Body Politics

In Body Politics, her seminal treatise on power, sex, and nonverbal communication, Nancy Henley asks, “What is the first judgment you make about people on initially seeing them? Is your first impression centered on dress, height, face, race, a certain look of the eyes? No, I believe a person’s sex is the first thing you see about them.”

The MeToo movement and current high profile cases of sexual misconduct have focused national attention on the relationship of power and sex. Consequently, this is a timely moment to revisit research on nonverbal communication in regard to male and female differences.

Henley’s 1977 thesis is a good place to begin. According to her notion of “body politics,” nonverbal behaviors provide “the micropolitical structure, the thousands of daily acts through which nonverbal influence takes place.” Moreover, these
common acts support and reinforce the macropolitical power structure.

Henley and others have found that many stereotypic male behaviors are congruent
with nonverbal signs of dominance. Since stereotypic female behaviors signal
inferior status, the gendering of nonverbal behavior appears to support male
hegemony.

Do men and women really move differently? If so, do these sex-based movement
patterns unwittingly support male dominance and the abuses of male privilege now
coming to light? Find out more in the next blogs.