Iris Marion Young, “Throwing like a Girl”

Posted: Wed, Apr 15, 2026

In-class activity: On a piece paper, please take note of how each of our volunteers move their body as they perform the tasks below. What gendered differences stand out to you? What do you think explains these differences?

  • Stand
  • Lean against a wall
  • Tilt your head
  • Fix your hair
  • Stretch your arms
  • Wave your arms
  • Bend down
  • Sit on a chair
  • Sit on a table
  • Carry a backpack
  • Carry books
  • Pick up an object from the ground
  • Take a selfie
  • Throw an object
  • Get the class’s attention

Young’s use of femininity: “a set of structures and conditions which delimit the typical situation of being a woman in a particular society, as well as the typical way in which this situation is lived by the women themselves” (p. 140).

  • Not all women comport and move their bodies in feminine styles all of the time.
  • Not all those who comport and move their bodies in feminine styles are women.

What makes styles of body comportment and movement feminine is a failure to fully utilize the body’s capabilities in aiming to achieve certain objectives.

  • The focus is on only select body parts, not on the body as a whole (e.g., failure to engage the legs when carrying heavy objects, the shoulder when turning or twisting).
  • Even those select body parts are not put into full use (e.g., failure to reach, to stretch, to lean as far as possible).
  • The motion is further undermined by “timidity,” “uncertainty,” “hesitancy,” “a fear of getting hurt,” and self-consciousness (p. 143–44).

“Women tend to project an existential barrier enclosed around them . . . in order to keep the other at a distance. The woman lives her space as confined and enclosed around her at least in part as projecting some small area in which she can exist as a free subject” (p. 154).

  • There is a disconnect between the physical space in fact available to the feminine person and the space they designate as the space they can move in.
    • Amanda: “women are a part of a world where they hesitate to take up the space that is actually available to them.”
    • It’s as if there is an invisible wall that confines the feminine person but not the masculine person.
  • “[W]omen frequently move in a contradictory way. Their bodies project an aim to be enacted [I can], but at the same time stiffen against the performance of the task [I cannot]” (p. 147).
    • Candence: “Women don’t simply experience an ‘I cannot,’ but a simultaneous ‘I can’ and ‘I cannot.’”
    • Anya: “It’s not that women can’t do the action literally, but that there’s this subconscious hesitation built in before even trying in the first place.”
  • The feminine body is not so much acting as being acted upon. “We feel as though we must have our attention directed upon our body to make sure it is doing what we wish it to do, rather than paying attention to what we want to do through our bodies” (p. 144).
    • The feminine body is not so much moving as being moved, just like any other object.
    • The feminine body feels as if it is not entirely in the feminine person’s own control.
    • The motion of a feminine body is “motion that is looked at” (p. 148).

Young argues that feminine styles of body comportment and movement are both a product of and a defensive response to gender oppression.

  • “An essential part of the situation of being a woman is that of living the ever present possibility that one will be gazed upon as a mere body, as shape and flesh that presents itself as the potential object of another subject’s intentions and manipulations, rather than as a living manifestation of action and intention. The source of this objectified bodily existence is in the attitude of others regarding her, but the woman herself often actively takes up her body as a mere thing. She gazes at it in the mirror, worries about how it looks to others, prunes it, shapes it, molds and decorates it” (p. 153).
  • John Berger’s summary: “Men look at women, and women look at themselves being looked at.”
  • Women are literally “physically handicapped” by sexist oppression (p. 152).

What now? Nimisha: “Is awareness enough, or do we need something else to undo this behavior”?

  • The cause of the problem is to be found “not merely in lack of practice, though this is certainly an important element. There is a specific positive style of feminine body comportment and movement, which is learned as the girl comes to understand that she is a girl” (p. 153).
  • The “I cannot” is “self-imposed” (p. 146).
  • “This understanding of ‘feminine’ existence makes it possible to say that some women escape or transcend the typical situation and definition of women in various degrees and respects” (pp. 140–41).
  • Lucy: “I believe that no (or at least very few) women opt into this form of physical restriction and that all this hesitation and fear that Young outlines is learned behavior. It is not easy to choose whether to do this or not when every action you take is learned from others and watched by others. Girls don’t have a choice in the matter of whether they should ‘throw like a girl.’”