Making Loud Bodies “Feminine”: A Feminist-Phenomenological Analysis of Obstetric Violence
Human Studies 39 (2):231-247 (2016)
Abstract
Obstetric violence has been analyzed from various perspectives. Its psychological effects have been evaluated, and there have been several recent sociological and anthropological studies on the subject. But what I offer in this paper is a philosophical analysis of obstetric violence, particularly focused on how this violence is lived and experienced by women and why it is frequently described not only in terms of violence in general but specifically in terms of gender violence: as violence directed at women because they are women. For this purpose, I find feminist phenomenology most useful as a way to explain and account for the feelings that many victims of this violence experience and report, including feelings of embodied oppression, of the diminishment of self, of physical and emotional infantilization. I believe that the insights to be found in feminist phenomenology are crucial for explaining how and why this phenomenon is different in kind from other types of medical violence, objectification, and reification. Iris Marion Young’s description of feminine existence under patriarchy, as conformed by a perpetual oppressive “I cannot,” is at the center of my analysis. I argue that laboring bodies are at least potentially perceived as antithetical to the myth of femininity, undermining the feminine mode of bodily comportment under patriarchy and thereby seriously threatening the hegemonic powers. Violence, then, appears to be necessary in order to domesticate these bodies, to make them “feminine” again.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s10746-015-9369-x
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Citations of this work
Reasoning from the Uterus: Casanova, Women's Agency, and the Philosophy of Birth.Stella Villarmea - 2021 - Hypatia 36 (1):22-41.
Domesticating Bodies: The Role of Shame in Obstetric Violence.Sara Cohen Shabot & Keshet Korem - 2018 - Hypatia 33 (3):384-401.
Reimagining relationality for reproductive care: Understanding obstetric violence as “separation”.Rodante van der Waal & Inge van Nistelrooij - 2022 - Nursing Ethics 29 (5):1186-1197.
Making Room for Births That Are Not Good: Lessons from Cesarean Shame Shame.Kiera Keglowitsch & Michelle Meagher - 2022 - International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 15 (2):22-39.
Theory analysis of social justice in nursing: Applications to obstetric violence research.Lorraine M. Garcia - 2021 - Nursing Ethics 28 (7-8):1375-1388.
References found in this work
Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality.Iris Marion Young - 1980 - Human Studies 3 (1):137 - 156.
The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History and Politics.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1964 - Northwestern University Press.
The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Gendered Phenomenologies, Erotic Generosities.Debra Bergoffen - 1996 - State University of New York Press.
A tale of two bodies: the Cartesian corpse and the lived body.Drew Leder - 1992 - In The Body in Medical Thought and Practice. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 17--35.