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Occupied Bodies
- Kritika Bhatia
- May 3
- 5 min read
Shamed, sexualised and scrutinised for affirming authority and autonomy across their own body — this is the everyday reality for women. Whether it's clothes, medicines, health, sports, beauty or career, it's an uphill battle for women against judgment in their pursuit of freedom. From denying the rights and dominion over their lives, choices, and bodies to stigmatising menstruation and bodily anatomy, the societal system has always worked against women to suppress them. The patriarchal societal system, indeed, is a hypocritical union of individuals and a structure of rules that benefits from women’s bodies but, contradictorily, leaves no room for their liberation. This article will explore the radical acts against women that have ruined their connection with their bodies to profit from oppression.
The Assault on Women’s Bodies
Women's bodily anatomy, in the context of medicine and research, is very blatantly overlooked. Beauty standards are unending; a non-stop forced chase for women.
The Pill: One of the biggest examples of this is when the first contraceptive pill (1960) was introduced, it was initially made for women due to the notion that reproduction was solely a responsibility and duty of women (PBS, 2025). Despite the major health hazards, pharmaceutical companies heavily marketed the pill to women in the U.S., where it was originally developed. Whether they were psychological, neurological, or cardiovascular, women had to endure the intense side effects of contraceptive pills. These side effects were not fully informed to women, while on the other hand, a 2016 clinical trial for male birth control was discontinued because men reported mild acne, mood swings and low libido (Lisa, 2016). These are the same side effects, but at an extreme level that women have been tolerating for decades and also have been expected to accept.
Abortion: There are recurrent incidents of laws being manipulated and executed to propose an anti-abortion agenda in the name of pro-life ideology. These laws criminalise abortion, citing ethical concerns. In countries like Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Sint Maarten, women who are rape survivors are denied abortion rights making it a punishable offense. (Millán, 2019). According to Millán, anti-abortion laws do not stop abortion practices; rather, they push women into dangerous conditions and procedures. Abortions that are performed under illegal conditions often result in complex medical complications and sometimes death because they are performed by untrained or poorly trained healthcare providers, in contrast to the legal conditions where abortions are performed by qualified physicians, resulting in one of the safest obstetrical procedures a woman can undergo once she is pregnant. This is a serious downplay in regards to the health, ignoring the medical concerns and choices of women due to irrational consideration of embryos being humans. The anti-abortion laws are also a statement that proves that certain unions and individuals are working to hinder women from making choices over their bodies.
The Insecurity Regime: Harsh beauty standards like a certain shade of skin colour, clear skin, a flat stomach and being within the prescribed framework of bodily measurements are conspicuous theft of the uniqueness of being a woman, of being a human. Many businesses that promote unrealistic beauty standards often profit from the insecurity that they instill through various media outlets and channels. These businesses in India are booming due to the insecurities that are often exacerbated by the ingrained societal norms of rigid beauty standards.
For example, in India, brown-skinned women are often disregarded for not having fair skin and eventually end up falling into the loophole of chasing a fair skin tone, which results in the monetary yield of businesses that manufacture products catering to the same insecurity.
Whether it's a certain body shape or weight, women have been major victims of body-shaming. Natural processes like ageing are also viewed from a negative lens. Wrinkles, white hairs, menopause, fluctuations in weight and height are highly targeted. Many young girls are exposed to such rigorous beauty standards that make them uncomfortable in their bodies and their skin, starting from 8 years old. Body Image issues and disorders like body dysmorphic disorder, and eating disorders are more common in women than men (Phillips, 2023), entailing issues like anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns.
Liberation
The true liberation of women will only emerge when women make and take decisions for their bodies. In many aspects of the world, the bodily anatomy of women is often held up against them to obstruct their freedom. According to a survey by Intimina conducted in 2020, 25% of women are unable to identify their vagina, 46% couldn't locate their cervix, and 57% of women admitted to being unaware of their bodily anatomy. These statistics are a clear picture of women’s disconnect from their bodies. This disconnect mushrooms through the lack of a women-centric educational curriculum. Moral policing is the cause of body image issues, as many women are unaware of their health and bodily framework. Women were often excluded from biomedical research procedures that were predominantly performed and observed on male subjects.
In a research conducted on male subjects for exploring the symptoms of cardiovascular disease, it was assumed that the same symptoms applied to women, when in reality, women experience different symptoms from men. This disparity is mainly because of the belief system of researchers who find it convenient to research the male body as the female body is more complicated, pointing to their menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive use (Sarfraz, 2021).
Conclusion
Reclaiming the body is not merely about challenging the systems that exploit women— it’s about restoring the connection that was deliberately severed. From being excluded from medical research to being bombarded with unrealistic beauty ideals, women have continuously been made strangers to their bodies. True liberation begins with awareness: educational systems must prioritise inclusive, body-literate curricula that empower women with knowledge of their anatomy and health. Only through informed agency, collective resistance, and institutional reform can women reclaim ownership of their bodies and redefine what it means to exist freely and fully in them.
Bibliography
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Intimina. 2020. “Women and Their Bodies: How Much Do You Actually Know?” Intimina, March 3, 2020. https://www.intimina.com/blog/women-and-their-bodies/.
This research article is brought to you by @ The Gal Gala
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