Cartesian and corporeal agency: women’s studies students’ reflections on body experience

Abstract

This article explores young women’s agency in relation to the body and the possible role of women’s studies in interpreting body experiences and constructing agency. The article is based on written accounts of one’s body experience written by Finnish students of women’s studies. The young women’s accounts manifested two types of agency: the accounts on agency relating to the body focused around attempts of resistance to cultural body ideals and conventional heterosexual roles. This ideal subjectivity relies on an individualistic and Cartesian understanding of agency, emphasising the young woman’s independence from culture, other people and her own body. The accounts on agency within the body expressed experiences of overcoming the mind/body dichotomy and connecting bodily to the surrounding world. I suggest that a shift from the implicit curriculum of Cartesian agency to a curriculum of corporeal agency could prove useful in educational contexts.

Keywords:

• agency
• body
• mind/body dichotomy
• women’s studies
• feminism

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Päivi Berg, Marja-Liisa Honkasalo, Anna-Maija Pirttilä-Backman, Jouni Varanka and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.

Notes

With the title, the young women received a written introductory text to inspire their writing: ‘The word body refers here to your body in which you live your everyday life. Write about what kind of experience your body has been or is to you. What kind of experiences do you associate with your body? You can write about the first thing that comes to your mind, but if you wish you can also take some time to think about the topic of your written account. It is important that you write about your own personal experience. An experience can be specific or vague. Your experiences can be about this moment, the past or changes during your life. An experience can be positive, negative or neutral. An experience can be single and coherent, but there can also be several experiences side by side, after each other or contradictory to each other. An experience can be, for example, an atmosphere, a feeling, a memory or an evaluation – or something else totally. An experience can be immediate, direct and momentary, or mediated. As long as the experience/experiences you write about are your experiences of your own body’ (emphasis in the original writing instructions).

Technically, my process of analysis has been identical for my own written account and for the accounts of the other young women. However, obviously I have more background knowledge of my own written account, and this cannot be ‘erased’ from my reading of the account. Having my own written account among the research material has increased my reflexivity on through what kind of experiential ‘lenses’ I might tend to interpret the written accounts of the others.

All the names are pseudonyms. Each young woman wrote one account.

For example, the written accounts could be read as possibly manifesting the young women’s stages of developing a feminist identity.