When the Body Becomes a Commodity: Symbolic Violence Against Women Under Capitalism

When the Body Becomes a Commodity: Symbolic Violence Against Women Under Capitalism

Bayan Saleh

Introduction

While reading Fatema Mernissi's book "Scheherazade Goes West" (1), I found myself confronting a profound and thought-provoking concept on page 231: the concept of symbolic violence as presented by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in his book "Masculine Domination" (2). This concept captivated me for a long time, as it reveals hidden forms of control and oppression that do not rely on direct physical force, but rather operate through symbols, culture, and prevailing discourses in society.
What further increased my interest in this concept was my observation of a clear intersection between what Bourdieu presents and the thesis offered by American feminist writer Naomi Wolf in her book "The Beauty Myth" (3), especially as it appears on page 230 of Fatema Mernissi's book. I found that both Bourdieu and Naomi address a common mechanism for controlling women, even if the manifestations and contexts differ.
Bourdieu proposes the idea that violence is not always material or visible; there is violence exercised through culture, values, and education, making the dominated accept their domination and reproduce it unconsciously. Wolf, on the other hand, reveals how beauty standards imposed on women are not merely personal preferences, but rather an authoritarian tool used to discipline women and control their bodies and lives.
This intersection between the two approaches leads us to a deeper understanding of how masculine domination operates within the context of the capitalist system, where the woman's body is transformed into a site of economic investment and symbolic control simultaneously. Hence the importance of researching this subject and understanding its complex mechanisms.

First: Symbolic Violence and Masculine Domination

Pierre Bourdieu believes that violence is not limited to its direct material forms; it may take an invisible form exercised through symbols, meanings, and culture, which he calls symbolic violence. This violence is characterized by being soft and imperceptible, as it is exercised through language, education, religion, media, and social customs, without resorting to physical coercion.
Its danger lies in the fact that it is often accepted by the individuals who are subjected to it, because they perceive it as natural or self-evident. Symbolic violence operates by imposing specific patterns of thinking and evaluation that make unequal relationships appear legitimate, leading to the reproduction of social domination without explicit awareness of it.
Within this framework, Bourdieu develops the concept of masculine domination as a clear model of symbolic violence. Masculine domination is not only based on the material control of men over women, but is primarily established through symbolic and cultural structures that make male superiority appear natural and legitimate.
From childhood, individuals acquire mental representations and social roles that reproduce a binary division between masculine and feminine, where the masculine is associated with strength, reason, and leadership, while the feminine is associated with weakness, emotion, and subordination. This system is not imposed by men alone; women also participate in its reproduction through what Bourdieu calls the habitus, that is, the system of mental and physical dispositions rooted in social experience.
Thus, masculine domination becomes a social system embedded in the collective unconscious, reproduced daily through ordinary practices and prevailing discourses, without the need for direct violence. Bourdieu emphasizes that dismantling this type of domination requires critical awareness of the symbolic structures that support it, because resisting it is not achieved only by changing laws or material conditions, but also by changing the ways of thinking and classification that make inequality acceptable and sustainable.

Second: Masculine Domination in the Context of the Capitalist System

Bourdieu indicates in his book that masculine domination is not a natural or biological matter, but rather a social and cultural system that is reproduced through symbolic violence, that is, through indirect and invisible forms of control exercised through language, traditions, education, and social institutions, until male domination over women appears natural and acceptable.
In the context of the capitalist system, this domination forms a tool for maintaining a specific social and economic order, as women's role has historically been confined to the domestic sphere and family care, which provides low-cost labor force for men in the market and ensures the continuation of unequal labor distribution.
The capitalist system relies on legitimizing symbols and values, and masculine domination contributes to making the separation between men's and women's roles appear natural, where men are portrayed as strong producers, and women as nurturers and caretakers of the home. This separation facilitates the exploitation of labor forces and ensures the continuity of the economic and social system without resorting to direct force.
Masculine domination is also linked to what Bourdieu calls symbolic capital, which transforms into a form of indirect economic and social control, such as depriving women of work opportunities, lowering their wages, or forcing them into unpaid domestic roles.
In short, it can be said that masculine symbolic violence constitutes one of the pillars of capitalism's social legitimacy, because it makes gender inequality appear natural and ensures the continued distribution of resources and power in a way that serves the existing system.

