IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rsocec/v80y2022i1p29-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tales of self-empowerment through digital health technologies: a closer look at ‘Femtech’

Author

Listed:
  • Tereza Hendl
  • Bianca Jansky

Abstract

Femtech technologies, such as period and fertility trackers, promise their users empowerment through reliable knowledge about and control over their bodies and ownership of their procreative health. However, the notion of empowerment through period and fertility apps deserves scrutiny. Based on a thematic analysis of a range of ‘female health’ app promotion materials, we explore the kind of empowerment promised by app providers and point towards significant contradictions and tensions in the discursive tales of empowerment. Building on digital sociology and intersectional feminist scholarship, we observe that the discourse promoting many of the health apps is grounded in exclusionary ontologies, normative femininity, epistemic injustice and heterosexist notions of female sexuality, which undermines the liberational rhetoric of these digital health technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Tereza Hendl & Bianca Jansky, 2022. "Tales of self-empowerment through digital health technologies: a closer look at ‘Femtech’," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 80(1), pages 29-57, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:80:y:2022:i:1:p:29-57
    DOI: 10.1080/00346764.2021.2018027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00346764.2021.2018027
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00346764.2021.2018027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rsocec:v:80:y:2022:i:1:p:29-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RRSE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.