Inequity in Life and Death: Exploring the Construction of Gender in “Body Worlds”

• In Event: 2212 - Section on Body and Embodiment Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Sex and the Presentation of Bodies

Abstract

The biological and the social are popularly conceptualized as distinct entities
that can be teased apart and studied independently from one another. In reality, the biological and social are deeply intertwined. Biosocial gender scholars posit that sex and gender constitute one another in that sex differences help distinguish between “men” and “women” and that gender categories make sexed bodies socially meaningful. The nuanced relationship between sex and gender is relevant in the context of museums and exhibitions in their production of knowledges and meanings of sex and gender for viewers that are informed by subjective social forces. In this paper I explore this relationship between biology and the social world in the context of the “Body Worlds” exhibition. Using visual methods, I address three key questions: 1) In what ways does the exhibition of male and female plastinates differ in “Body Worlds” in terms of the prevalence of male and female bodies, the physical differences that are highlighted, and in what contexts they are displayed?; 2) What message does the exhibition convey to audiences about biological differences between men and women?; 3) How do these presumed biological differences reify gender hierarchies? This paper concludes that by drawing upon anatomical differences between male and female bodies, “Body Worlds” universalizes the male body, consequently asserting the male’s dominance over the female “Other”, and presents bodies as masculine or feminine, thereby positioning the active, engaged man above passive, sexual women. In doing so, “Body Worlds” conflates sex and gender, thereby essentializing gender inequalities in male and female bodies and reifying gender hierarchies. This research adds to a growing body of literature on “Body Worlds” as well as demonstrating how visual exhibitions are mechanisms through which the social meanings of sex and gender are constructed for the public.

Author

• Jessica Poling, Rutgers University