Girls and their bodies: approaching a more emancipatory physical education

In this paper I will consider how girls become alienated from their bodies and how this is exacerbated by some of the current practices of formal physical education. I shall argue that a more fertile approach to the education of girls' bodies may be through the expressive arts, particularly dance and drama. From a very early age, girls are encouraged to be alienated from their bodies and to restrict their physical activity. By the age of 11, many girls are focused on the need to be thin, pretty and physically inactive. School physical and health education does little to address these issues and could be argued to exacerbate them. The school's emphasis on slimness, perfection and physical success, combined with self-and mutual-surveillance, lead girls to treat their bodies as objects to be worked on rather than an accepted part of the self. Traditional approaches to the education of girls' bodies are failing; they do not encourage a healthy embodiment. Arthur W. Frank argues that through the collaborative work of expressive dance forms, the body is able to recognise itself and be recognised; I suggest that the alienation from the body encouraged elsewhere in schooling may thereby be mitigated.