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Intact on IAI TV
Masculinity, femininity, and the unmodified body with Clare Chambers
For so long, the female body has been limited by the patriarchal notion of femininity, an ideal which is impossible for women to meet. Clare Chambers calls for a radical new framework that can help us keep our bodies intact, unmodified, and as canvasas for joyful expression rather than as vehicles of control. Join the Cambridge University philosopher as she discusses how this framework can help men as much as it can help women, and how the ideals of masculinity are becoming more and more dangerous thanks to our digital culture.
You can watch the interview here.
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INTACT at the Intellectual Forum
I gave a talk about INTACT and answered questions from a really engaged audience at the Jesus College Intellectual Forum. You can watch the video of the event here.
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Intact for Bristol Festival of Ideas
Julian Baggini and I had a long conversation about Intact for the Bristol Festival of Ideas. You can watch the interview here.
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INTACT at Hay Festival
I’ll be discussing INTACT at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye on 5th June 2022. You can buy tickets here.
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INTACT at Oxford Literary Festival
I’ll be discussing INTACT at the Oxford Literary Festival on 26th March 2022. You can buy tickets here.
Philosopher Clare Chambers argues that it is time for men, women and children to reclaim their bodies and that an unmodified body is a key principle of social and political equality.
Chambers ranges across a variety of areas from bodybuilding to makeup, male circumcision, breast implants, motherhood and childbirth. She argues that social pressure to modify your body sends a message that you are not good enough, and it reinforces inequalities of sex, gender, race, disability, age, and class.
Chambers is professor of political philosophy and a fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge. She is regarded as one of the most original philosophers in the UK today and is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She is author of Against Marriage and specialises in feminism, bioethics, contemporary liberalism, and theories of social justice. -
INTACT at Cambridge Literary Festival
I’ll be discussing INTACT with Rachel Cunliffe of The New Statesman at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 23 April 2022. You can buy tickets here and watch the event online here.
In the hit BBC TV series ‘Fleabag’, a feminist asks a room-full of young women whether they would trade five years of their life for the so-called ‘perfect body’. In this rousing talk, best-selling author and political philosopher Clare Chambers makes a passionate case for why loving the body we were born with is a radical act. Arguing that our choices – even the most personal ones – are not made in a cultural vacuum, Clare illuminates how ingrained sexist norms, ageism and social media distort our perceptions of our selves.
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Women & Equalities Select Committee
On 23rd September 2020 I gave evidence to the Women & Equalities Select Committee Inquiry “Changing the Perfect Picture: an Inquiry into Body Image” on behalf of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. You can view a recording of the evidence session here, and read a transcript here.
My evidence to the Committee was quoted on the Talk Radio news bulletin that night and in a written article in Yahoo News.
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Against Marriage at Festival of Ideas
I talked about Against Marriage at the Cambridge Festival of Ideas on Monday 15th October 2018, in the Frankopan Hall of Jesus College, Cambridge.Many states have recently expanded their definition of marriage to allow marriage between same-sex couples: a welcome move towards equality, but does this go far enough? Philosopher Clare Chambers argues for a more extreme position: that the state should not recognise marriage at all. State recognition of marriage, she will argue, is a violation of both equality and liberty – no matter how marriage is redefined.
Tickets were sold out and so the talk was live-streamed. You can watch it on youtube here:
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The Politics of Marriage at LSE Forum
Marriage is an odd mix of sex, religion, and politics. Our speakers ask what marriage is and whether there is there any distinctive moral value in it. Should the state promote it? Is it possible to have an ‘equal’ marriage, or is marriage fundamentally an oppressive institution? Should marriage be rejected in favour of civil partnerships, or something else, or perhaps nothing else?You can watch a video of the event and listen to the podcast here.
Speakers
Clare Chambers
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of CambridgeSir Paul Coleridge
Former high court judge and Chairman, The Marriage FoundationPeter Tatchell
Activist and Director of the Peter Tatchell FoundationChair
Fellow, The Forum
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, King’s College London - all posts on culture and religion, all posts on feminism, all posts on the body and beauty, media, watch
Dress codes at work for the BBC
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Regulating Religious Marriage at CEU
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Not the Fun Kind – Conference on Andrea Dworkin
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“Sunday with Adam Boulton”, Sky News
I appeared in a live panel discussion of the Hutton Inquiry into the Iraq war on “Sunday with Adam Boulton” on Sky News, 7 September 2003 with Adam Boulton, Michael Ignatieff and Michael Cockerell.
Can your employer demand that you go to work naked? In this short 
