ABSTRACT
Postfeminism and Health. Sarah Riley, Adrienne Evans, Martin Robson. Chapter 3 . This chapter considers the way that technological developments interact with neoliberal discourses of the responsible and self-disciplined subject. Using concepts of governmentality, normalisation and confession, the chapter examines two very different examples, weight-loss surgery and female genital cosmetic surgery. These examples enable an exploration of the complexities and contradictions of postfeminist constructs of choice, freedom, empowerment and agency. For example, how certain surgeries enable women to participate in a neoliberal imperative to take control by taking away control or the paradoxical use of surgery to be ‘normal’, when ‘normal’ is attainable only through intervention and an understanding of women’s natural bodies as flawed. >>