Third: The Beauty Myth as a Form of Symbolic Violence

In the book "The Beauty Myth," Naomi Wolf presents the concept of symbolic violence as an indirect form of oppression exercised on women through cultural standards of beauty, not through physical force or explicit laws. This violence operates quietly, but its impact is profound, because it makes women participate in subjugating themselves unconsciously.
Wolf sees that the beauty myth is not merely aesthetic preferences, but rather an authoritarian system that emerged forcefully with women's social and economic advancement. The more rights and wider opportunities women obtained, the more restrictions were imposed on them through strict and nearly impossible beauty standards.
Symbolic violence manifests here in imposing a single model for the female body: a young, thin body, free of flaws, available for visual consumption. This violence operates through media, advertising, the fashion industry, and medical discourse, where beauty is presented as a moral value and a condition for success, love, and social acceptance.
Thus, the body is transformed into a permanent project of surveillance and correction, and the woman is transformed into a harsh critic of herself. More dangerously, this subjugation does not appear to be imposed from outside, but is lived as a personal choice and individual desire.
Wolf clarifies that symbolic violence does not destroy women only physically, but also psychologically and cognitively, as it drains their energy, undermines their self-confidence, plants competition and hostility among them, and distances them from political and creative action. The constant preoccupation with appearance becomes a tool for distancing them from real power.
In conclusion, the concept of symbolic violence in "The Beauty Myth" reveals how culture can be a realm of soft but very effective oppression, and how beauty is used as an invisible weapon to discipline women and maintain power imbalances, without the need for explicit violence or direct coercion.

Fourth: Symbolic Violence as a Capitalist Tool: The Body Between Domination and Profit

Violence against women is not always exercised through beating or direct coercion; it often takes a quiet and invisible form, infiltrating through discourse, image, and standards, presented as general taste or individual choice. This violence constitutes one of the fundamental tools of the capitalist system in subjugating women and controlling their bodies.
Under capitalism, the woman's body is reduced to exchange value and redefined as a commodity that can be marketed, modified, and consumed. It is not viewed as a living body carrying experience, memory, and pain, but rather as a visual facade invested to achieve profit.
Masculine domination undertakes the task of normalizing this reduction by transforming the male gaze into a general standard of beauty, by which women's value and social status are measured.

Fifth: The Cultural Industry and Imposing the Single Beauty Model

The cultural industry imposes a single beauty model, violent in its exclusivity, represented by a young, thin body free of flaws and subject to objectification, or faces subjected to cosmetic procedures such as lifting, filling, lip augmentation, nose alteration, until natural features disappear and the appearance becomes closer to a doll.
It also promotes sculpted bodies through liposuction, breast augmentation through silicone or buttock augmentation, and others. This model is not imposed through force, but through repetition, seduction, and symbolic blackmail.
Women learn from a young age that their bodies are deficient and that they must constantly fix them, not for themselves, but for acceptance, love, and social recognition.

Sixth: Cosmetic Procedures as Symbolic Violence

Cosmetic procedures appear here as one of the most obvious forms of symbolic violence. They are not a neutral act nor an innocent individual choice, but rather the result of deep structural pressure that makes the female body a permanent project for modification and correction. These procedures are presented in prevailing discourse as a means to improve oneself and enhance confidence, but in reality they are a response to externally imposed standards, transforming women into beings in permanent pursuit of impossible perfection.
Women undergo expensive, painful, and risky surgical procedures, seeking to approach an artificial beauty model that cannot truly be attained. Women enter an endless spiral of modifications: face lifts, lip fillers, nose jobs, breast augmentation, liposuction, and other procedures that carry serious health risks and potential complications.
The tragic paradox is that pain is presented as an investment in the future, and disfigurement is called improvement and beautification. Women endure real physical and psychological suffering, pay exorbitant amounts, and risk their health, all in pursuit of approaching an ideal image imposed by the beauty industry and media. And when the desired result is not achieved, or when a new flaw appears, the cycle begins again, in a vicious circle of pursuing the illusion of perfection.

