Feminism And The Body, The

Description:
This collection of classic essays in feminist body studies investigates the history of the image of the female body; from the medical 'discovery' of the clitoris, to the 'body politic' of Queen Elizabeth I, to women deprecated as 'Hottentot Venuses' in the nineteenth century. The text look at the way in which coverings bear cultural meaning: clothing reform during the French Revolution, Islamic veiling, and the invention of the top hat; as well as the embodiment of cherished cultural values in social icons such as the Statue of Liberty or the Barbie doll. By considering culture as it defines not only women but also men, this volume offers both the student and the general reader an insight into the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study involved in feminist body studies.

Table of Contents:
Notes on contributors; Introduction, Londa Schiebinger; SCIENTIFIC (MIS)REPRESENTATIONS; Skeletons in the Closet: The First Illustrations of the Female Skeleton in Eighteenth Century Anatomy, Londa Schiebinger; 'Amor Veneris, vel Dulcedo Appeletur', Thomas Laqueur; The Birth of Sex Hormones, Nelly Oudshoorn; Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Alice Domurat Dreger; THE BODY POLITIC; Icons of Divinity: Portraits of Elizabeth I, Andrew Belsey and Catherine Belsey; Freedom of Dress in Revolutionary France, Lynn Hunt; Gender, Race, and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of 'Hottentot' Women in Europe, 1815-1817, Anne Fausto-Sterling; Hard Labor: Women, Childbirth, and Resistance in British Caribbean Slave Societies, Barbara Bush; EMBODIED IDEALS; The Slipped Chiton, Marina Warner; The Development of Horticulture in the Eastern Woodlands of North America: Women's Role, Parry Jo Watson and Mary Kennedy; MASCULINITIES; I Could Have Retched All Night: Charles Darwin and His Body, Janet Browne; The Jewish Foot, Sander Gilman; Big Man, Little Woman: The Ideal Couple, Sabine Gieske; RESTRAINED BODIES; The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideal of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture, Jacqueline Urla and Alan Swedlund; Foot-binding in Neo-Confucian China and the Appropriation of Female Labor, C. Fred Blake; The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling, Nilufer Gole; GUIDE TO FURTHER READING; INDEX