1st Law & Political Science Conference, Vienna

ON WOMEN’S BODIES AND INSECURITIES

ZUHAL YEŞILYURT GÜNDÜZ

Abstract:

According to Michel Foucault (1926-1984) body politics means “the practices and policies through which powers of society regulate the human body, as well as the struggle over the degree of individual and social control of the body.” (Feminism and Body Politics, http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6016/Body-Politics.html) Thus, political systems control human bodies. For Foucault power is disciplinizing. Observation, control and isolation aim at bodies. Bodies have to be obedient and submissive to power. This presentation deals with body politics as defined by Michel Foucault and looks at various global understandings of politics towards women by considering words and deeds of politicians that aim at controlling women’s bodies and diminishing their human security, whereas according the UNDP Report states and governments ought to act vice versa. The presentation reveals how body politics is conducted via debates on private issues about women’s bodies. Although these issues are very intimate ones, they are being debated lively in public. Simultaneously however, while women’s bodies are discussed publicly, the same bodies suffer violence and even death by the hands of their family members – (ex-)husbands, fathers, brothers. Thus, instead of saving women’s bodies from violence and enabling them lives in human security and dignity, states and governments abuse women’s bodies as a battlefield to make true the continuous suppression of women. This is a quite open form of violence – state violence conducted against the dignity, life and bodies of women.

Keywords: Foucault, body politics, human security, women, violence

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