Abstract
In this final chapter of Governing the Female Body, I reflect on how in a Foucauldian sense we are formed as sexed "agents with particular capacities and possibilities of action" (Dean, 2004, p. 29). Feminist theorists have been successful in problematizing the sex-gender and social-natural binaries, with biological knowledge playing a critical role in their discussions. For example, Elizabeth Grosz (1994) has challenged the notion of the female and male bodies as fixed and concrete substances, while Judith Butler (1990, 1993) and Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000) have problematized sex as a biological and hence natural category. Building on Butler's idea of gender performance, the perception of genetic sex, as a fixed and static entity, plays an important role in the governmentality of sex-gender performance. Drawing on the new field of genomics, which is currently contained within the binary sex-gender framework, this chapter demonstrates the potential to transform genetic sex into a fluid or "living" category.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Governing the Female Body |
| Subtitle of host publication | Gender, Health, and Networks of Power |
| Publisher | State University of New York Press |
| Pages | 271-293 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781438429533 |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
| Externally published | Yes |