En-gendered surveillance: Women on the edge of a watched cervix

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a worked example, using cervical cancer screening, of how a nuanced consideration of the gendered and sexualized contexts in which surveillance is conducted might help to illumine the study of surveillance. In particular, the paper argues that neither the implementation nor the effects of women’s health surveillance can be understood without appreciating the ambiguous mutual dependences of gender constructs and surveillance practices. The first section of the paper examines the World Health Organization’s global program for comprehensive cervical cancer control, and raises the issue of how gendered and sexualized contexts are implicated in that program. Section Two then examines how health promotion strategies in cervical cancer screening are served by, and help to reinforce, gender constructions of women as ‘docile’ by nature. Section Three, by contrast, examines the ways in which some women respond to the controlling effect of surveillance by attempting to ‘take control’ of the screening process through various forms of activism, and thereby give effect to different gender constructions. The paper concludes that while surveillance contributes to creating screened populations burdened with gender constructs and imperatives, responses to surveillance are also shaped by gender constructs, and contribute to new gender constructs.