The lived body and feminism: contributions to thinking about problems of intersubjective life

Abstract

The concept of "proper body" or "lived body" proposed by phenomenology has allowed the recognition of the fundamental experience of "being a body" as opposed to "having a body", that is, of being an embodied existence. The aim of this paper is to present the main elements of the phenomenological concept of the body, as developed by authors such as Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, and then to discuss this concept in the light of the contributions made by classical and contemporary feminist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir or Iris Marion Young among others. In this way we will review some fundamental ideas that feminism and gender studies have contributed to the reflection on women's bodies, highlighting the recognition of cultural and patriarchal mandates on the constitution of the female body, roles, identity and self-image. Finally, we will list some of the issues and problems that are open to reflection on the female body, in particular, the canons of beauty, fat bodies, and the body in old age.