« Trying to avoid », « trying to conceive » : (re)produire une féminité contradictoire par la quantification

By following physiological signs of the fertility cycle of women, it is possible to produce information on oneself that can be seen as an alternative technique to hormonal and chirurgical contraception and conception’s help. Since 2009, some digital applications (apps) help that kind of activity by...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Myriam Lavoie-Moore
Format: Article
Language:fra
Published: Genre, Sexualité et Société
Series:Genre, Sexualité et Société
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/gss/3971
Description
Summary:By following physiological signs of the fertility cycle of women, it is possible to produce information on oneself that can be seen as an alternative technique to hormonal and chirurgical contraception and conception’s help. Since 2009, some digital applications (apps) help that kind of activity by quantifying the fertility cycle. The problematic is complex because it reproduces a representation of the feminine that should respect her reproductive nature at the same time it promotes an ideal of informational self-control that suggests to dominate this same nature. This article aims to understand how a technology that should manage and control fertility (re)produces the categories of gender. Our approach links the production of a feminine subjectivity to the production of a neoliberal subjectivity. It helps us to explore what are the forms of those categories of gender and how they take shape within the application. The discourse surrounding the fertility app Kindara claims that the realization of women’s empowerment relies on the informational control of oneself, an « informational empowerment ». The case study of this app shows how this ideal of empowerment, associated to the one of the self-realization by having a child, can create an unempowering feeling for the women that are unable to have a child because of the construction of a narrative of a woman that should be in control of her body.
ISSN:2104-3736