To me, one of the cornerstones of any kind of feminism is the issue of bodily integrity. I define bodily integrity as the ownership of one's own body and ability to determine what happens to it, how it happens, and even why it happens. Connected to (what I believe should be an inalienable right to bodily integrity) is the right to protection of the state from violations of one's bodily integrity. As well, I believe that the state, as an apparatus of the people, has the responsibility to respond to any violations of a woman's right to bodily integrity.
The classic examples of the right to bodily integrity are sexual assault/abuse and reproductive freedom. Integral to both these issues is women's right to participate or not participate in any kind of sexual activity that they choose (that does not violate someone else's bodily integrity.) We also have the right to respond to violations of that right in anyway they see fit.
I have had recently several conversations about the rights of the father when it comes to abortion. Some people see this as a major moral dilemma. But its my opinion (in blunt terms) that unless fathers are carrying fetuses to term, they have no right to make claims on it. As long as the parasitic relationship exists between females and the fetus, the fetus is a part of the female's body and therefore under her purview.
But the discussion of bodily integrity to me is a larger discussion than these two issues. For example, I believe that the argument against transphobia can be waged on the notion that transpeople have the right to define their bodies in whatever way they choose, regardless of whether they enact procedures to change the structure (internally and externally) of those bodies. I believe that transmen have the right to decided that they want to define their bodies as male and that society and the state should respect that definition (that it should become truth). I believe that transwomen have the same right and that society and the state have the same responsibilities.
We can also examine the issue of health care through the lens of bodily integrity. Women have the right to expect that their bodies are not only treated with the best care but also that we must have a say in what is the best care for our bodies.As well the state has a responsibility (again because it an apparatus of the people) that women have the opportunity to access the best in care how this is achieved *cough*universal health care*cough* is only relatively important so long as it is the ultimate goal. I think also that our right to bodily integrity includes a right to expect that both the fields of science and medicine are constantly trying to improve the possibilities for our bodies. Meaning that we have the right to advocate for and expect that science, medicine, and the state are trying to find cures for diseases that target us (either from biology or circumstance.)
I think that bodily integrity is an important to my Black feminism (because I believe that feminism cannot be an overdetermined word and that we must all define what it means or doesn't mean for ourselves) because it acknowledges a particular history of Black women. One wherein the women who came before have not had the right to determine what happened to their bodies nor did they have the ability to seek protect from or support against violations of their bodies. It also helps me to remember that I am connected to my Black and brown sisters around the world in our vulnerability because this right is not one universally accepted. Bodily integrity as a cornerstone issue I believe encourages a protracted historical analysis of any issue as well a global vision for any response.
It reminds me that the struggle for reproductive justice is more than the right to have an abortion but also the right to childbirth, the right to expect certain standards of care in prenatal, child birthing, and postnatal care, the right to have options in creating a child (from one's own body or another's body.)
Bodily integrity affects determines how I (as a Black feminist)view environmentalism. Honestly more often than not I see the environmental issues movement as one that attempts to be deracialized (the environment is all of our concerns and etc) which means that I off hand dismissed its importance to me (I don't believe in color blindness and don't support it as a goal of society.) It wasn't until I was in college and the environment was reframed to discuss how often the communities most targeted and/or exposed to the dangerous environmental practices were people of color and the poor (keeping in mind that I believe poverty to be a racialized system globally.) Its also people of color and the poor who must endure the most violent meteorological changes in the environment i.e. landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc.) We're also least likely to have the resources to respond to these issues and often when a state does not or cannot fully support recovery of communities of color it is community institutions (faith-based and secular) that must step up and women of color are often at the backbone if not the face of those organizations.
Again, we have the right to bodily integrity. The right to determine what happens to our bodies, and we should expect that the state will respond to anything that threatens that that right, including natural disasters and corporations whose unethical practices increase the potential of for natural disasters by drastically changing the ecological systems around us.
I am sure there are other ways of organizing our understanding what is important in feminism and WOC activism. However, for me this is the most powerful. My current challenge is trying to use my beliefs around bodily integrity to help me to better understand disability activism. I'm open to suggestions. I learn best by individually in taking data (reading, watching documentaries) and then engaging in discussions (not trying to demand stuff, just saying you'll probably get a more thoughtful response from me following this format.)
Comments? Suggestions?
