The Precarity of Misogyny: Queering as Emancipation of the Gendered Female Body

Abstract

This paper invites the reader to experience an intimate encounter with the lived female gendered body. The journey begins with a conception of the body as socio-culturally formed, iterated and reiterated in persistent dialectical fashion via interpersonal and environmental contacts. Because bodies are treated neither equally nor equitably in society, females face exquisite vulnerability and precarity. Non-normative approaches can only be endeavored in the context of illuminating normative lived experiences; therefore, multiple illustrations of this phenomena throughout history will be offered. Consideration of queer theories in union with contemporary psychoanalytic relational and feminist concepts will act as conduit to emancipate the societally embattled and confined bodies of our female gendered patients. A case is discussed in which evolving relational, queer encounters in the treatment resulted in her being able to claim ownership over her body and therefore her life.

Keywords:

• The lived female body
• socio-cultural impacts
• queer theories
• feminism
• relational and intersubjective bodies
• psychoanalysis
• caste

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.