Gender, Bodies and Discursivity: A Comment on Hughes and Witz

Harrison, Wendy Cealey; Hood-Williams, John

doi:10.1177/1357034x97003004005

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Over the last two decades there has been much theorising about the body ( e.g. Turner 1984, Frank 1990, Leder 1990, Morgan and Scott 1993, Oudshoorn 1994, Shilling 1993, Hughes and Witz 1997, Harrison and Hood‐Williams 1997). Some post‐structuralists have challenged the very existence of separate bodies, male and female, preferring to see bodies as ‘fluid’ rather than ‘solid’, with no clearly defined boundaries (see Williams 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prostate cancer: embodied experience and perceptions of masculinity

Chapple

Ziébland

2002

Sociology Health & Illness

239

263

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While some argue that gender differences, which refer to the social classification into 'masculine' and 'feminine', have their source in 'culture', others argue there is no need to have an absolute dichotomy between culture and nature, or between constructionist and anti-constructionist epistemologies. Although there has been much theorising about the body, until recently little attention has been paid to empirical evidence. This paper looks at the way in which prostate cancer and its treatment affects men's bodies, their roles and sense of masculinity. Interviews were conducted with 52 men, exploring their experiences of prostate cancer. Findings suggest that many men are reluctant to consult their doctors, because 'men don't cry', thus reinforcing the notion that 'masculinity' is a social construction. However, while the illness and the side effects of surgical and radiotherapy treatments sometimes led to impotence and incontinence, the treatments that involved hormones were reported to have an additional, sometimes profound effect on libido, energy, ability to work, body shape and competitiveness. These side effects reduced some men's sense of masculinity. We conclude that the physical body as well as culture should be considered when trying to explain what it means to be masculine, and how illness may affect men's sense of masculinity.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prostate cancer: embodied experience and perceptions of masculinity

Chapple

Ziébland

2002

Sociology Health & Illness

239

263

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“…We can think of the libidinal body; the imaginary body; the hysterical body; the anatomical body; the broken body under the torturer's irons; the reproductive body; the sick body; the disabled body, and indeed, Butler herself has a very interesting discussion of how the sense of morphology is psychically constructed, but this is regulated and commanded into existence by the requirement to explain how the 'materiality' of the body comes into being. None of these bodies is well captured by the dis-embodied notion of 'material' being materialized, and Butler's discussion of morphology does not need it (see Cealey Harrison and Hood-Williams, 1997). Furthermore, sex, even when usefully characterised as 'sex', has no monopoly on the materialization of bodies which occurs in a range of registers.…”

Section: Commentmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…(1979: 9). 4 A more detailed exploration of this ambivalence is to be found in Cealey Harrison and Hood-Williams (1997). 5 Butler would doubtless prefer us to say not 'anti-foundationalist' but 'antiunquestionability', since theories are always posting foundations and deconstructions are deconstructions of necessary categories.…”

Section: University Of Greenwichmentioning

confidence: 97%

Trouble with Gender

Hood-Williams

Harrison

1998

The Sociological Review

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This paper is a critical engagement with some of the writings of Judith Butler who is perhaps best known for popularising the idea of gender as performative. Here we trace the origins of the notion of performatives in the work of J.L. Austin. We outline Butler's extended definition of performative gender and comment on its relationship to earlier sociological accounts. We follow her development of the idea through the later deployment of Derrida's notion of citationality. We draw attention to potential problems of this usage and to the difficulties of linking it to a psychoanalytic account of subjectivity. We consider her extended example of drag as sharing the impersonatory character of gender and as allegorizing the melancholic character of heterosexual gender identity. We comment on her interest in a theatrical politics that may make trouble for gender. Finally we consider the theoretical burden that these ideas attempt to carry.

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Introduction – Bodies on Trial: Performances and Politics in Medicine and Biology

Berg

Akrich

2004

Body & Society

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This special issue, devoted to the question of the body in medicine and biology, brings together a group of authors whose roots lie within the field of science and technology studies (STS), and at the intersections of STS with medical sociology and medical anthropology. As testified by the vitality of Body & Society, 'the body' is at the centre of revived attention in the social sciences and humanities. Medical sociology and anthropology has produced important contributions to the renewal of the body's conceptualization (e.g.

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Gender, Bodies and Discursivity: A Comment on Hughes and Witz

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

Prostate cancer: embodied experience and perceptions of masculinity

Prostate cancer: embodied experience and perceptions of masculinity

Trouble with Gender

Introduction – Bodies on Trial: Performances and Politics in Medicine and Biology

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