Sex,Power and Ontology: Exploring the Performativity of Hormones

This paper contributes to the recent discussions about new materialism. It has been claimed that feminists should bring biology and the physiology of bodies into their analyses. Here, however, an ontological question is asked about these objects of study. The paper focuses on sex hormones. In feminist studies, the “sexing” of the so-called sex hormones is questioned (Fausto-Sterling 2000), and in the spirit of new materialism they are also rethought as provocations and global fluids that question any previously perceived constancy of individual bodies (Birke 2003; Roberts 2007). This paper draws upon these previous studies in order to propose a posthumanist performative approach to sex hormones, and continues by arguing for a further radicalization of their ontology. Karen Barad's notion of indeterminacy—meaning that the nature of an “entity” can be determined only within a specific research apparatus—is utilized. This paper thus explores whether sex hormones can, in some apparatuses, “enact” not only chemical processes, but also material-discursive processes, even affects.