Hysterectomy and Gender: Body, Power, and the Reconfiguration of Identity

Hysterectomy, defined as the surgical removal of the uterus, is generally considered within a biomedical discourse focused on pathology, therapeutic indication, and clinical effectiveness. Yet such an approach tends to obscure the social and symbolic dimensions of this organ. In anthropology, the body is never purely biological: it is also the product of cultural constructions, social norms, and power relations. The uterus, in particular, occupies a singular place in the Western imaginary, as well as in many other societies, because of its close association with reproduction and motherhood.

From this perspective, hysterectomy is not only a bodily transformation, but a biographical event capable of deeply reshaping gender identities, social relations, and one’s relationship to the self. Anthropological analysis therefore makes it possible to shift the focus: the issue is no longer only what the operation does to the body, but what it does to the meaning of the body.

Emily Martin’s work has shown how biomedical discourse itself is shaped by cultural metaphors. In The Woman in the Body, she analyses the ways in which female reproduction is described through language that naturalises social expectations: the female body is presented as oriented toward motherhood, and sometimes even as defective when it does not fulfil this function. This perspective helps place the uterus within a framework that extends far beyond physiology.

In this view, the uterus becomes a marker of gender. It does not merely participate in a reproductive function; it is invested with identity value. To have a uterus is to be potentially a mother, and this potential is often enough to structure social expectations toward women. Anthropology has long shown that motherhood is not simply a biological fact, but a social institution, strongly normed and regulated.

Hysterectomy therefore disrupts this arrangement. By removing the organ associated with reproduction, it challenges the idea that femininity is intrinsically linked to the ability to give birth. This tension does not appear in the same way everywhere: it depends on cultural contexts, individual trajectories, and the normative frameworks within which the people concerned are situated.

Hysterectomy cannot be understood solely as a medical event, because it is also part of a deeply lived personal experience. Each person gives it a different meaning according to their history, age, relationship to the body, fertility, and femininity. This is why it is important to distinguish the surgical act itself from the way it is felt. For some women, the operation may be experienced as a relief; for others, as a loss or as a difficult stage to integrate. Personal feeling therefore plays a central role in the way hysterectomy is interpreted and narrated, since it transforms a biological intervention into an intimate and biographical experience.

The accounts of people who have undergone hysterectomy show a great diversity of experiences, often marked by ambivalence. Some describe a feeling of loss, which does not reduce to fertility itself, but points to a symbolic wound to their gender identity. The idea of a “incomplete body” frequently appears in contexts where motherhood is highly valued. This perception is less tied to biological reality than to the internalisation of social norms.

By contrast, others describe the operation as a form of liberation. The disappearance of chronic pain, heavy bleeding, or contraception-related constraints can transform one’s relationship to the body in a positive way. In such cases, hysterectomy can sometimes make it possible to reclaim a body previously experienced as constraining or defective.

For Margaret Lock, these variations illustrate what she calls “local biologies.” The body is never a universal given: it is always interpreted through specific cultural frameworks. Thus, the meaning of hysterectomy cannot be understood independently of the social context in which it takes place. What is experienced as a loss in one setting may be perceived as a release in another.

Hysterectomy is also a particularly useful entry point for analysing the power relations that run through the medical field. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics, one can argue that reproductive bodies are subject to particular attention from institutions. The regulation of reproduction, whether by encouraging it, limiting it, or medicalising it, lies at the heart of strategies for governing populations.

Within this framework, decisions about hysterectomy do not rest solely on neutral medical considerations. They are shaped by implicit norms concerning what counts as a “normal” body, an “acceptable” sexuality, or a “desirable” life course. Studies have shown that certain populations, particularly women from working-class backgrounds or racialised minorities, may be more frequently steered toward radical solutions. This suggests that access to therapeutic alternatives is not distributed equally.

The body thus becomes a space where different forms of power intersect: medical power, social power, and political power. Hysterectomy, far from being a purely technical act, is embedded in these dynamics and reveals their tensions.

A contemporary analysis cannot avoid engaging with the diversity of gender identities. The association between uterus and femininity rests on a binary conception of gender that is now being widely challenged. Not all people with a uterus identify as women, and not all women necessarily have a uterus.

In this context, hysterectomy can take on radically different meanings. For some trans men or non-binary people, it may constitute an important step in a gender-affirming journey. In this case, the intervention is not experienced as a loss, but as a transformation that aligns with lived identity.

This perspective invites anthropology to rethink its own categories. Rather than viewing the uterus as a universal marker of femininity, it becomes necessary to regard it as an element whose meaning is variable, negotiated, and sometimes contested.

Through anthropological analysis, hysterectomy appears as far more than a surgical procedure. It is a moment of reconfiguration in which the relationships between body, identity, and society are redefined. By highlighting the socially constructed dimension of the reproductive body, it reveals the ways in which gender norms are inscribed in the flesh while remaining open to change.

Rather than opposing biology and culture, this approach shows that they are inseparable. The uterus, like any organ, is both a material reality and an object of meaning. Hysterectomy, by removing it, does not simply eliminate a biological function: it reconfigures a set of symbolic, social, and political relations that continue to shape lived experience.

Références

• Martin, E. (1987). The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction.

• Lock, M. (1993). Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Lock, M. & Nguyen, V.-K. (2010). An Anthropology of Biomedicine.

• Foucault, M. (1976). Histoire de la sexualité, tome 1.

• Ginsburg, F. & Rapp, R. (1995). Conceiving the New World Order.