TY - JOUR
T1 - Techno-physical feminism
T2 - anti-rape technology, gender, and corporeal surveillance
AU - Shelby, Renee Marie
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Wearable anti-rape technologies are products designed to rebuild feminine bodies in a form allegedly more capable of warding off unwanted sexual advances. Although inventors have patented these controversial objects since the beginning of the Women’s Movement, in 2010, anti-rape technology began to receive global media attention as the new wave in self-defense. While proponents of women’s physical self-defense argue corporeal techniques, such as martial arts and boxing, empower women by disrupting traditional gender norms, inventors embrace a “post-feminist sensibility” arguing technology-facilitated rape-prevention is more effective because passive prevention is in-line with traditional gender norms. This article constructs a genealogy of anti-rape technology using international patent and historical records from 1850 to 2016. This analysis reveals that inventors subscribe to what I term techno-physical feminism—or strategies that utilize technoscience to seemingly transform the wearer’s psychology, corporeal resilience, and agency. Techno-physical feminism draws on Judy Wajcman’s articulation of technofeminism and Martha McCaughey’s physical feminism to analyze the material and discursive relationships between gender regulation, bodies, and technology. While there could be more liberatory designs of techno-physical feminism, I argue this iteration of wearable anti-rape technology reinforces traditional gender ideologies and re-inscribes feminine bodies as passive. This analysis also finds that although popular media accounts frame anti-rape technology as novel, these objects are derived from historical chastity technologies designed to promote normative masculinity. This research illuminates how technology has long been invoked to respond to shifting and gendered paradigms of sexual risk and contributes to conversations about gender, power, and corporeal surveillance.
AB - Wearable anti-rape technologies are products designed to rebuild feminine bodies in a form allegedly more capable of warding off unwanted sexual advances. Although inventors have patented these controversial objects since the beginning of the Women’s Movement, in 2010, anti-rape technology began to receive global media attention as the new wave in self-defense. While proponents of women’s physical self-defense argue corporeal techniques, such as martial arts and boxing, empower women by disrupting traditional gender norms, inventors embrace a “post-feminist sensibility” arguing technology-facilitated rape-prevention is more effective because passive prevention is in-line with traditional gender norms. This article constructs a genealogy of anti-rape technology using international patent and historical records from 1850 to 2016. This analysis reveals that inventors subscribe to what I term techno-physical feminism—or strategies that utilize technoscience to seemingly transform the wearer’s psychology, corporeal resilience, and agency. Techno-physical feminism draws on Judy Wajcman’s articulation of technofeminism and Martha McCaughey’s physical feminism to analyze the material and discursive relationships between gender regulation, bodies, and technology. While there could be more liberatory designs of techno-physical feminism, I argue this iteration of wearable anti-rape technology reinforces traditional gender ideologies and re-inscribes feminine bodies as passive. This analysis also finds that although popular media accounts frame anti-rape technology as novel, these objects are derived from historical chastity technologies designed to promote normative masculinity. This research illuminates how technology has long been invoked to respond to shifting and gendered paradigms of sexual risk and contributes to conversations about gender, power, and corporeal surveillance.
KW - Feminism
KW - gender
KW - postfeminism
KW - rape prevention
KW - sexual violence
KW - technology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85072014817&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85072014817&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14680777.2019.1662823
DO - 10.1080/14680777.2019.1662823
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85072014817
VL - 20
SP - 1088
EP - 1109
JO - Feminist Media Studies
JF - Feminist Media Studies
SN - 1468-0777
IS - 8
ER -