13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body
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Natalia Anna Michna
Natalia Anna Michna holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree and is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She is a leading researcher of the project ‘The Roman Ingarden Digital Archive’ and serves as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief ofThe Polish Journal of Aesthetics. Michna has authored numerous scholarly articles on cultural philosophy, feminist theory and women’s art, and is the author of the bookWomen and Culture: The Problem of Experience in Feminist Philosophy (2018). She has recently published works such as ‘From the Feminist Ethic of Care to Tender Attunement: Olga Tokarczuk’s Tenderness as a New Ethical and Aesthetic Imperative’ inArts (2023), and ‘Feminist Aesthetics: Then and Now – Reflections on 35 Years of Inquiry in the US Tradition’.Feminist Theory (2025).
Abstract
The question of women’s corporeality and bodies is at the center of feminist research into questions of knowledge, as well as moral, aesthetic and political issues. All these areas relate to the question of women’s experience, the recovery, reinterpretation and appreciation of which is postulated by feminism. This chapter presents feminist reflections on women’s bodies and corporeality in relation to the problem of experience. First, it discusses different types of experience and their role in formulating feminist propositions about the specificity of gendered experience. Next, the problem of the influence of subjective conditions and socio-cultural factors on experience is presented. This is followed by an indication of selected currents of reflection on women’s bodies and corporeality within the framework of feminist theory. The chapter concludes with remarks on the bodily and emotional dimensions of experience from a feminist perspective.
Abstract
The question of women’s corporeality and bodies is at the center of feminist research into questions of knowledge, as well as moral, aesthetic and political issues. All these areas relate to the question of women’s experience, the recovery, reinterpretation and appreciation of which is postulated by feminism. This chapter presents feminist reflections on women’s bodies and corporeality in relation to the problem of experience. First, it discusses different types of experience and their role in formulating feminist propositions about the specificity of gendered experience. Next, the problem of the influence of subjective conditions and socio-cultural factors on experience is presented. This is followed by an indication of selected currents of reflection on women’s bodies and corporeality within the framework of feminist theory. The chapter concludes with remarks on the bodily and emotional dimensions of experience from a feminist perspective.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter V
- Table of Contents V
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
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Part I The Feminist Perspective
- 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
- 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
- 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
- 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
- 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
- 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
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Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
- 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
- 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
- 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
- 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
- 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
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Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
- 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
- 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
- 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
- 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
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Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
- 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
- 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
- 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
- 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
- List of Contributors 339
- List of names
- List of subjects
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter V
- Table of Contents V
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction Women and Their Body: Breaking the Silence 1
-
Part I The Feminist Perspective
- 2 The Panoptic Gaze: Female Body and Place 19
- 3 The Female Body and Freedom: Conflict of Life or Colonial Dilemma in Marko Vovchok’s Narrations? 41
- 4 Relative (Non-)Existence of Female-Specific Neuropathology in Current Neuroimaging Research into Hysteria/Functional Neurological Disorders 53
- 5 Sexual Bodies: On Desire and Pleasure in Feminist and Thoughts 79
- 6 Beauty and the Duty to be Beautiful 95
- 7 Beauty Practices and Ukrainian Women Refugees in the Context of Russia-Ukraine War: Another Double Bind 109
-
Part II The Feminist Ethics Perspective
- 8 Distractibility: Wandering Between Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen 129
- 9 On Being ‘Indisposed’ to Study and Work, or the Discourse of the Victorian Women’s Menstruation 147
- 10 Female Reproductive Bodies and the Shift from Risk to Threat Society: The (Mis)Use of the Powers of Pregnancy in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Amy Ewing’s The Lone City-Series 163
- 11 Andrea Dworkin. Life, Death, War, and Virginity: A Radical Truth 179
- 12 Reproduction, Structural Injustice, and the Problem of Speaking for Others 197
-
Part III The Phenomenological Perspective
- 13 Women, Bodies, and Experiences: Feminist Interventions in the Philosophy of the Body 213
- 14 Between Feminist Phenomenology and Socio-Structural Critique: The Hybrid Construction of Female Embodiment in the Early Theoretical Framework of Iris Marion Young as a Locus of Radical Interdisciplinarity 233
- 15 Confined Spatiality as Deontological Feeling: Iris Marion Young, the Embodied Sense of Entitlement and Its Varieties 251
- 16 Mothers Matter: Discussing Motherhood in Gender Studies and Feminist New Materialisms 269
-
Part IV The Alternative Femininities Perspective
- 17 The Female Body and Leontion: Why Were Epicurean Women Capable of Philosophy? 287
- 18 Do Women Think with Their Body? Descartes, Malebranche, Poulain de la Barre 303
- 19 Arca as Demiurge: Cyborg’s Body, Mutant’s Body 321
- 20 The Reinvention of the Human Body: Cyborgs, String Figures and New Boundaries 339
- List of Contributors 339
- List of names
- List of subjects