Seventh: Food Abstinence, Cosmetic Procedures, and Health Risks

Food abstinence and self-starvation, as in cases of anorexia nervosa, is another form of symbolic violence to which large numbers of young women are exposed, especially during adolescence.
Some develop severe psychological disorders that are difficult to recover from, accompanied by serious health complications, in addition to the risks associated with cosmetic procedures and silicone injections, which may increase the likelihood of developing serious diseases such as breast cancer. Likewise, the use of artificial nails is also a profitable trade, but the latest health reports in European Union countries indicate that the materials used in manufacturing these nails may pose a great risk to nail health.

Eighth: Physical and Psychological Cost

This path carries a high and multidimensional physical and psychological cost. At the physical level, we find bodies subjected to anesthesia, cutting, and injections, enduring pain, bleeding, and scars, and facing the risks of medical complications and potential deformities. At the psychological level, we find souls drained through constant anxiety and permanent dissatisfaction with oneself, and a chronic feeling of inadequacy no matter the degree of change. More dangerous than that is that consciousness itself is reshaped until submission is normalized as empowerment, and oppression as free choice.
Women are not only forced to modify their bodies and endure pain and risks, but also to adopt a complete discourse that justifies and legitimizes this violence under the name of personal freedom and individual choice. They say "I choose this for myself," "This makes me feel confident," all phrases that appear liberating on the surface. But the paradox is that the conditions of this alleged freedom are not produced from within the woman herself, but are produced within the logic of the capitalist market that needs constant consumption, and within masculine power that determines the standards of value and beauty.

Ninth: Capitalism and Selling Self-Hatred: Economic Market Size

Capitalism does not only sell beauty, but sells self-hatred. The more women feel inadequate, the more the cosmetics, fashion, and cosmetic medicine markets flourish. Thus, the woman's body is transformed into a site of permanent economic drain, from which profits are extracted by deepening her alienation from herself.
Economic estimates indicate that the global annual cosmetics market size reached approximately 336-470 billion dollars in 2024 (4), the diet and weight loss drugs market around 190-300 billion dollars (5), while the cosmetic surgery industry reached approximately 56-85 billion dollars (6), with expectations for these figures to rise in the future.
These enormous figures reveal the magnitude of capitalist investment in the woman's body and confirm that the commodification of the female body is not merely a cultural phenomenon, but a giant economic industry generating billions of dollars annually. The capitalist system transforms gender inequality into an opportunity for profit and invests in perpetuating anxiety and inadequacy among women to ensure the continuation of the consumption cycle.

Tenth: Conclusion

It becomes clear through this analysis that symbolic violence against women in the capitalist system is not transient or incidental violence, but rather a systematic structure rooted in the core of the economic and social system.
In the context of capitalism, this symbolic violence transforms into an effective economic tool, where the woman's body is reduced to a commodity that can be marketed and modified. Imposed beauty standards are not merely aesthetic preferences, but mechanisms of control that drain women's psychological and material energy and distance them from positions of power and political action.
The enormous economic figures of the cosmetics, diet, and cosmetic surgery industries reveal the magnitude of capitalist investment in perpetuating this system. Women are not only subjected to cultural and symbolic pressures, but are transformed into a permanent consumer market, generating billions for industries that live and thrive by deepening their sense of inadequacy and alienation from their bodies.
Resisting this symbolic violence requires critical dismantling of the cultural and symbolic structures that support it. It is not enough to change laws or improve economic conditions; unless the ways of thinking and classification that make inequality acceptable change, the system will continue to reproduce itself. What is required is a collective awareness that beauty is not a fixed reality, but a social idea subject to change, and that the body is not a commodity.
Ultimately, women's liberation from symbolic violence does not only mean rejecting imposed beauty standards, but also means redefining the relationship with the body, reclaiming control over meaning and value, and building a social and economic system that is not based on exploiting and draining women's bodies, but on recognizing their full humanity and their right to exist outside the logic of the market and masculine power.

