Embodiment in feminist phenomenology

Naturalistic approaches to the body regard the body in a secondary position as an epiphenomenon of the soul. According to this approach, both the soul and the body are two elements that have certain distinct characteristics by nature. However, to state that the body has a nature ignores the existential possibilities of individuals who have bodies by confining them within the framework of certain social practices, roles, and norms. However, phenomenology and feminist theory in the early 20th century problematized the assumptions of the naturalist approach by treating the experience of embodiment as a becoming independent of naturalistic determinations. In this new approach, which understands embodiment in dynamic and non-essentialist terms, the problem arises as to how the body, as undetermined and possessed of possibilities, becomes a particular bodily expression of a subject in the form of a style and how this style is related to sexuality, sexual difference, and sex. This complexity of the process of embodiment becomes comprehensible through the original contributions of feminist phenomenology to embodiment, which draws on the arguments of feminist theory and phenomenology and combines the common concerns of these two traditions into a single project.