Oh and because the almost-academic in me begs for it:
Bibliography/Suggested Works/Kudos (where did this come from)
-Ginetta Candelario for expanding my idea of what feminism could/should mean.
-The Studies of Women and Gender, American Studies, and Afro-American Studies programs @Smith.
-Voices from The South by Anna Julia Cooper
-Ain't I A Woman by bell hooks
-Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
-Hine, Darlene Clark. “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West: Preliminary Thoughts on the Culture of Dissemblance.” Eds. Ellen Carol DuBois, and Vicki L. Ruiz. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader In U.S.Women’s History. New York: Routledge, 1990. 292-297.
-Sexing the Body by Anne Fausto-Sterling
-Rob's class on the Science and Policy of Breast Cancer
-Paula Giddings (her book When and Where I Enter, as well as her class Black Women's History in America, and the independent studies class she did with me)
-I know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo
-for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow isn't enuf by ntozke shange
-Mad at Miles: A Black Woman's Guide to Truth by Pearl
-The Color Purple by Alice Walker
-The Lil kim's of hip-hop and the Jill scott's of r&b/soul. Nina Simone, Etta James, and Ertha Kitt.
- Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins.
You've just added another term to my vocabulary of Feminism. For which I thank you.
ReplyDeleteIt also reminds me of this huge conflict I had while reading The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (which I assume you are familiar with because it is one of the most famous novels to have come out of post-colonial Africa, deals with post-Colonial conflicts and I consider you to be a scholar of "post-" studies. Please correct me if I over-assume.) The conflict centered around the female circumcision which one of the secondary female characters WILLINGLY undertook because it was a ritual which tied her to the heritage of which she was proud. She died from complications with the circumcision. Now, my instinctive reaction was horror at the practice and horror that a woman felt that her only way to participate in her culture was to submit to such a practice. But then suddenly, in the midst of my horror, I had to realize that my status as white person in the Western culture which was responsible for the colonization of the local culture perhaps invalidated my summary judgment of the practice. AKA: I could be guilty of judging a practice as "BAD" simply because it was taboo in the society I myself belonged to, and I have to be careful of making judgments on societies that have traditionally been undervalued by my own society. And here you have some of the guilt of a white chick...
Anyway, point of that frequently-rambling paragraph: you've just given me permission to disagree with the practice of female circumcision because it interferes with that right to "bodily integrity."
I've never before considered environmentalism in the way you've just worded it. You say that you yourself never encountered such a view until college. Is this a new school of thought, do you think, stemming from such catastrophes as Katrina which made the point obvious? Basically, I'm curious about the history of this idea of environmentalism.
Dude, poor ppl/POC keep getting the shaft: even Mother Nature has it out for them (us? am I classed among poor ppl considering that my education will most likely provide me a way out of my current financial classing?). Though, here, MN is acting as a result/tool of Man.
Writing posts to you on topics that I am not-so-very-educated-on (and you-ARE-so-very-educated-on) makes me second-guess everything I write. Please correct me if I haven't second-guessed enough.
i haven't read the book because i cannot deal with imagery on female circumcision but i have heard of it and am aware of its general plot.
ReplyDeleteas for the character choosing to become circumcised. how i *try* to view this issue through the lense of bodily integrity is that any woman has to the right to do whatever she chooses to her body--including be circumcised. HOWEVER, she also deserves the right to get the best medical, psychiatric, legal support if she does. i think the most heinous thing about the act of female circumcision is the possibility of women who willingly follow cultural traditions dying because no one feels responsible to/for their complete health after it happens. BUT
first of all it must be her decision, it cannot be an act or rite of passage that is forced on her. and honestly i don't believe that many of the cases of FC are consensual and if they are they are the kind of coerced consent that to me does not qualify.
my thought on this is that many women in multiple cultures WILLING participate in body modification on their genitalia. the act of body modifying your genitalia as a woman isn't' disturbing to me (i for example have considered getting a 'hood' or clitoral piercing before.) while i enjoy it, i don't think there is anything sacred about the clit, vulva, or vagina that it cannot be "improved."
unfortunately, the medical profession does not/cannot seem to get its mind wrapped around the idea of a woman whose genitalia whose primary purpose isn't passing babies (trans and cis gendered) and therefore our ability to *safely* modify our bodies are curtailed. and i believe that is a violation of our right to bodily integrity.