Cartesian and corporeal agency: women’s studies students’ reflections on body experience

This article explores young women’s agency in relation to the body and the possible role of women’s studies in interpreting body experiences and constructing agency. The article is based on written accounts of one’s body experience written by Finnish students of women’s studies. The young women’s accounts manifested two types of agency: the accounts on agency relating to the body focused around attempts of resistance to cultural body ideals and conventional heterosexual roles. This ideal subjectivity relies on an individualistic and Cartesian understanding of agency, emphasising the young woman’s independence from culture, other people and her own body. The accounts on agency within the body expressed experiences of overcoming the mind/body dichotomy and connecting bodily to the surrounding world. I suggest that a shift from the implicit curriculum of Cartesian agency to a curriculum of corporeal agency could prove useful in educational contexts.