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The political power of your body – INTACT in iai news
We all feel pressure for our bodies to look a certain way: 70% of women say they feel pressure to have a perfect body, and two thirds of men feel ashamed of how they look. However, those pressures don’t affect everyone equally. The standards by which our bodies are judged reflect and reinforce other unjust societal hierarchies. Furthermore, the failure to adhere to society’s beauty standards is often interpreted as a deeper failure of character, encompassing our entire identity. By being aware of the sources of these pressures we can remind ourselves that the unmodified body is valuable just as it is, writes Clare Chambers. Read the whole article here.
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Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act
In October 2021 the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act was passed. This law makes it illegal for under-18s in England to access Botox or fillers for cosmetic reasons. This Bill follows the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report Cosmetic procedures: ethical issues. I was on the Working Party that produced that report. It recommended (amongst many other things) that children and young people under the age of 18 should not be able to access cosmetic procedures, other than in the context of multidisciplinary healthcare. Since publication of this report the Nuffield Council (of which I am a member) have made a sustained effort to follow up our recommendations, and…
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UK Parliament Select Committee inquiry into the Rights of Cohabiting Partners
I submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Women & Equalities Select Committee Inquiry into The Rights of Cohabiting Partners. You can read all the evidence submitted to the Committee here.
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Women & Equalities Select Committee Report
The Women & Equalities Select Committee has published their report “Changing the perfect picture: an inquiry into body image”. The report quotes evidence I gave to the Committee on behalf of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and adopts a number of the Council’s recommendations. You can read the report here, and the Nuffield Council’s statement here.
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David Easton Award presented at APSA 2018
The 2018 David Easton Award was presented to me for Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State at the APSA Annual Meeting in Boston. The Award is given “for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science by engaging issues of philosophical significance in political life through any of a variety of approaches in the social sciences and humanities.” You can see previous winners of the Award here.
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Books
I have written three books: Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford University Press, 2017); Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (Penn State University Press, 2008) and, with Phil Parvin, Teach Yourself Political Philosophy: A Complete Introduction (Hodder, 2013). For more information about each book, including contents and reviews, click the links in the menu above.
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Ideology and Normativity
In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Supplementary Edition (forthcoming, 2017)
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Seminar in Contemporary Political Thought (MT 2014)
Convenors: Dr Clare Chambers (Philosophy) and Dr Duncan Bell (POLIS) The seminars take place on alternate Fridays between 1.00-2.30pm in the Coleridge Room, Jesus College. All are welcome. Michaelmas Term 2014 10th October (week 1) Miriam Ronzoni, University of Manchester “Republicanism and Global Politics: Three Requirements in Tension” 24th October (week 3) Elizabeth Frazer, University of Oxford “Reading Shakespeare Politically” 7th November (week 5) Tracy Strong, UC San Diego “Where Do We Find Ourselves? Hawthorne and the Actuality of Political Space” 21st November (week 7) Moya Lloyd, Loughborough University “Naming Absence: The Politics of Body Counts”