Helen King

Immaculate Forms (eBook, ePUB)

Uncovering the History of Women's Bodies

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

'Illuminating, thoughtful and scholarly' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Does a fascinating job of exploring the history of women's bodies' GREG JENNER

'Mind-blowing, fascinating stuff' BBC WOMAN'S HOUR

'Authoritative, rich and wide-ranging, this is an immensely impressive work of scholarship' GUARDIAN

Throughout history, religious scholars, medical men and - occasionally - women themselves, have moulded thought on what 'makes' a woman. She has been called the weaker sex, the fairer sex, the purer sex, among many other monikers. Often, she has been defined simply as 'Not A Man'.

Today, we are more aware than ever of the complex relationship between our bodies and our identities. But contrary to what some may believe, what makes a woman is a question that has always been open-ended.

Immaculate Forms examines all the ways in which medicine and religion have played a gatekeeping role over women's organs. It explores how the womb was seen as both the most miraculous organ in the body and as a sewer; uncovers breasts' legacies as maternal or sexual organs - or both; probes the mystery of the disappearing hymen, and asks, did the clitoris need to be discovered at all?

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, D ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Profile
• Erscheinungstermin: 5. September 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781782836346
• Artikelnr.: 69747530

Autorenporträt

Helen King is a historian of medicine and the body, and has published on aspects of gynaecology and obstetrics from classical Greece to the nineteenth century for over forty years. She is professor emerita of classical studies at The Open University and has held visiting posts at the universities of Vienna, Texas, Notre Dame and British Columbia. She is vice-chair of Together for the Church of England, which campaigns on a range of issues including against discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexuality.

Rezensionen

Lively and cheeky in tone, her book leaves you with the impression that, no matter what you believe to be obvious and natural about the female body, somebody in power once believed the exact opposite S. C. Cornell The New Yorker