media
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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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Interview on Bruchim podcast
I really enjoyed discussing Intact with Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon and Max DuBoff, hosts of The Bruchim Podcast. Bruchim’s mission is “Fostering welcome space for Jews opting out of circumcision”.
According to Eli’s very kind introduction, the argument of Intact ”is rather subtle, but it’s also radical. And I just want to say part of the radical nature of what you’re doing here is its subtlety because in today’s day and age, the idea of articulating a subtle argument seems, to me, to be a kind of endangered species of thinking. And I…I just, this book was so eye-opening and it’s such an ambitious project that I wanted to start by expressing some gratitude to you for doing this incredible work.”
You can listen to the episode – and others – here. Alternatively, you can read the transcript here.
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New Humanist interview
Niki Seth-Smith interviewed me about Intact for the New Humanist magazine.
We are using more digital and cosmetic “tweaks” than ever. What would happen if we treated our bodies as good enough?
You can read 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.
- Against Marriage, all posts on marriage, all posts on social construction, all posts on the body and beauty, Intact, listen, Sex, Culture, and Justice
Interview on UnSILOed podcast
It was a pleasure to discuss Intact, Against Marriage, and themes from Sex, Culture, and Justice with Greg LaBlanc for his UnSILOed podcast. You can listen to the whole episode here.
There’s a lot of philosophy books out there that are tough to read but this one (INTACT), I think, is just an example of fantastic philosophical writing. It’s profound, but it’s also a page-turner. I really enjoyed it.
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INTACT in The Observer beauty column
Should you be using eyelash serum? Or would that be an example of shametenance? Eva Wiseman reflected on this dilemma in her beauty column on 23 April 2023. You can read the full article here.
I hadn’t realised eyelashes thinned as we aged. If I had, perhaps I’d have been focusing on them earlier as part of the relentless search for signs that time has passed or been lost, and with it, maybe power. In her book Intact: A Defence of the Unmodified Body, philosopher Clare Chambers talks about “shametenance”, all the things we do (like applying “natural makeup”) that maintain the idea that our unmodified bodies are shameful, and I wonder if this project counts. Remove the hair there, bleach the hair there, a dull domestic struggle. The seconds dragging serum across my lashes joins the minutes spent dying my roots, then the hours logged by all the women in my life, fighting quietly in the gym or bathroom or salon to get back to an I we recognise.
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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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INTACT in NZ Herald
INTACT is featured in an article in the NZ Herald, the leading weekly magazine in New Zealand. It’s called “Face Value: Why it’s time we made peace with the way we look.” It was a real pleasure to talk to Angela Barnett for the piece, which you can read here.
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INTACT in Filosofie Magazine
INTACT is featured in an article in the Dutch philosophy magazine Filosofie Nummer 11 2002. The article is by Femke van Hout, who interviewed me, and is called “Zichtbaar maar niet gezien”. You can read it here.
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Intact in La Repubblica
“Il corpo è un campo di battaglia politico? Riflessioni di una filosofa”
You can read – in Italian – Mara Accettura’s interview with me in La Repubblica. Find the piece here.
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INTACT recommended in Metro
“A beautifully written and thoughtful push back against all the people and powers that have made us, as a society, feel that our bodies need to be altered.”
Martha Alexander in Metro, 21 April 2022 -
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 Epoché
Intact Bodies: The Ambivalence of The Natural and The Normal – John C. Brady in Conversation with Clare Chambers was published in the February 2022 issue of Epoché, the monthly magazine for the Philosophy diaspora. You can read the interview here.
Clare Chambers is a professor of political philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Her work deals with contemporary liberalism, social construction, feminism, and social justice. Her latest book, Intact (Allen Lane, 2022), is an analysis of the ways in which the body is a political site where the inequalities of sex, gender, race, disability, age, and class are reinforced. The book argues for the value of the ‘unmodified body’. The unmodified body is not an empirical concept, such a thing would be impossible in actuality (our bodies are undergoing constant revision and intervention). Rather, it is a political tool for resisting forms of coercion and oppression that would have us viewing our bodies as never good enough as they are, and thus requiring their modification, concealment, and conformance in myriad ways. However, the unmodified body cannot be viewed as a simple ‘body positivity’ any more than it can be asserted as an empirical concept. Rather, it is a new notion that cuts orthogonally across various ideals that we have previously held the body to: the natural, the normal, and the sovereign. Because of this orthogonality, these various ideals show themselves, under Chambers’ analysis, to have an ambivalent character. The book functions as both a political and cultural call to arms, and an astute analysis of how our bodies becomes ensnared in oppressive structures that inhibit the road to equality.
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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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INTACT on BBC R3 Free Thinking
I’ll be discussing INTACT with Matthew Sweet on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking on 24 February 2022. You can listen to the programme here. -
INTACT on BBC R4 Woman’s Hour
I discussed INTACT with Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on 22 Feb 2022.
You can listen to the programme here. Discussion of INTACT starts about 20 minutes in.
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INTACT in i news
“The rise of ‘shametenance’, the exhausting things we do to hide our natural bodies because we feel inadequate. Why are we so ashamed of the way we look?”
A wonderful article on INTACT by Kasia Delgado of i news, which includes a charming photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can read the article here.
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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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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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What the Foucault?
An interview with me was featured in “What the Foucault?”, an episode of Analysis on BBC Radio 4 in 2021. The programme was made by Shahidha Bari and you can listen to it here.
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Talking Politics History of Ideas
David Runciman and I discussed Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex in an LRB subscribers’ webinar in March 2021. The webinar was part of Talking Politics History of Ideas Season 2. You can listen to that series here.
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Against Marriage on the Counterintuitive Podcast
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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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Rethinking The Body on BBC Radio 5 Live
My essay Rethinking The Body was featured on BBC Radio 5 Live on the Stephen Nolan show with Rick Edwards on Saturday 27th June 2020 at 9pm. After the essay was broadcast the first hour of the show discussed body image in the context of the pandemic with me and several other guests.
You can listen to the programme here.
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Rethinking The Body discussed in BBC article
My essay on Rethinking The Body featured as a discussion article based on the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour discussion. You can read the article here.
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Rethinking The Body on Woman’s Hour
My radio essay “Rethinking The Body” was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Wednesday 24th June.
From the Woman’s Hour website:
Rethink is a series of essays and discussions across BBC Radio 4, 5 Live and the World Service that looks at how the world might change after the coronavirus pandemic. Today’s essay features the political philosopher Clare Chambers who considers how our relationship with our bodies, and our appearance has been affected by the lockdown. To discuss Jenni is joined by Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism project, Kate Lister, Lecturer in the School of Arts and Communication at Leeds Trinity University, and Shahidha Bari, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at the London College of Fashion.You can listen to the essay and discussion here.
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Rethinking The Body
I have recorded an essay on how we think about our bodies for Rethink – a BBC radio series that considers how the world should change after the coronavirus pandemic. You can listen to the programme and see the others in the series here.
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Review of Against Marriage in The Philosophical Review
Laurie Shrage reviews Against Marriage.
“I agree with Chambers that state-recognized marriage retains patriarchal residues and is ultimately an inegalitarian and underinclusive way to regulate intimate partnerships and family units. I also believe that it is possible, in principle, to devise default directives for regulating different kinds of intimate relationships fairly and justly. However, the devil really is in the details here. Chambers has provided the moral and political justification, as well as a plausible mechanism, for a more egalitarian approach to family law and policy, and now it is incumbent on those who agree with her to develop the fair and just default rules that will take the place of state-recognized marriage.”
Read the whole review here.
