Resisting biopower for reproductive rights: Iranian women’s hashtags

Abstract

ABSTRACT According to Foucault, governments use biopower to take advantage of numerous and diverse techniques for the subjugation of bodies and controlling populations. Although he never discussed gender directly, women’s bodies and natural life processes have always been sites of power and control. This paper seeks to show how Iran’s recent Youthful Population and Protection of the Family Law is an example of the exercise of biopower that controls women’s reproduction and denies them access to contraceptives. This is based on how women have reacted and resisted it using the social media platforms of Twitter with # حقوق_باروری (#reproductive_rights).