The problem of the body

Having spent Chapter 1 unpacking some of the deep structures at work in the oppression of women and considering how feminists have tried to address these, it is time now to discuss the impact these structures have had on actual embodied women. Hence, although “the problem that has no name” might remain multifaceted, it is clear that it directly affects those with female bodies, albeit in diverse ways. Possessing a woman's body has meant, for instance, not possessing the right or capacity to control everything that happens to or is expected of that body. Women's bodies are, after all, like their lives, affected on all sides by various forms of explicit and implicit social, political, legal, symbolic and discursive control. Women cannot rely, for example, on having the right to decide whether or not to start, continue or terminate a pregnancy, or even whether or not to have sex. They also cannot easily prevent being valued and/or objectified on the basis of their physical appearance and how that appearance matches up with prevailing – and perhaps even impossible – cultural norms and ideals, including those based on colour and race. (The Barbie-doll phenomenon, the jezebels and mammy stereotypes, many people have argued, have a lot to answer for.)