198 RüdigerKunow
and the film is perhaps the most popular presence, are often identified
withsocialprecariousness.
One interesting area where norms have long been regulating the
biosphere is garment sizes, a field that is heavily gendered and has for
thisreasonlongbeenthefocusoffeministculturalcritique.Eventhough
it addresses an area that some people might regard as peripheral or
superficial,itnonethelessprovidesawindowintotheruleofnormsover
especially the female body and also the polemicalforce of these norms.
The grading systems introduced by garment manufacturers in the 19th
century—the system of sizes—were initially purely functional: they
were meantto facilitate the industrial mass-production of ready-to-wear
clothing.Butsoontheydidmorethanthat:sizesbecamecrystallizations
of social and cultural normativities addressed to the human body, again
especially the female body, norms that were going far beyond
measurements of bust, hip or height and defined the access to social
achievementandculturalprestige.
Originally based on the experience of tailors, the size system was
over time repeatedly revised and refined, using measurement surveys
and other anthropometric or rather biometric statistical evidence. Even
while, as the repeated attempts to reform garment size systems have
shown,clothingnormsbasedonstatisticalevidenceareflexible,evento
a certain degree willful, sizes are nonetheless a central, symbolically
chargedfieldwhereindividualstrytoconformtosociallyandculturally
mandated norms of bodily physicality. Meanwhile, generation after
generation of customers have felt that the ready-to-wear clothes they
boughtdidnotfittheirbodiesreallywell.Inthisperspective,thenorms
underwritingclothingsizesclearlydisplaygenderedbiases(U.S.women
much more than men report trouble finding clothes that fit) but also
ethnic ones: Hispanic women often complain that clothes tailored to a
presumedU.S.nationalstandarddonotfitwhilethegarmentindustryis
dragging its feet in revamping its size system, also in view of more
overweightcustomers(NewcombandIstook1,6).
Concerning this systemic discrepancy between norms and bodies,
researchhasshownthatinsuchcases,customers,andespeciallywomen,
placetheblamelessontheproductbutmostlyonthemselves(fordetails
cf.thematerialinBackett-MilburnandMcKieaswellasNewcomband
Istook), on perceived shortcomings and imperfections of their bodies.
This illustrates Canguilhem's contention, mentioned above, that to set