Body Language: Sisters in Shape, Black Women's Fitness, and Feminist Identity Politics

Notes

Notes Chapter 1 1. see Alcoff et al. 2006 for a detailed discussion of this position. 2. see Kruks 2001: 107–128 for an extensive consideration of this assumption. 3. i discuss what this may mean in the context of self-esteem discourses in more detail in Chapter 5. 4. These stereotypes derive from racist legacies and popular representations . From the era of slavery, “mammy” refers to the faithful “house servant,” a sexless provider and nurturer, while “Jezebel” refers to the seductress with an insatiable sexual appetite and “sapphire” references an aggressive, mouthy, emasculating character from the Amos and Andy Show of the 1950s. 5. Gala True, ph.D., consulting medical ethicist at einstein medical Centers, personal communication. 6. i address the dynamics of gym space and social (in)visibility in more detail in Chapter 5. 7. see shaw et al. 2004; Counihan 1999; Bordo 1985, 1993; Chernin 1981, 1985; Brumberg 1990; Fallon, Katz, and Wooley 1994; and Gordon 1990 for good overviews and historical perspectives. 8. All names and identifying details have been changed, with the exception of melanie’s and those of the early sisters in shape cofounders, Kathy Tillery and Carethia Thomas. in addition, Denise murphy is referred to by name in regard to the Philadelphia Daily News article but not in the remainder of the ethnography. 166 \ Notes 9. Here, sisters in shape is largely consistent with the research on class, gender, and exercise. see, for instance, shinew et al. 1995 and Floyd et al. 1994 for the differences between black and white participation in exercise among self-identified poor and working-class interviewees. Their studies find that among self-identified poor and working-class people, black women were least likely to exercise when compared with black men, white men, and white women of similar class backgrounds. see also powell et al. 2006 for a discussion of how structural inequalities related to socioeconomic status, such as the lack of facilities for physical activity and exercise, contribute to lower rates of participation in physical activity among people with lower socioeconomic status. 10. i discuss my status as both insider and outsider in greater detail in Chapter 5, where i situate myself as an Asian American woman and a researcher in relationship to the sisters in shape women as a way of thinking through the possibilities that sonia Kruks (2001) imagines for a coalitional politics based in affective connections. 11. Though i cite laclau and mouffe 1985 here because of the extent of the authors’ consideration of articulation, laclau’s work on articulation predates this coauthored work. 12. Collins reads articulation as having close affinities to intersectionality , and her critique emerges as she attempts to underscore intersectionality’s greater relevance for her particular project. i want to emphasize my own difference from this position, as i do not find the same affinities between theories of articulation and intersectionality. in fact, they strike me as operating in distinctly different registers: articulation characterizes unnatural linkages made natural, whereas intersectionality tends to describe intentional points of convergence useful for analysis as well as action. 13. As nelson writes, “Fluidarity is a practice and a theory of identity-information , aware of its own investments, the pleasures of intervention, and the erotics of relational subject-making. it is historically specific and knows that it is very hard to give up solid bodies, clear-cut enemies and friends, but that this may be the most responsible way to approach the current conjuncture in Guatemala” (1999: 37). 14. James Clifford, comments made at a graduate student conference on psychoanalysis, University of California santa Cruz, may 19, 2007. 15. While Butler continues to develop her theory of gender performance in her later work, most notably “melancholy Gender/refused identification” ([1995] 1997), i first take up feminist engagements with her early work because of its extensive and ongoing influence in a range of different disciplines. Chapter 2 1. Here, Kruks engages the phenomenology of merleau-ponty, as have other feminists positing sentient knowledges in the body; see, for instance, Notes / 167 Bigwood 1991; Grosz 1993, 1994; marshall 1996; i. young 1980; studlar 1990; and Fisher 2000. 2. Both miriam and Toni characterized themselves as “depressed,” but these characterizations seem to draw on a more vernacular (as opposed to clinical ) understanding of depression. At the same time, both women also seemed to exhibit signs of depression like social withdrawal, lack of interest in various work and...