A supposed gotcha annihilated

Jon Pike on the Foucauldian trope about “policing women’s bodies”:

Here’s a supposed gotcha, that bugs me, and deserves a thread on ‘policing women’s bodies’ as a criticism of arguments for fair sport for women. The objection is presumably Foucauldian in inspiration, derived from Discipline and Punish and the [concern] with bio-politics.

My reading of Foucault is heavily indebted to Nancy Fraser’s critique: ‘Empirical insights and normative confusions’ sums it up nicely. Those who talk today about ‘policing women’s bodies’ in the context of sport are normatively confused. That’s to say, any practice that secures sex-based spaces necessarily involves regulating bodies, on the basis of sex. So, if sex based spaces are sometimes a good thing then regulating bodies on the basis of sex is a good thing.

But of course calling that “policing” implies that it’s a bad thing, a bad sneaky domineering powery bad thing.

Sometimes, like in the case of female sport, sex-based spaces are a good thing, so it follows that having eligibility rules (aka ‘policing women’s bodies’) is good in these circumstances. In the same way, of course, governing bodies police aged bodies when they have age eligibility rules. So I’m with (Fraser’s) Foucault who says – ‘notice what is happening here, you are regulating bodies.’ and with Fraser who says ‘ – Yes, and?’

We “regulate bodies” in that way all the time, without even thinking about it. When adults play catch with children they don’t throw the ball with all their strength. Now apply that to countless other activities involving adults and children.

Of course, we can comment on and discuss the ways in which eligibility conditions for female sport are established and enforced, and we can discuss the content of them: That’s what this debate is about. So those who, dismissively, talk about ‘policing women’s bodies’ seem to want #nodebate (again) or want the end of women’s sport altogether. They won’t say this, because, as Nancy points out, they are normatively confused (and Michel is at fault here).

Three final points. (i) The key political move about ‘policing women’s bodies’ is directed at reproductive rights, and it’s pretty unpleasant to shift the slogan around to an attack on women’s autonomy and their right to fair sport.

Yes it god damn well is. Pretty unpleasant aka fucking enraging.

ii) Yes, this is a sub tweet about that silliness from the Canadian hockey journalist.

(iii) Foucault on Modern Power: Empirical Insights and Normative Confusions, Nancy Fraser, which is in Unruly Practices, 2008 University of Minnesota Press (from p.17)

I think the Canadian hockey journalist must be this guy:

What brazen nonsense. Keeping men out of women’s sports is not at all similar or parallel to keeping women out of sports in general.

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