Urban Women's Fitness Practice And Self-identity Construction In Consumer Societ

Before the 1980 s,there was little attention paid to the study of the body.With the rise of consumerism and feminism,the "body turn" began to emerge,and more and more scholars included the body in their own research fields.In the consumer society,the female body has become the "most beautiful consumer product" and has obvious symbolic significance.The socially normative mass media has established the "ideal body" for women,and technical means of body transformation have emerged,one of which is fitness.Fitness in the consumer society is characterized by commercialization,symbolization and health,which attracts a large number of urban women.Based on this,this study selected 18 urban fitness women for an ethnographic study,using Gym A in Shanghai as a field site.Semi-structured interviews were used to understand the whole process of their fitness practices.In addition,the author entered the field site as a member of the gym and conducted participant observation for ten months in an attempt to paint a more in-depth and comprehensive picture of urban women’s fitness practices.The study found that fitness is symbolized as an identity marker in consumer society,behind which health discourse,social norms,and consumerism work together.Urban women reach a body consensus in the gym,and although they enter the gym field based on different motivations,they show body preferences in the process of practice that fit with social norms,trying to narrow the gap between themselves and their ideal bodies through systematic and scientific training,clean and moderate diet,healthy and regular work and rest,and a stable and calm mind.In the process of fitness practice,urban women are not passive objects,they follow the body’s subjective perception and reshape aesthetic standards.The various consumption behaviors that occur in the fitness practice also reflect the return of urban women’s subjectivity.Whether it is physical fitness consumption or fitness participation consumption,they give priority to their personal needs and the professionalism and functionality of the products,and strive to choose cost-effective products instead of blindly catering to social aesthetics and the pursuit of symbolic meanings,reflecting the return of personal rationality and subjectivity,and also conveying their personal pursuit and taste of life.The gym also expands the living space of urban women,helping them to get rid of the passivity and dependence of their bodies in their daily work,family and study lives,reflecting the return of women’s subjective consciousness.The body and identity are naturally related.In contemporary times,the body is increasingly becoming the core of self-identity.On the one hand,urban women choose fitness as a way of body transformation,which is a reflection of social structure and mainstream aesthetic discipline,catering to social expectations of women’s roles;on the other hand,in the process of fitness practice,they rebuild themselves and the order of their lives and construct their self-identity,which is a strong expression of subjectivity.This kind of external social structure and internal self-identity construction in contemporary urban women’s bodies manifests the awakening of women’s selfawareness.