Biopolitics and health policies for women: a discursive analysis of the I Municipal Policy plan for Women from Florianópolis / Santa Catarina – Brazil

Abstract

Since public policies have a fundamental role in the constitution of the State and also of the subjects for whom they are produced, this work aims at an initial reflection on health policies - as concrete practices of governmentality - aimed at women. To this end, it analyzes the discourses about women's health in public policies in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, notably Axis 3 - Women's health, sexual rights and reproductive rights - of the I Municipal Plan of Policies for Women, implemented in 2012. Furthemore, it discusses governmentalization, biopolitics and the effects of health policies on the individual and population bodies. It is observed that, among the analyzed statements, the problematization of women's health falls, almost exclusively, on issues related to conception, obstetric care and reproductive planning. We conclude that although the notion of gender is mentioned and contributes to the formulation of practices that ensure the right of women to dispose of their own bodies - as an example, we take the inclusion of contraceptive methods in the document - and can be seen as a gesture of resistance that produces ruptures, the plan is still anchored in a perspective in which the concept of gender is linked to that of sex, in a binary perspective - female / male -, which erases the differences within the countryside.