Den feta erotiska kroppen : En känslohistorisk undersökning av den marginaliserade kvinnokroppen i svensk press 1980–1999.

Sammanfattning

The aim of this study is to examine how the marginalised female body is constructed through emotional discourse and how such emotions contribute to the reproduction of ascetic bodily ideals and norms in the Swedish press during the 1980s and 1990s. The theoretical framework draws on Sara Ahmed’s affect theory, which conceptualises emotions as socially and politically productive forces that shape bodies and boundaries between inclusion and exclusion. Methodologically, the study uses William Reddy’s concept of emotives, treating emotional expressions in text as performative acts that both reflect and produce social reality. The analysis focuses on the co-presence of negative emotions such as disgust, shame, fear, guilt, and anger, alongside positive or ambivalent emotions such as desire, pleasure, longing, and happiness. Key analytical questions concern who expresses these emotions, what they are directed towards, and what effects they generate. Previous research demonstrates the long-standing regulation and marginalisation of the female body, particularly during the late twentieth century, when media discourse intensified. However, within Swedish historiography of emotions, research has largely focused on earlier historical periods and on fields such as medicine, sexuality, and norm formation. This study therefore contributes by extending the analysis to late twentieth-century media culture. The findings suggest that the marginalised female body became a central affective surface onto which emotions such as fear, disgust and shame were attached. These emotions played a crucial role in maintaining the ascetic female ideal. Over time, the emotional discourse shifted from external forms of discipline to increasingly internalised forms of self-regulation, while the ideal itself became progressively narrower.