Jiggle: (Re)Shaping American Women

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Jiggle: (Re)Shaping American Women explores the relationship between American women and their bodies as mediated by both traditional and contemporary foundation garments. This post-corsetry study begins in the 1930s with a discussion of traditional foundation garments and continues with an analysis of contemporary shapewear as these garments shape women physically, culturally, and socially. Jiggle focuses on the corporate, cultural, and individual practices and meanings of women's experiences with foundation garments. Referencing trade journals, industry data, statistics, advertisements, and telephone surveys and interviews with women, author Wendy Burns-Ardolino examines how the contested terrain of fashion and beauty culture reflect larger cultural power struggles. Jiggle argues that women should not be complicit in alienating themselves from their bodies, but rather should embrace their bodies' multiple capacities as they practice fasion, femininity, and gendered performatives.

Reviews

Scholarly, yet accessible, this book traverses key questions about the media, advertising, and fashion. It calls upon us to rethink gender, agency, and embodiment in terms of dressing, shaping, moving, gesturing, and posturing, while never losing sight of how cultural scripts writ large media representations of women's ideal bodies shape lived experiences. Part ethnography, part history, and part cultural criticism, Jiggle is more than the sum of its parts: It represents interdisciplinary cultural studies at its best. -- Roger Lancaster, Author of The Trouble with Nature: Sex in Science and Popular Culture (2003)
The book raises consciousness regarding the underlying forces affecting women's selections....Recommended. * Choice Reviews *
Like its title,Jiggle is a timely and provocative look at the fascination with women's bodies in consumer cultureconstructing them, shaping them, making them smaller, or stronger. The focus on foundation garments makes this book unique. With a strong historical base and current ethnographic research,Jiggle is a page-turning read that will make you think. -- Leslie Heywood, author of Pretty Good for a Girl and The Proving Grounds

Author Bio

Wendy Burns-Ardolino is assistant professor and coordinator of integrative studies at Clayton State University, Georgia where she teaches Women's Studies and Media Studies courses.