Gender Stereotypes that Foment Symbolic Violence: Nudity and Hair

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the categories: body, nudity and hair, articulated by symbolic violence against women. Likewise, it seeks to demonstrate the degree of “naturalization” of female stereotypes, in this case, the use of long hair as a gender identity characteristic, whose discretionary use allows the indiscriminate exercise of male power. Among other cases, the use of the Muslim yihab is shown, due to the enormous resemblance to the veil of catholic nuns, and its function is, precisely, the denial of the hair, preventing the enjoyment and eroticization of men. This situation is opposite to that of the exhibition of the nudity and the hair of women before the male spectator, especially within intimate spaces, both familiar and for sexual encounter. For the purpose of this article, nudity is understood as one of the expressions of corporality, in this case, feminine, which has been the channel of reception or object for the permanent exercise of male power, that is, seen as an unequivocal manifestation of the androcentric social order. The three categories of analysis are interwoven with the transversal axis of symbolic violence, sometimes referring to historical, artistic and semiotic references.