Bodily Narratives and the Social Oppression of Women

Abstract

This paper addresses the charge that narrative theory of identity lacks explanatory power and the further claim that for narrative theory to have such explanatory power, there would need to be an answer in the positive to the question: 'Is human reality (or some especially important dimension of it) itself narrative in nature' (Meyers 2004, 289). I claim that the dynamic creativity that is central to Merleau-Ponty's account of expressive cognition and the living body's ability to transform sedimented structure into new meaningful forms, is narrative in nature. I revisit Iris Marion Young's claims in her seminal paper 'Throwing like a Girl'. Instead of the focus being on the body 'exhibiting' an ambiguous transcendence, an inhibited intentionality, and a discontinuous unity with its surroundings' (Young 2005, 35) thus exhibiting oppression, I claim that this is a woman's bodily narrative, thus drawing attention to the way that the observed comportment and behaviour are already narrativised - are infused with meaning - and tell a story of gendering and oppression. This emphasises the ethical need to listen or attend to the authentic narrative and the way this tells a story of the world as well as the body-subject. The presentation of this narration as the 'natural' way of the female sex as weaker, both mentally and physically, and experiencing a childish will, is thus a re-configuration that erases the authentic narration of the body's expressive cognition.