Synopses & Reviews
Since 1998, The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior has served as the premiere text in the area of women and the body. This revised and updated fourth edition brings together recent (and a few classic) critical writings in this important field. The selections reflect three themes: how ideas about women's bodies in the United States are socially constructed, how these social constructions can be used to control women's lives, and how women attempt to resist these forces. Exceptionally well-written and edited to be accessible and pedagogically friendly, the articles in this collection cover a wide range of topics while paying attention to class, ethnicity, disability, body size, and sexual orientation.
Review
"Yes, I do like the current approach of the book: How ideas about women's bodies are socially constructed; how these ideas can be used to control women's bodies; and how women as agents resist these constructions. I think the themes of sexuality, appearance and behaviour are useful in conveying the politics of women's bodies. ... The length of the book is suitable. Each chapter is a good length for a first-year class. ... I found some of the new additions, such fatness and compulsive heterosexuality, most useful, since they added context and augmented feminist issues. ... No major weaknesses, but I would suggest a little more updates on appearance, behaviour and the idea of self-policing. ... I am likely to adopt a new edition."
- Pauline Phipps, University of Windsor
"This book is very unique, and therefore fills an important gap that the other books [I use in my course] don't cover. One of the strengths is the equal weight given to empowerment and agency alongside inequality and control. This makes for great class discussions on why women treat their bodies the way they do. I would like to see more technology and science as it relates to the body, rather than just medicine. ... This book addresses the really important issue of 'the body' which still isn't addressed well in the feminist and social science literature, and it offers such cutting-edge and compelling case studies and topics! It is an excellent resource and discussion of the body and contemporary politics; both theoretical and empirical; interdisciplinary and cutting edge; readable and engaging. I would be very interested in adopting a new edition."
- Winifred Poster, Washington University
"I like the length of the chapters/sections, and many of the major works on the body are covered. However, a course on the body would need to address men's bodies as well as women's, and the text's emphasis on white women in the U.S. is a big limitation. ... There should be more chapters on racialized embodiment [and] more readings that draw from non-U.S.-based research. There is also a limited interpretation of sexuality in this book as meaning heterosexuality. Yet queer studies and empirical work on sex/gender/sexuality and the body has made a huge contribution to the field of sociology of the body. ... A glossary of key terms would be very useful, but only if these terms were first mentioned in the text introducing each part. ... This is the best book of its kind. It would be more appealing if it included the topics I've pointed out above as necessary."
- Erynn Masi de Casanova, University of Cincinnati
"I chose Weitz because it provided some excellent foundational readings in the construction of femininity. This served as our traditional "textbook" for the course. ... I would likely adopt a new edition if I were to teach this course again in a U.S. setting."
- Kimberly Williams, Mount Royal University
"Weitz's anthology is comprehensive in the range of body politics issues it addresses. ... The readings span a range of issues, all of which fall under the heading of body politics. Yes, I like this approach; it is the one I teach in my course. ... I might adopt a new edition because using a reader simplifies the work of organizing the course. ... If a new edition included enough updated material to make it appealing and the sections on reproductive rights and weight/body image were enriched so that I didn't need to order too many additional texts, this would make Weitz's reader more cost effective than my current book order."
- Karyn Valerius, Hofstra
"I find that there is enough in the book that relates to pop culture to make it appropriate to what I want to do in the course. ... It would quite likely be useful to university students as well. ... I would definitely consider adopting the new edition of this book for my women and pop culture course."
- Angela Aujla, Humber College
"I have never used The Politics of Women's Bodies [but] I will definitely consider using it in the future for my sexuality course. ... It offers a great range about the topic of bodies, which would surely help my students to understand how bodies are socially, constructed, a concept that can be difficult to grasp. I will absolutely use this book in my intro class instead of Bordo's book because it offers a wider range of material and ideas. ... There are many wonderful readings in this book, most of which would be great choices to include in a course on sexuality or gender. ... Compared to other books like it, this book is well balanced with inclusion of topics that I rarely see, like fat and age studies. These are topics that are tremendously important to our understanding of the constant construction of the body. ... I would definitely adopt a new edition of this book."
- Amy Hudec, University of Redlands
"The text includes introductory sections that assist the reader in contextualizing the readings which is useful to student readers. Brief annotations in the table of contents similarly assist the reader. ... The text explores a variety of issues that affect women's bodies from a number of different disciplinary perspectives. Different methodological approaches are represented (sociology, polisci, philosophy, education, etc.) Included are texts that pay attention to class - which I like as there is not enough of that in textbooks normally. ... This is a comprehensive anthology that accomplishes an introduction to some of the longstanding major issues concerning women's bodies in the U.S. context."
