Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick. Feminist Theory and the Body

Feminist Theory and the Body

Lynda Birke

In Linda Birke’s article “Bodies and Biology” she analyses the central point in theorizing about the body: the difference between sex (biology difference) and gender (social difference). However, some feminist disagree with the analysis of this differences. Birke states that the biological body is a problem in feminist theorizing.

Biology is a synonym for living organisms and its processes, in this way human biology resembles dualism, and this is s problem for feminist theory. Biological discourse tends to provoke gender division, as well as the definition of the social roles of women and men, and as a logical response, feminism has been against biological determinism. They stand for some kind of “social constructivism of gender”(p.43).

The body has become a main point of interest for feminists and non-feminists alike. Some theorists tend to emphasize sex-gender dualism, emphasizing the living body, and “transcend the mine/body dichotomy”(p.43). The body is the “signifying and signified”----- In this way the body is defined as something through which you can have social discourse.

The body is important for feminist theory, however the focus on the interior and its processes have been limited, as well as ‘the body development” (p.43). Feminist theorists have been deconstructing texts and images, although the analysis of inside the female body’s images had been ignored. The author exposes that the analysis of images in biology texts are important. The representation of the female body’s interior is evident in the work of two authors, Donna Haraway (1991), and Emily Martin (1994), who presented a work about images of the immune system, and how this is culturally defined. The author points out two aspects of these two texts, one is about the analysis of the “cultural understanding” (p.44), how through the images and the discourses the immune system is going to be understood. The second one is “the permeability of the body,” (P.44) according to Haraway, “the postmodern immune system” is part of a network of bodies, and these bodies, through its permeability, is harassed by the “discourses of science”(p.44).

The author describes how, even with great interest about the body, there is a lack of interest about the inside of the body, and these areas are out of the reach of philosophers of biology. The author considers that the body’s interiors need to be exposed to cultural criticism and be considered as something which is moving, changing, and not only as a medium to analyze cultural meaning. However, the experience or the perception of the inside of the body is affected by culture.
The author points out that although we can highlight “human development in terms of transformability” (p.46), fixity concepts of “the gene” is gaining attention. These kind of concepts reinforce the conservative ideas of “family, gender and race”(p.46). Contrary to feminist intention, these concepts are expanding into the culture through the discourse of “genes”.

The author refers to the permeability of the body, and she points out the work of Elizabeth Grosz, who talks about gender and the organism as something fluid and transformative; the author refers, as well to Haraway’s work “visions of the cyborg,” in which she also talks about fluidity. She talks about polymorphous information systems, and highlighting fluidity across boundaries. While these two authors argued for female fluidity, Birke agrees with the two authors, however argues that organisms have an entity itself. Haraway uses this metaphor of fluidity to argue about this western idea that organisms are determined by genetics.

Referring to this idea of transformation is the social idea that female bodies are devaluated, and this conversation about self determining or transformation is a way to get out of this simple self vs. the body. This section examines several scholars’ views about the self, using biology theory in different degrees to talk about the self.