Our Hormones, Our Selves: (Re)Thinking the Female Body through Contemporary Hormonal Management

• In Event: Hormones on the Move: Transnational Entanglements in the Everyday - I

Abstract

Hormones sit at two ends of the spectrum: On the one hand we are trying to minimize our exposure to environmental and food hormones by investing in BPA free products, seeking out meats that are hormone free, and adopting lifestyles that allow for ‘hormonal’ balances as a site for wellbeing. On the other hand, there is a plethora of hormonal interventions for women in many societies – from controlling their reproductive lives via contraception to hormonal replacement therapy for their wellbeing and sometimes survival. In this project, by focusing on sex hormones – a sub-set of all human hormones – I aim to unpack the role this biomedical artefact plays in (re)configuring contemporary gender, body, and sexuality narratives and practices. This research highlights the way discourse about women’s bodies, is shifting from the historical ‘our bodies, ourselves’ to ‘our hormones, ourselves.’ Drawing on a research in India and Aotearoa, New Zealand this research outlines the way contemporary transnational conversations on/by/about women’s bodies (cis, trans, and intersex women) is deeply entangled with socio-medico discourses on hormones and the need to ‘manage’ them continually – both as elective and/or essential procedures.

Author

• Nayantara Sheoran Appleton, Victoria University of Wellington