This essay describes experience and oppressions of feminine styles of comportment, tracing in a provisional way some of the basic modalities of feminine body comportment, manner of moving, and relation in space. It highlights the certain observable and rather ordinary ways in which women in society typically comport themselves and move differently from the ways that men do. The account developed here combines the insights of the theory of the lived body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty and the theory of the situation of women as developed by Beauvoir. It limits itself to the experience of women...

This essay describes experience and oppressions of feminine styles of comportment, tracing in a provisional way some of the basic modalities of feminine body comportment, manner of moving, and relation in space. It highlights the certain observable and rather ordinary ways in which women in society typically comport themselves and move differently from the ways that men do. The account developed here combines the insights of the theory of the lived body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty and the theory of the situation of women as developed by Beauvoir. It limits itself to the experience of women in contemporary advanced industrial, urban, and commercial society, offering specific observations, phenomenlogical interpretation, and implications for an understanding of the oppression of women.