The gendered and gendering ‘jab’

In this study of HPV vaccine discourses documents that reflect recent discourses on HPV vaccination were scrutinized along the lines of the I-map (Schinkel, 2016). Using a Foucaultian inspired discourse analysis following articulations and interpellation, power and practices were scrutinized. The study focussed on imaginaries, infrastructures and identities, which underlie the issue or are produced by it. The analysis shows that the imaginary underlying the issue is risk, theorized from a biopolitical and governmentality perspective. Risk of HPV is rendered calculable and governable, therefor urgent and in need of action. The vaccine as a biopolitical tool, is being applied on the population on an infrastructure of gender, enabling some possibilities while constraining others. Together, risk and gender transform the HPV vaccine into a cervical cancer vaccine, producing gendered at risk identities, vulnerable in the face of HPV and responsible for preventing the virus to enter bodies and circulate in society. While men are put into the black box of the vaccination, they remain at risk. There is a compulsive focus on cervixes, the symbol of reproduction, that must be protected. Images of dominance are being confirmed and reproduced. This case reveals a gendered asymmetry in the governing of bodies.