Bodily Autonomy and Female Power
Feminists have long been arguing “The Personal is Political,” suggesting that women’s private experience is not only inevitably structured by the political arrangements, but can also empower women and affect the society in return. From African women dancing with chains on slave ships in 1800s, to women protesting through hunger strikes at immigration detention centers, taking control over women’s own bodies is critical in exerting influence, raising social support and gaining leverages in various power relationships. The term “Bodily autonomy” refers to acts of free will on one’s physical body, defiantly rejecting any outside factor trying to govern one’s behavior and dictate what to do. The following paragraphs …show more content…
Hall thought that gender was no more than a façade that one can put on and Hall changed ze’s own gender several times in life4. After being reported by neighbors, Hall’s gender was probed and medically examined several times by different groups in the town, and there was a lot of controversy in how to fit Hall into binary gender categories. By blurring the line between male and female, Hall disrupted governing upper-class people’s social engineering power to divide society into men and women, and regulate people using different gender roles. Town people were first confused and felt insecure about Hall’s challenge to gender identities4. Later, people who had personal stake in a clear gender division, such as midwives, began to forcefully categorize Hall. Hall’s story definitely raised attention to people who were born with intersex bodies and the society started to recognize their existence. More importantly, people realized their definition of gender identities was arbitrary and precarious. Therefore, Hall gained power through ze’s …show more content…
Undocumented immigrants in detention centers were rather invisible to the US society, partly because they were not US citizens and also people discredited their accounts as they entered the country without official documents. It was hard to work within the system as a portion of people in detention cannot speak English and many formal complaints from them were rejected or ignored7. Under such circumstances, hunger strike, a form of social movement, was adopted in several occasions. For example, in August 1991, around 180 people detained organized a hunger strike and a sit-in at Krome to protest against facility’s conditions and abusive guards7. Women were an indispensable part and many held strong and lasted long in the hunger strike. The social responses were positive, as media attentions were gathered and 88 detained were subsequently released from Krome7. The rhetoric of hunger strikes is powerful, as the violence towards one’s own body is likely the last resort to resist being manipulated by the other groups in the power relationships. Bodily autonomy, clearly, was extremely critical for women to gain
Feminists have long been arguing “The Personal is Political,” suggesting that women’s private experience is not only inevitably structured by the political arrangements, but can also empower women and affect the society in return. From African women dancing with chains on slave ships in 1800s, to women protesting through hunger strikes at immigration detention centers, taking control over women’s own bodies is critical in exerting influence, raising social support and gaining leverages in various power relationships. The term “Bodily autonomy” refers to acts of free will on one’s physical body, defiantly rejecting any outside factor trying to govern one’s behavior and dictate what to do. The following paragraphs …show more content…
Hall thought that gender was no more than a façade that one can put on and Hall changed ze’s own gender several times in life4. After being reported by neighbors, Hall’s gender was probed and medically examined several times by different groups in the town, and there was a lot of controversy in how to fit Hall into binary gender categories. By blurring the line between male and female, Hall disrupted governing upper-class people’s social engineering power to divide society into men and women, and regulate people using different gender roles. Town people were first confused and felt insecure about Hall’s challenge to gender identities4. Later, people who had personal stake in a clear gender division, such as midwives, began to forcefully categorize Hall. Hall’s story definitely raised attention to people who were born with intersex bodies and the society started to recognize their existence. More importantly, people realized their definition of gender identities was arbitrary and precarious. Therefore, Hall gained power through ze’s …show more content…
Undocumented immigrants in detention centers were rather invisible to the US society, partly because they were not US citizens and also people discredited their accounts as they entered the country without official documents. It was hard to work within the system as a portion of people in detention cannot speak English and many formal complaints from them were rejected or ignored7. Under such circumstances, hunger strike, a form of social movement, was adopted in several occasions. For example, in August 1991, around 180 people detained organized a hunger strike and a sit-in at Krome to protest against facility’s conditions and abusive guards7. Women were an indispensable part and many held strong and lasted long in the hunger strike. The social responses were positive, as media attentions were gathered and 88 detained were subsequently released from Krome7. The rhetoric of hunger strikes is powerful, as the violence towards one’s own body is likely the last resort to resist being manipulated by the other groups in the power relationships. Bodily autonomy, clearly, was extremely critical for women to gain