Sarah Martinez
In Kathy Davis' essay, "Reclaiming Women's Bodies: Colonialist Trope or Critical
Epistemology?,” the idea of OBOS [Our Bodies, Ourselves] is examined in terms of feminist
health activism. One of her claims is that contemporary feminist literature fails to consider or
mention OBOS despite the role it has played in feminist health politics. One of the reasons is the
"dissociation process" between contemporary feminist body theory and activism of women's
health. This process means that contemporary feminist theory has moved so far away from
everyday women's experiences that it is little use to women's health activism. Davis uses Donna
Haraway's article as an example of contemporary body feminism attacking OBOS and comparing
it to “just as worse” as white male power. The major aim of her essay is treating OBOS as an
epidemiological project, or, in other words, creating a road for "more productive and mutually
beneficial exchange between feminist body theory and feminist health activism (504)." She does
it by tackling three heavily debated topics in the field: how biology justifies inequalities
influenced by gender as "natural", the validity of women's experiential knowledge as the arbiter
of truth, and how women's agency can be understood in relation to disruptive or empowering
knowledge (505). In the end, Davis concludes with the call for feminist body theory and feminist
health activism to join forces in developing more useful evaluation of medicine and cultural
discourses of women bodies and how OBOS as an epidemiological project has the power to
travel across borders of class, race, and sexuality as well as different cultures across the world.
Davis's essay was really interesting to me mostly because one of my interests is in
women's health and medicine. The way she presented her article was very well-thought out
especially using Haraway's article as the main example of how these two discourses clash. I
agree with Davis in that OBOS would play a great role in strengthening feminist body theory
rather than being seen as a discourse that weakens it like many contemporary theorists like
Haraway seem to be doing. However, there are some aspects I do disagree with her, specifically
on the idea of creating certain women experiences as sentient.
One of the aspects that I do agree her on is the biological aspect of women bodies
because understanding the body is the most important thing a woman could do. To actually put
that down and compare women who explored their own body to white European colonists
making a discovery (503), like Haraway did, is quite harsh. If we are not knowledgeable in our
own bodies - how are we to take care of it? One of OBOS claims is that while offering a way of
thinking about female anatomy and physiology, there is also the avoidance of determinism and
dualistic thinking (517). In other words, it is not putting a label on women; it's more so providing
a way to understand how a female body works without identifying gender. This coincides with
another point she makes in reclaiming women's agency in certain ways that feminist theory
proves to be disempowering. For example, she uses one of the arguments from Bordo (512) that
engaging in such activities such as dieting or maintenance of the body (like exercise) gives into
Western culture standards that are ruled by patriarchal society. However, the maintenance of the
body is important to ward off diseases and to overall, keep it healthy. To make women feel bad
about engaging in certain diet regimes for their own keeping is a bit beyond me. I believe what
Davis is trying to get at here is that contemporary feminist body theory puts down women for
giving into these patriarchal concepts of dieting or going on a juice cleanse even if a woman is
simply doing it for herself. Taking control of your own body is empowering and aiming for the
goal of a healthy body is empowering because only you are in control of it. This goes along with
OBOS beliefs of how women can actively pursue (from which I understand) these activities
feeling empowered and become epistemic agents themselves without feeling shamed by their
own sex.
The aspect that I did not agree with her on is on the topic of experiential knowledge.
While OBOS has the good intent, I do not think turning experiences such as experiences that
women of color go through or women of the lower class into sentient knowledge (519). I am in a
firm believer of knowledge is power, but I find it hard to believe that turning experiences of
racial discrimination or disempowerment could be turned into something that anyone can just
feel automatically (507). These experiences, especially experiences that women of color face, are
unique to these women and while I see nothing wrong with sharing these experiences with other
feminists, I do not think that that other women who are not oppressed by certain powers can
actually feel emotionally what these women have gone through. As Uma Narayan had stated in
her essay, "The Project of Feminist Epistemology", "those who actually live the oppression of
class, race, or gender have faced the issues that such oppression's generate in a variety of
situations (376)." Making these experiences sentient knowledge to everyone cannot make them
the ones oppressed (376). While I had been a bit wary on that point earlier in the semester, I
finding myself in believing this notion. No matter how hard you try to understand an experience,
you can never fully understand it because you did not go through it yourself. OBOS has the right
idea of making these experiences known but the idea of these experiences being put out like they
can be knowledge that just "anyone" can pick up or feel for is something that I do not believe is
do-able.
Overall, I think that Davis is on the right track in making an argument for OBOS place in
feminist body theory. There are some very great points she makes and also some points that I
think need to be strengthened. OBOS is a great initiative that feminist body theory needs to take
into account to appeal to more women and their experiences with their body. Without knowledge
of our own bodies, it could possibly hold us back in multiple ways.
References
Davis, Kathy. “Reclaiming Women’s Bodies: Colonist Trope or Critical Epistemology?”
Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. Carole R. McCann &
Seung-kyung Kim. New York: Routledge, 2013. 502-515. Print.
Narayan, Uma. “The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern
Feminist.” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. Carole R.
McCann & Seung-kyung Kim. New York: Routledge, 2013. 370-378. Print.