Legislating, Surveilling, and Controlling Bodies

Developed by Kelsey Foster
Administrative Assistant
Office of the GWS Librarian
Universities of Wisconsin
January 2025

This bibliography is number 107d in the series “Bibliographies in Gender and Women’s Studies,” published by the University of Wisconsin System Office of the Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian. It was developed as part of “Embodying Feminism: Calling In, Calling Out, Calling to Action – A set of bibliographies supporting the 2025 Conference of the UW System Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium.”

Introduction

Feminist scholarship positions the body – especially the gendered, racialized, and queer body – as a site of state surveillance and control. In the current sociopolitical landscape of the U.S., local, state, and federal legislation dictates acceptable bodies and embodiment based on socially constructed ideals rooted in white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and capitalism. This bibliography serves as an introduction for exploring the apparatus of control enacted upon the body and how feminist embodiment resists this control. Topics include the surveillance state, healthcare, youth, education, reproductive justice and abortion, censorship, immigration law, sex work, and more.