Citation

Davis K. Sociol. Rev. 2007; 55(1 Suppl): 50-64.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-954X.2007.00692.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In a path-breaking essay, ‘The Virtual Speculum in the New World Order (1999),’ Donna Haraway links Our Bodies, Ourselves (the book and the slogan) to a critique of the US women’s health movement, claiming that both draw implicitly upon colonialist metaphors of discovery and acquisition of territory. Haraway’s critique does not stand alone, but belongs to a broader discussion within poststructuralist feminist theory which has been concerned with denaturalizing the female body, with the rejection of ‘experience’ as basis for feminist knowledge projects, and with deconstructing women’s position as autonomous epistemic agents. Given the popularity of this much-cited and often reprinted essay, as well as Haraway’s enormous influence on feminist (body) theory, feminist epistemology and technoscience politics, I will use her essay to consider the gap between contemporary poststructuralist feminist theory and women’s health activism. On the basis of alternative feminist theoretical (phenomenological) perspectives on women’s bodies and embodiment, I conclude that Haraway’s critique, while provocative, has little to offer as an epistemological foundation for feminist health activism.