Politics of Gender: Contextualizing Body Politics and Female Subjectivity in Select Poems

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine the relegation of women under body politics in Cathy Song’s “Girl Powdering Her Neck” and Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” By taking recourse to the idea of “body politics” advanced by Susan Bordo along with “objectification theory “of Julie Rodgers and Fredrickson Roberts, this paper problematizes that women are trapped by body politics exerted by men and are engaged in self-scrutiny of their bodies to draw the attention of men or are likely to valorise beauty at the cost of brain. The girl in Cathy Song’s poem has become the victim of body politics, which drives her to be more obsessive towards her appearance rather than ability. The beloved in Andrew Marvell’s poem, by the same token, undergoes objectifying gaze of her lover through the politics of exaggeration executed by the speaker, which is likely to drive her to be more conscious of her body rather than other dimensions of her personality. The whole exaggeration is solely guided by utilitarian purpose of female body. The paper contributes by bringing the female subjects of the poems to the purview of critical analysis. It also contributes by showing how women are relegated under the body politics exercised by men, and sensitizing women not to fall prey to body politics and underrate themselves.