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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 in The Times
I really enjoyed speaking with Sarah Ditum about the history and present of using botox for cosmetic use. You can read her long-form article, including citations from our interview, here. It was originally published in The Times magazine on Saturday 4th March 2023.
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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 secured meetings with Department of Health and Social Care Ministers that were influential in prompting this new legislation. The Council continued Parliamentary engagement throughout the passage of the Bill (for example, I gave evidence to the Women & Equalities Select Committee) and the report was referenced numerous times in the Second Reading in the House of Lords, and included in the House of Commons Library briefing for MPs.
The new law comes amidst pressure on the Government to take stronger action to regulate Botox and fillers amongst the whole population – another recommendation made in our report. I gave evidence on the Council’s behalf to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Beauty, Aesthetics and Wellbeing to push this issue forward, and they published recommendations for Government in July which mirrored some of the Council’s.
The Nuffield Council published a statement to welcome the new law, saying:
“We are delighted that our work to promote ethical practice within the cosmetic procedures industry has contributed to this new law which prevents people from giving Botox or cosmetic fillers on a walk-in basis to children and young people under 18. We feel strongly that children and young people should not be able to access any form of cosmetic procedures other than in the context of multidisciplinary healthcare, and would urge further action to broaden the restrictions to all types of cosmetic procedures.”
You can read the bill here.
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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
This paper investigates the possibility of what Sally Haslanger calls “ideology critique.” It argues that ideology critique cannot rely on epistemological considerations alone but must be based on a normative political theory. Since ideological oppression is denied by those who suffer from it is it is not possible to identify privileged epistemological standpoints in advance. -
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”
