Bleed, kill, cut, kin: Uterine violence, body-talk, and feminist subjectivities

abstract

Contemporary young feminists (in South Africa) are claiming and proclaiming reproductive agency, often through public social media discourses and popular activist sentiments. Key features are expressions of embodied warfare via the female reproductive organs, talk of an agentic uterus that periodically ‘tries to kill’ its host, and emphatic descriptions of violent modes of relation. This article aims to recognise that reproductive violences play out not only in the material inequities of everyday life and sexual and reproductive health/care, but also in the language practices of social collectivities, where discursive practices and norms can make or unmake, injure, negate and erase, or affirm and transform subjectivities. Proceeding from an examination of the discursive contexts in which dominant societal (hetero)norms may enact sexual and reproductive violences, I explore a broadened recognition of reproductive violence that engages with discursive arenas, namely the intimate public (Berlant 2008). My analysis shows that the discursive work done in the examined public is vital for feminist cultural production of new imaginaries of gendered and community life, and what it means to be co-imbricated in feminist social reproduction. I conclude the analysis with a gesture to feminist engagement on mutually desirable notions of reproductive justice while attending sufficiently to unexpected forms of reproductive violence.

keywords:

• language
• violence
• intimacy
• publics
• reproductive justice

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on MA research funded by the UCT Vice Chancellor’s Future Leaders Grant and the AW Mellon Foundation. Perspectives expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the funders. I would like to thank Prof. Fiona Ross for funding and supervising this research.

Notes

1 Preliminary research and the author’s autoethnographic experiences that informed the MA research proposal date back to early 2019 and the immediately preceding years.

2 These approaches were proposed in 2019, in a pre-COVID context. The first two methods would have involved in-person encounters, including a creative/arts-informed focus group. Given lockdowns and COVID-related research protocols, I was able to conduct one in-person interview in early 2020. All other research was carried out virtually.

3 For example, a 30-year-old woman is considered to be of reproductive age, while a woman aged 38 is of ‘advanced maternal age’.

4 The choice to situate the research ‘base’ in online discursive spaces was informed by my personal (anonymous) experiences on Twitter since 2011, as well as from doing specific ‘searches’ from a ‘signed out’ position for preliminary research.

5 My initial bio read as follows: “Uterus researcher. MA Social Anthropology 2020. Interested in bodies, words, subjectivity and futures. She/Her.” My first tweet, which was ‘pinned’ to the top of my profile to be the first visible information after the bio, read as follows: “Hi! This is me doing research in the digital space. I’m interested in how people think and speak about the uterus. Let’s talk! Feel free to share your interesting, happy, important, odd, scary, or infuriating thoughts about the uterus. DMs open. #reproductivejustice #genderjustice”

6 On Twitter people often speak about ‘curating’ your space. I made an intentional decision to engage with and/or follow fellow (self-identified) feminists, as well as people whose online sensibilities seemed oriented towards feminist and reproductive justice concerns.

7 Video conference lecture online: Judith Butler’s conference ‘Why Bodies Matter’, held on 2 June 2015 in the context of the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of ‘Gender Trouble’, Teatro Maria Matos, Lisbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzWWwQDUPPM

8 The original image was designed by Jim Cooke for a 2016 article in the online publication Jezebel (www.jezebel.com). The image was then used in various protests, after which Cooke and Jezebel made a high-resolution copy of the image available for public use. See https://jezebel.com/how-jezebel-unknowingly-created-an-international-symbol-1791685851.

9 This meme came about in 2019, following thousands of online interactions with the original artwork by Joan Cornellà posted online in 2018 (see https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/baby-yeet for the full history and spread).

10 For example, about the ways in which complaint about the uterine experience from earlier feminist standpoints might be read as re-inscribing the male body – blood/flow-free – as the desired one.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elthéa de Ruiters

ELTHÉA DE RUITERS is a Master's candidate in Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. She is currently working on her dissertation, a feminist ethnography of socio-political meanings of the uterus, tentatively titled A Uterus Ethnography: Feminism, intimate publics, and uterine subjectivity. She is particularly interested in the ways that biology and metaphors of violence are operationalised in the context of feminist work and solidarity, asking about affective relations, uterine subjectivities and futures. Her recent and forthcoming work involve experimental pedagogies and research methods. In her free time she enjoys retreating on long hikes and into fictional worlds.