the Female Body GOVERNING

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lisa blackman
women are distinguished from those who are viewed as “too available”
for sex and who threaten the above dichotomies. This short analysis 3
reveals just some of the complex dilemmas and anxieties that govern
heterosexual relations within neoliberalism and that require men and
women to relate to themselves and others in radically different ways.
Thus the kinds of injunctions that social and cultural theorists have
identified as characterizing lived subjectivities under neoliberalism, are
culturally translated very differently when we look across the categories
of gender. The kinds of argumentative spaces that govern what it means
to be both an autonomous agent and desiring to be in a relationship with
an intimate Other are governed through very different discourses and
authoritative institutions and create very different dilemmas and resolutions
to possible conflicts and struggles for men and women. This focus
on both dilemma and the kinds of strategies of psychological survival
that women need to develop to cope are those which are obscured
by much of the work in cultural studies and sociology, which seeks to
understand the authoritative status of self-help as an essential component
of the ways in which we live the complexity of global cultures (Franklin,
Lury, & Stacey, 2000).
Self Health
Franklin et al. (2000) have argued that the proliferation and rise of selfhealth
practices is characteristic of global cultures. These are cultures
whereby individuals are increasingly taking on more responsibility for
the management of their lives and of the concomitant risks and uncertainties
created by the global fl ows of people, information, knowledge,
images, and risks that do not respect national borders or boundaries.
Rather than focus on the well-rehearsed sociological analyses of these
distinctive cultural forms, they are interested in the more subjective
dimensions of transnational communications and their implications
for how we shape and act on ourselves as subjects. They characterize
these “contemporary cultures of self-management” (p. 113) as attempts
to regulate and manage the risks and uncertainties of global fl ows
through engaging in narrativizing practices that understand individuals
as agents of their own transformation. One focus of these analyses has
been on the ways in which “nature” is used as a concept and distinction,
which authenticates particular ways of being, doing, and maximizing
one’s life. Non-Western beliefs and practices are invoked and constructed
as being more authentic showing, they argue, the dependence of
global cultures on new forms of spirituality. The kinds of self-to-self
relations constructed through these practices are those that promote