Appearance norms and motherhood norms are important components of ideologies of femininity. This research centers on exploring the appearance work experiences of career oriented mothers who, as women in contemporary Western society, are beholden to a first shift of paid work, a second shift of unpaid childcare and domestic work, and also a third shift of appearance work. A career-oriented mother prioritizes her paid work shift, and as such, experiences tensions between her roles as mother and paid worker. A third shift of appearance work further adds to these tensions. Little research on women’s appearance work experiences has been conducted using standpoint feminist theory. Patton (2006) uses Afrocentric theory and standpoint theory in her research exploring the ways African American women are affected by White standards of beauty. To my knowledge, no research on career-oriented mothers’ appearance work experiences, and attitudes about appearance work, has made use of a standpoint feminist lens.
Standpoint feminism asserts that, “as physical and social reproducers of children - - out of bodies, emotions, thought, and sheer physical labor -- women are grounded in material reality in ways that men aren’t” (Lorber 2001: 22). As a result of this connection to the material world, women have a different way of knowing from men. So in order for us to understand women’s realities, and challenge hegemony, one must research from their perspectives. Moreover, Lorber (2001) says, “women researchers are
more sensitive to how women see problems and set priorities, and therefore would be better able to design and conduct research from a woman's point of view” (23).
Standpoint feminism argues against the idea that knowledge is a straightforward outcome of essential shared group characteristics. Knowledge, rather, is shaped and also limited by social location. It is “uniquely achieved from a particular standpoint” (Intemann 2010: 783). Spragle (2005) (citing Harding 1998) states that, “Standpoint epistemology argues that all knowledge is constructed in a specific matrix of physical location, history, culture, and interests, and that these matrices change in configuration from one location to another” (41). The career-oriented woman is a:
[G]ender disadvantaged “insider-outsider” who has no choice, given her social location but to negotiate the world of the privileged, [she is] a knower who must understand accurately and in detail the tacit knowledge that constitutes a dominant, normative world view at the same time as she is grounded in a community whose marginal status generates a fundamentally different understanding of how the world works. (Wylie 2003: 34-5)
And that knowledge, because it is “situated” can only be partial (Spragle 2005; see also Stoetzler and Yuval-Davis 2002).
Further, while career-oriented women may belong to the same “identity community,” (Stoetzler and Yuval-Davis 2002:318), I do not assume an automatic relationship between women’s common social locations, and standpoint.
What individuals experience and understand is shaped by their location in a hierarchically structured system of [gendered/raced/classed] power relations: by the material conditions of their lives, by the relations of production and reproduction that structure their social interactions, and by the conceptual resources they have to represent and interpret these relations. (Wylie 2003: 31) Harding, discussed by Spragle (2005), articulates what Wylie discusses above, and pinpoints four elements that allow for the construction of a standpoint. The first element involves physical location. Women’s responses to gendered appearance norms are
shaped and also limited by physical location. Gender and other relations of domination/subordination stratify all social structures/institutions, and as such, Harding suggests, “heterogeneous nature is partly differently distributed in men’s and women’s lives” (69). Different women may have different responses to appearance norms, however, general observations can be made because they share the social location “gender disadvantaged” (Wylie 2003: 34). The second element involves interests. Women respond to gendered appearance norms in ways that are different from men, partly because of bodily differences, but also because of differences in physical location – their interests and desires are different. From this, we can also assert that women of color, poor and working class women, etc., will have still other interests and desires. The third element, Harding says, is related to access to discourses. Discourses, Spragle (2005) says, “are heavily influenced by power” (70). Some women may be more sensitized to, and be able to articulate the ways in which ideologies of femininity that prescribe good motherhood and attractiveness constrains their ability to be full selves. The last element of a standpoint, according to Harding, is its position in relation to the organization of knowledge production. This fourth element relates, in this case, to the relationship between the researcher, and the subject, and perhaps also the relationship between subjects. I do not use feminist standpoint theory as not a tool for creating generalizations about women’s appearance work experiences, and attitudes about appearance work. However, because there are some consistencies in the social locations, it is possible to make some general observations about career-oriented women’s appearance work experiences, and their attitudes about appearance work (Spragle 2005: 68-71).
These four theories provide a useful framework for understanding women’s appearance work experiences. First, the conflicting views presented in the literature theorizing beauty allows us to see ideas about women’s physical appearance as relatively straightforward. The literature on resistance and accommodation allows us to complicate women’s responses to appearance norms (as well as motherhood norms), to see that while appearance norms are fairly straightforward – women’s responses to appearance norms in a third shift of appearance work are not. Acker’s theory of gendered organizations can help us understand why women might prioritize certain kinds of appearance work in certain kinds of settings, and de-prioritize it in others. Finally, in order to fully understand career-oriented mothers of young children’s appearance work experiences, and attitudes about appearance work in in the face of motherhood and paid work demands, we must listen to individual women tell the stories of their lived experiences. Standpoint feminism is a lens through which we can gain an understanding of how women respond to appearance norms in a variety of settings, and alongside a range of “others.” Further, a feminist standpoint lens allows women to voice their experiences with appearance work; their motivations for doing, and alternatively foregoing certain kinds of appearance work, and also under what conditions their attitudes about certain kinds of appearance work change.
CHAPTER FOUR