Footnotes and References

Fatema Mernissi (1940 - 2015)
Fatema Mernissi was a prominent Moroccan thinker and researcher in the fields of sociology, women's issues, and Islamic studies. She was born in Fez, Morocco in 1940 and died in 2015. Her work focused on the status of women in Islamic societies, particularly women's rights and individual freedoms. Among her most famous books are "Women and Islam," "The Veil and the Male Elite," and "Scheherazade Goes West." She was also known for her advocacy for women's empowerment and her social critique of masculine thought's dominance in Arab and Islamic culture.
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatema_Mernissi
Summary of "Scheherazade Goes West" by Fatema Mernissi
The book addresses the image of Arab women represented in the character of Scheherazade as it appears in Western imagination, and compares the image of women in Arab culture with their image in Western culture. Fatema Mernissi clarifies how the West confines Eastern women to a sensual and submissive image, while Western societies in turn impose different restrictions on women, especially through the body and media. The book aims to deconstruct mutual stereotypes and defend women as active minds, not just bodies.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930 - 2002)
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist and philosopher born in 1930 and died in 2002. He was known for his studies on power, social classes, and culture. He introduced fundamental concepts such as social fields and symbolic and cultural capital to understand how power and discrimination are distributed within society. He focused on the impact of social structures and cultural habits on individuals' opportunities. He is considered one of the most prominent thinkers in the critique of modern society and critical sociology.
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu
Brief Summary of "Masculine Domination" by Pierre Bourdieu
In this book, Pierre Bourdieu explains how male domination is reproduced in societies not only through laws and institutions, but also through culture, customs, language, and education. He shows that men and women participate in establishing this system, often unconsciously, through what is called symbolic violence, where domination is accepted as natural. He emphasizes that women's liberation requires dismantling the social and intellectual structures that make gender disparity appear self-evident.

Naomi Wolf (1962 - )
She is an American thinker, writer, and feminist activist born in 1962. She became famous for her analysis of women's issues, gender, and culture. She gained wide recognition through her book "The Beauty Myth" published in 1990, which discusses how beauty standards are used as a means to control women and limit their opportunities. Her work focused on women's empowerment and resistance to stereotypes of the body and femininity in media and culture.
For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Wolf
Brief Summary of "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf
In this book, Naomi Wolf clarifies that beauty standards imposed on women are not innocent, but are used as a new tool to control them after they obtained legal and social rights. She shows how the female body is exploited through media, advertising, and the fashion industry to create a permanent sense of inadequacy, which limits women's freedom and distances them from power and independence. She emphasizes that beauty is not a fixed reality, but a social idea that serves the system of control.
Global Cosmetics Market

Fortune Business Insights (2024). "Cosmetics Market Size, Share & Trends Report, 2034". Market value: $335.95 billion in 2024. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/cosmetics-market-102614
Maximize Market Research (2024). "Global Cosmetics Market Analysis 2025-2032". Market value: $467.63 billion in 2024. https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/market-report/global-cosmetics-market/72541/

Global Diet and Weight Management Market

Expert Market Research (2024). "Weight Loss and Weight Management Diet Market Growth | 2034". Market value: $190.35 billion in 2024. https://www.expertmarketresearch.com/reports/weight-loss-and-weight-management-diet-market
IMARC Group (2024). "Weight Loss Market Size, Share, Growth Analysis 2033". Market value: $296.8 billion in 2024. https://www.imarcgroup.com/weight-loss-market

Global Cosmetic Surgery Market

Grand View Research (2024). "Cosmetic Surgery & Procedure Market | Industry Report 2033". Market value: $83.07 billion in 2024. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/cosmetic-surgery-procedure-market
Precedence Research (2025). "Cosmetic Surgery Market Size to Hit USD 160.47 Billion by 2034". Market value: $85.83 billion in 2025. https://www.precedenceresearch.com/cosmetic-surgery-market