and power of storytelling, hoping to deepen an understanding of these women’s relationship with their bodies and complicate notions of Southern ladyhood.
Recommended Citation
Ford, Martha Peyton, "Women Without Bodies: Autonomy, Empowerment, and Embodiment in Southern Women" (2022). Honors Theses. 2648.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2648
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