ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore how pedagogies of perfection in fitness content on social media work as a postfeminist technology of the self, exhorting young women to act upon themselves to become ‘perfect’ but hiding the extent to which exercise as aesthetic labour is normatively demanded. We draw on focus group and individual interviews with 37 young women who follow fitness content on Instagram and a discourse analysis of the social media presence of Patry Jordán, a famous Spanish fitness influencer. Through the concept of pedagogies of perfection, we explain how fitspiration is a gendered public pedagogy of digital health through which neoliberalism and postfeminism are disseminated, providing techniques to develop individualized projects of the self. The perfect is the horizon of expectation for continued self-optimization, where young women engage in a never-ending project of the body that also demands the improvement of psychological attitudes. Through the careful articulation of 'positive' pedagogies, the idea of imperfection or failure becomes embedded within the perfect. This production of the self both as a problem and with possibilities represents the horizon of expectation, a powerful force that leads to the belief that all women can achieve ‘successful’ feminine subjectivities while reproducing gender inequality.

摘要

在本文中，我们探讨了社交媒体上健身内容的完美教学法如何作为一种后女权主义的自我技术发挥作用，劝告年轻女性采取行动成为“完美”，但隐藏了作为审美劳动的运动被规范要求的程度. 我们利用对 37 位关注 Instagram 健身内容的年轻女性的焦点小组和个人访谈，以及对西班牙著名健身影响者 Patry Jordán 社交媒体存在的话语分析。通过完美教学法的概念，我们解释了 fitspiration 如何是一种性别化的数字健康公共教学法，通过它传播新自由主义和后女性主义，提供开发自我个性化项目的技术。完美是持续自我优化的期望视野，年轻女性从事一项永无止境的身体项目，这也需要改善心理态度。通过对“积极”教学法的仔细阐述，不完美或失败的想法嵌入到完美中。这种既是问题又是可能性的自我生产代表了期望的视野，这是一种强大的力量，它导致相信所有女性都可以在再现性别不平等的同时实现“成功”的女性主体性。