Feminist theory and philosophy has evinced an ongoing scholarly interest in the body and embodiment. Corporeal feminism , as it has been called by some,1 theorizes the effects of patriarchal power structures on the female body, and hence, on womenâs subjectivity and social position. As we progress into the twenty-first century, despite several decades of feminist activism and scholarship, womenâs bodies continue to be sites of control and contention both materially and symbolically. Issues such as reproductive rights and technologies, sexual violence , objectification and normalization , motherhood , sexuality, and sex trafficking , among others, continue to be pressing concerns for womenâs bodies in our contemporary milieu, arguably exacerbated in a neoliberal world, where bodies are instrumentalized as sites of human capital and biopolitical forces increasingly focus on controlling the minutiae of embodied life.2
New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment engages with these themes by building on the strong tradition of feminist thought focused on womenâs bodies, and by making novel contributions that reflect feministsâ concernsâboth theoretically and empirically (with implications for policy-making)âabout gender and embodiment in the current context and beyond. The collection brings together essays from a variety of feminist scholars, who deploy diverse philosophical approaches, including phenomenology , pragmatism , and new materialisms , in order to reflect philosophically on the question of the status of womenâs bodies in the present day.
Given the feminist canonical engagement of the theme of embodiment, one might ask what, precisely, is new about New Feminist Perspectives of Embodiment? After all, there is a plethora of feminist texts on the topic, and a number of feminist theorists have charted and exposed the problematic history of the body, including the gendered body, in Western philosophy and critical thought. We view our volume as a continuation of this important, existing feminist work, with our specific contribution lying in an analysis of new technologies and policy issues in a globalized and neoliberal world, on the one hand, and the further development of feminist thought on the body, particularly addressing the theme of vulnerability , on the other.
With regard to the former, our volume includes a contribution from Tietjens Meyers, who discusses the contemporary global phenomenon of sex trafficking, which is structured by the demands of the sex industry and complicated by often contradictory national and international asylum , anti-trafficking, and human rights laws, having a direct impact on womenâs embodiment (through the often coercive movement and exploitation of womenâs bodies via trafficking and repatriation). Chapters by Dolezal and Putnam also highlight the pervasive medicalization and commercialization of pregnancy , which may, again, play out across transnational contexts and in settings where womenâs voices are silenced owing to technological, medicalized alienation, or to metaphors of hospitality engaged to sanitize economic framings of the use of womenâs bodies.
The volume also offers expositions of very recent developments in feminist theory, and how these might be employed to think fruitfully about embodiment. Lennon and Fischer draw on new materialisms as a way to theorize various dualisms , including the nature /culture dichotomy, and question whether and how the relationship between each of these realms should be negotiated in terms of our understanding of bodies and their meanings. Rodemeyer raises similar points in her explication of queer theory, noting an over-reliance on the discursive, which Fischer highlights as a common critique by new materialist and affect theoristsâwhat she terms the ânew schoolââof poststructuralist and postmodern theory more generally. Fischer, Lennon, and Rodemeyer thus engage the question of how and to what extent the discursive has been and should be emphasized in its relation to the body, and trace this through feminist critique and the recent development of novel theoretical frameworks. Interestingly, they each recommend a turn towards a complimentary, canonical body of work, or at least towards lesson-learning across several theoretical paradigms. In Lennonâs and in Rodemeyerâs case, this is a turn towards phenomenology , with a particular focus on Merleau -Ponty by Lennon, and in Fischerâs case, this is a turn towards pragmatism , specifically towards John Deweyâs work. Lennon, Rodemeyer, and Fischer thus bring into conversation recent feminist thought, including new materialism and transfeminism , with canonical work to develop theoretical frameworks with which to think about the body.
Furthermore, many of the essays in the collection reflect a recent preoccupation with vulnerability in feminist scholarship, as the vulnerable body has been theorized and reconceptualized as an important starting point for understanding the ontological foundations of the human condition. In contrast to the mind/body dualism that has dominated the Western philosophical traditionâleading to a shunning of the inherent fleshiness, dependence, and vulnerability that characterizes ordinary human lifeâfeminist theory seeks to overcome the continuing amnesia in Western philosophy about the fact that we have all been birthed from womenâs bodies, and that our existence is necessarily characterized by long periods of physical dependency, weakness, and bodily vulnerability , usually managed by the hands of female caregivers. The traditional denial of our fleshy existence in the Western intellectual tradition, along with its gendered foundations, has led to a concomitant âflight from vulnerability ,â which, as Debra Bergoffen argues, has been particularly damaging for conceptions of womenâs embodiment.3 Women have been traditionally associated with the flesh , nature, and the body, and as a result, they have been denigrated, objectified, and afforded less social, political, and moral value than their male counterparts. Vulnerability as a concept in feminist theory offers possibilities for how we might ground an ethics and politics that does not deny our embodiment, but rather makes it central.4 As embodied subjects, we are always sites of vulnerability , not just to biological forces, which might render us sick or incapacitated, and not just vulnerable in relation to others, who have the capacity to wound or to care, but crucially we are also vulnerable to sociopolitical forces, where power relations âhave an immediate hold uponâ the body to use Foucaultâs characterization.5
Attempting to understand our status as vulnerable subjects, in its multiple manifestations, has become a central theme of feminist thought and its significance is made manifest in this volume. For instance, Petherbridgeâs contribution discusses how embodied relationality and vulnerability between subjects designates both relations of power and possibilities for care through mutual embodied openness, and how these tensions might form the basis of an ethics of responsiveness. This is also a topic explored in Weissâ chapter, where she argues that considering the vulnerable body offers opportunities for ethical responses arising from positive experiences of corporeal agency. Taylor elaborates upon vulnerability in the context of sexual violence, and explores the implications of vulnerability , conceptualized as an embodied openness to others, as gendered and carrying with it the possibility of sexual harm . In Mitraâs contribution, this focus on the vulnerable, gendered body is extended to an examination of embodied trauma , as she sets out how sexual violence and its effects are frequently denied in legal and public discourse , contra the lived experience of survivors.
As Judith Butler describes it, embodied vulnerability arises from our exposure to each other, but also to âsocial conditions and institutions,â6 which means, in late capitalist societies, a vulnerability structured and exacerbated by neoliberal systems and logics. Hence, a second related and recurrent theme of this volume is neoliberalism itself, as well as its normative construction and exploitation of gendered bodies as sociopolitically vulnerable to each other in the marketplace. What happens to womenâs bodies that are individualized, commodified, and commercialized? What are the effects of neoliberalism on public policies concerning sex trafficking and the prevention of sexual violence, for instance, in a context where gendered bodies are objects for profit-making? How does the capitalist imperative of neoliberalism intersect with gender oppression, but also with global disparities of wealth? How have feminist theorists taken account of the neoliberal structuring of norms concerning embodiment in light of class and gender differences, and in light of trans* experiences?
These questions are addressed in various ways throu...