the pilates body myth, feminine embodiment, and performative wellness
pilates is for everyone!
On today's edition, we are talking about the Pilates body, feminine embodiment, and performative wellness. We're going to explore the good, the bad, the in between with pilates and most specifically, how we all engage with Pilates in this day and age and the problematic aspects of it, and why there is a disconnect with the foundational concepts of Pilates and how we are seeing it marketed today.
And I hate to be not like other influencers, but whenever there's discourse on Pilates and wellness culture, I have yet to hear it from a Pilates girl. I have yet to hear from someone who does engage in that certain type of fitness culture. So today we are talking about Pilates from someone who loves Pilates.
Ever since I have discovered pilates, it has been such a big part of my wellness routine, and I'm going to tell you the reasons why later.
with that being said, I am also aware that there are problematic aspects of Pilates culture as we see it on social media. But that doesn't negate the positive effects that Pilates has on women's health, women's wellness. And like I said, we're going to talk about the good, the bad, the everything in between so that if you are engaging in Pilates right now because it's hard to escape Pilates culture right now, like it is everywhere, and I'm actually optimistic that the marketing of Pilates today will bring women closer to feminine embodiment, which is knowing their own bodies, accepting their own bodies, and embodying their own bodies.
We're going to address the problematic aspects of online Pilates culture and also online performative wellness culture, so that we can get closer and closer to feminine embodiment and away from performative wellness.
Because at the end of the day, who are you moving for?
You're moving for yourself and your community. You're moving for your own wellness and the wellness of other women around you. That is what Pilates should be doing for you and for your community. So if it's not doing that, then you don't have to engage with it like it's optional.
the origins and intent of pilates
when you really get into it, Pilates is a deeply healing and empowering practice. But because we are in an age of algorithmic sameness where only one ideal permeates our culture, and so we perceive that there is only one way to engage in one deeply healing and empowering practice, we get the Pilates body.
So now women who engage with Pilates, they have this image of the Pilates body in their minds whenever they go to class, or they are at home and they're doing an online, you know, video Pilates session instead of the exercise of Pilates being a way to reconnect with yourself and know yourself, accept yourself, and embody yourself aka feminine embodiment, it now becomes a practice of self surveillance.