Self-Transformations

Heyes' Monograph in Feminist Philosophy

Her work focuses on the connection between the idea of normalization—which, per Foucault, is a mode or force of control that homogenizes a population—and the gendered body. Drawing on Foucault and Wittgenstein, she argues that the predominant picture of the self—presupposing an "inner" core of the self expressed by the outer body—obscures the connection between contemporary discourses and practices of self-transformation and the forces of normalization.

In other words, pictures of the self can hold us captive when they are being read from the outer self—the body—rather than the inner self, and we can express our inner self by working on our outer body to conform. Articulating this idea with a mix of the theoretical and the practical, she looks at case studies involving transgender people, weight-loss dieting, and cosmetic surgery.

Conclusion and Implications

Her concluding chapters look at the difficult issue of how to distinguish non-normalizing practices of the self from normalizing ones, and make suggestions about how feminists might conceive of subjects as embodied and enmeshed in power relations yet also capable of self-transformation.

The subject of normalization and its relationship to sex/gender is a major one in feminist theory; Heyes' book is unique in her masterful use of Foucault, its clarity, and its sophisticated mix of the theoretical and the anecdotal. It will appeal to feminist philosophers and theorists.