- Claudia Schippert, University of Central Florida
"This book is unique and fills an important gap. One of the strengths is the equal weight given to empowerment and agency alongside inequality and control. This makes for great class discussions on why women treat their bodies the way they do. It also offers such cutting-edge and compelling case studies and topics! It is an excellent resource and discussion of the body and contemporary politics, and is both theoretical and empirical, interdisciplinary and cutting edge, and readable and engaging."--Winifred Poster, Washington University
"I LOVE this book. I would be miserable teaching my 'gender, sexuality, and the body' course without it."--Laura Carpenter, Vanderbilt University
Review
"This book is unique and fills an important gap. One of the strengths is the equal weight given to empowerment and agency alongside inequality and control. This makes for great class discussions on why women treat their bodies the way they do. It also offers such cutting-edge and compelling case studies and topics! It is an excellent resource and discussion of the body and contemporary politics, and is both theoretical and empirical, interdisciplinary and cutting edge, and readable and engaging."--Winifred Poster, Washington University
"I LOVE this book. I would be miserable teaching my 'gender, sexuality, and the body' course without it."--Laura Carpenter, Vanderbilt University
Synopsis
The Politics of Women's Bodies, Fourth Edition, is an anthology covering the issues surrounding women's bodies. Threads running throughout the book include the distribution of power between men and women, how that affects cultural standards, and how those standards subsequently serve as powerful and political tools for controlling women's appearance, sexuality, and behavior. This book fills an important niche not covered by other books: focus on women's bodies, social control, and agency.
The new edition includes updated readings which engage diversity and highlight cross-cultural relevance where appropriate.
About the Author
Rose Weitz is a Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University and specializes in research on sexuality, health, and gender. She is the author of many scholarly articles, as well as the books Rapunzel's Daughters: What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives (2004), Life with Aids (1991), and The Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care: A Critical Approach (2012). In addition, she is co-author of the books Essentials of Sociology (2011) and Labor Pains: Modern Midwives and Home Birth (1988). She has served as President of the Sociologists for Women in Society, as Chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, and as Director of Women's Studies at Arizona State University.
Samantha Kwan is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Houston and specializes in research on bodies, gender, and health. She has published in various journals including Qualitative Health Research, Sociological Inquiry, and Teaching Sociology. She is co-author of Framing Fat: Competing Constructions in Contemporary Culture (2013) and co-editor of Embodied Resistance: Challenging the Norms, Breaking the Rules (2011). She is a council member of the Body and Embodiment Section of the American Sociological Association. She is also the recipient of the University of Houston's Provost's Teaching Excellence Award and the University Commission on Women's Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award.
Table of Contents
*=New to this edition
Preface
Part I. The Social Construction of Women's Bodies
1. A History of Women's Bodies, Rose Weitz
2. Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology, Judith Lorber
3. Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools, Karin A. Martin
*4. Medicalization, Natural Childbirth and Birthing Experiences, Sarah Jane Brubaker and Heather E. Dillaway
5. Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power, Sandra Lee Bartky
*6. Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Part II. The Politics of Sexuality
7. Breasted Experience: The Look and the Feeling, Iris Marion Young
8. Daring to Desire: Culture and the Bodies of Adolescent Girls, Deborah L. Tolman
*9. A Tale of Two Technologies: HPV Vaccination, Male Circumcision, and Sexual Health, Laura M. Carpenter and Monica J. Casper
10. "Get Your Freak On": Sex, Babies, and Images of Black Femininity, Patricia Hill Collins
11. Brain, Brow, and Booty: Latina Iconicity in U.S. Popular Culture, Isabel Molina Guzmán and Angharad N. Valdivia
12. "So Full of Myself as a Chick": Goth Women, Sexual Independence, and Gender Egalitarianism, Amy C. Wilkins
Part III. The Politics of Appearance
13. Designing Women: Cultural Hegemony and the Exercise of Power Among Women who Have Undergone Elective Mammoplasty, Patricia Gagné and Deanna McGaughey
14. Women and Their Hair: Seeking Power Through Resistance and Accommodation, Rose Weitz
*15. Navigating Public Spaces: Gender, Race, and Body Privilege in Everyday Life, Samantha Kwan
*16. The Moral Underpinnings of Beauty: A Meaning-Based Explanation for Light and Dark Complexions in Advertising, Shyon Baumann
17. Reclaiming the Female Body: Women Body Modifiers and Feminist Debates, Victoria Pitts
Part IV. The Politics of Behavior
18. From the "Muscle Moll" to the "Butch" Ballplayer: Mannishness, Lesbianism, and Homophobia in U.S. Women's Sports, Susan K. Cahn
19. Branded with Infamy: Inscriptions of Poverty and Class in the United States, Vivyan Adair
20. Backlash and Continuity: The Political Trajectory of Fetal Rights, Rachel Roth
*21. Hijab and American Muslim Women: Creating the Space for Autonomous Selves, Rhys H. Williams and Gira Vashi
22. Compulsive Heterosexuality: Masculinity and Dominance, C.J. Pascoe
*23. Being Undocumented and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV): Multiple Vulnerabilities Through the Lens of Feminist Intersectionality, Margaret E. Adams and Jacquelyn Campbell