Human rights education and the right to the body

interconnections between gender, sexuality, and schooling

Abstract

This article aims to intertwine the themes of body, gender, sexuality, and human rights to reflect on the importance of including the debate on the right to one's body in the schooling process. The chosen methodology was a narrative literature review, grounded in the categories of gender, from the perspective of Judith Butler's (2003) performativity, and sexuality, understood as a power device based on Michel Foucault's (1999; 2010) reading. The results indicate that the school frequently operates as a territory of social regulation, in which mechanisms of surveillance and disciplining seek to normalize bodies according to heteronormative and binary standards. In contrast, we highlight the need for the recognition of the body as a place of autonomy and identity, an inalienable human right. We link this proposition to its insertion in the field of human rights education, a fundamental path to question oppressions and promote the acceptance of divergent subjectivities. Finally, we conclude that, in addition to challenging the power dynamics that affect individuals in school rituals, it is essential to include the theme of the right to one's body as a strategy to overcome silences and violence, legitimize diverse bodies, and fight for dignity and respect for their subjectivities.