In most cultures there exists a set of practices which define a woman as feminine, such as a graceful walk or a slim figure, which remain qualities which the woman must consistently and actively aspire to. However where do such practices originate and how are they maintained? While undoubtedly societal expectations and the negative consequences of not upholding accepted standards of femininity contribute to a woman’s quest for to be feminine, the actions behind these behaviors feel natural and are largely unconscious. This feeling of a freedom of choice while still upholding accepted standards of femininity remains the result of discipline, which deals with the set of self-imposed rules that become ingrained in a woman’s decision making process, and precede any choices about dress or behavior. In particular female ballet dancers experience a heightened sense of discipline towards the feminine, as a result of the expectations ballerinas must meet not only as a woman, but also as a professional in an industry which values an epitomized version of femininity.
In his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison, Michel Foucault argues discipline proves to be a productive process, rather than a restrictive one. Through training and reinforcement, disciplined practices come to guide the way a person thinks and behaves by assisting in the decision making process. For this reason discipline does not cause a person to feel restricted, but rather that their actions are productive in reaching an end goal. To illustrate this idea Foucault offers the example of the soldier, whose body is like that of formless clay that is slowly constructed into the form of a soldier whose behavior becomes “the automatism of habit” (Foucault 135).
Much like soldiers Foucault describes, female ballet dancers begin are trained to execute ballet steps in a very specific way with the ultimate goal of these behaviors becoming automatic. In addition to receiving training in terms of ballet technique, female ballet dancers are taught the importance of maintaining a dainty feminine figure. For this reason ballet uniforms become an important aspect of a young ballerina’s training. Young ballerinas are given specific guidelines for how to do their hair and what to wear to ballet class. The leotards and tights dancers are required to wear encourages conformity among the class, as well as while making it easy to spot the dancer’s physical imperfections. Such measures train a young dancer to value a slim figure and feminine proportions, and consequently the importance of such traits eventually becomes a part of their thought process.
As a female ballet dancer’s training progresses, the concepts of femininity and a slim figure require constant discipline, however the efforts made to achieve these goals begins to feel natural. Yet however natural these behaviors feel, author Sandra Lee Bartkey in her article “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, argues that such actions merely represent the “artifice” of femininity. Bartkey explains that this desire for femininity is largely self-imposed and while it may feel to women that their decisions are under their control, their efforts are guided by discipline which precedes a woman’s ability to actually choose. More specifically Bartkey maintains that there are three main disciplinary practices through which woman’s behavior is guided towards the feminine: size and configuration, posture and movement, and using the body as a surface for adornment (Bartkey 95). These three disciplinary practices prompt women to strive for a slim figure, move in a manner that is graceful and modest, while also subtly conveying eroticism, and to look young and beautiful. As a performance art, size and configuration, posture and movement, and the body as a surface for adornment become especially important to ballerinas for such disciplines are central to the success of their careers.
Many young, slim, beautiful, and feminine professional ballerina’s have been produced from these disciplinary practices, which ha