Deleuze and Wexler: Thinking Brain, Body and Affect in Social Context

subject, but populations of subjects, with varying distributions of capacities. And the practices that produce these capacities can be analyzed with political categories. Following Deleuze's bio-political orientation, we can call the socially embedded person the "body politic." The relationality of bodies politic is shown when we consider that access to training in affective and cognitive coping skills, and hence the development of those skills, is differentially distributed with regard to the categories of masculine and feminine. Feminized and masculinized bodies politic have different "spheres of competence": a flat tire can appear as a mildly irritating challenge or as an insurmountable problem; a subway entrance as the enticing gateway to the city or as a anxiety-producing danger. Iris Marion Young's "Throwing Like A Girl" is the classic piece in discussing the restricted body competence of the feminized body-subject.[14] Young's