For centuries the biological sciences have dissected, measured, and probed the human body as a product of nature. But from a feminist perspective, the human body is a social production. Human bodies are shaped and controlled by the norms and expectations of gendered social orders, and intersected by racial, class, religious, and age norms and expectations. The result is a gendered body produced for a gendered social world.
In this concise text with readings, designed for undergraduate students, Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore present feminist contributions to social and cultural studies of the human body, examining the construction of gendered bodies in different contexts. They argue that the ideology of the perfect body is a powerful means of social control for girls and boys, as well as for women and men. The authors show how children's bodies are gendered through games and sports--and shaped and modified throughout adulthood to meet social expectations.
Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives covers a broad range of topics, such as men's bodies and masculinity norms, third-wave feminist menstrual activism, transgender and intersex issues, the male pill, the controversies over male circumcision and ritual genital cutting of girls, disabilities, war wounds in Iraq, torture, and suicide bombers.
Each chapter includes a list of key concepts, three readings, recommended books and articles, and Internet sources. For the instructor, the book includes class exercises and a list of films with relevant themes.
1. Neither Nature Nor Nurture: Theories of the Gendered Body
Testosterone, Estrogen and Gendered Behavior
Female and Male Brains
Primates Are Us
Hunters and Gatherers
Genes and Gender
A Nature vs. Nurture Controversy Revisited
2. "Are You My Mother? My Father?": Gendering Procreation
Prenatal Sex Testing and Social Consequences
Shaping Babies: No, Not THAT Kind! Can I Try Again?, Kristen Karlberg
New Technologies: Boon or Bane?
Pregnancy and Childbirth: Responsibility and Powerlessness
The Medicalization of "Natural Childbirth"
Laboring Women, Coaching Men, Carine M. Mardorossian
The Male Pill
Sperm and Insemination: Representations of Masculinity
Sperm, the Lovable Character in Facts of Life Books, Lisa Jean Moore
3. Barbie and G.I. Joe: Making Bodies Masculine and Feminine
The Shape of the Ideal Body
Children's Games: The First Playing Grounds of Gender
Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters, Michael A. Messner
Title IX and Gender Equality in Sports
Steroids and Sports
In Pursuit of Excellence, Michael Sokolove
Sports and Violence
Controlled Violence: The Manly Sport, Loic Wacquant
4. Eve, Venus, and "Real Women": Constructing Women's Bodies
Menstrual Activism
Resistance with a Wink: Young Women, Feminism and the (Radical) Menstruating Body, Chris Bobel
Women's Sexuality: Discovering the Clitoris
Ritual Genital Cutting
Telling My Story, Wairimu Ngaruiya Njambi
The Unattainable Venus: Cosmetic Surgeries
The Surface and the Depth: Medicalization, Beauty and Body Image in Cosmetic Surgery, Victoria Pitts
Breasts and Body Image
Eating Disorders: Controlling the Body
5. Adonis, Don Juan, and "Real Men": Constructing Men's Bodies
Adonis: The Ideal Masculine Body
Mister Cool
Walkin' the Cool Walk, Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson
Metrosexuals and Bears
Bear Bodies, Bear Masculinity, Peter Hennen
Don Juan: The Importance of Sexual Performance
Prostate Cancer and Masculine Identity
The Male Circumcision Controversy
The Kindest UnCut, Michael S. Kimmel
6. Ambiguous Bodies: Transgender and Intersex
Living on the Boundaries
Transgendering
Beards, Breasts, and Bodies, Raine Dozier
Intersexuality
Intersex Pride, Sharon E. Preves
The Politics of Ambiguity
Paradoxes of Identity Politics, Johanna E. Foster
7. You Don't Need Arms and Legs to Sing: Gender and Disability
What Is a Disability?
Gendering and Disabling
Disability and Gendered Sexuality
Tell Me, Tell Me, Irving Kenneth Zola
Community and Isolation
Flirting with You, Eli Clare
Transcending the Body
The Suffering and Limited Body, Susan Wendell
8. Political Bodies: Violence and Violations
Military Bodies
Imprisoned Bodies
Sexual Torture
Sexual Torture of Men and Women, Pauline Oosterhoff, Prisca Zwanikken, and Evert Ketting
Suicide Bombers
Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers Through Western Eyes, Amal Amireh
Women's Vulnerability
Prostituted and Invisible Bodies, Grace M. Cho
9. Social Bodies: Communities and Control
What Makes a Body a Social Body?
Precarious Lives, Judith Butler
Body Economics
Bodies as Religious Symbols
Hidden Symbols: Women's Religious Bodies, Susan A. Farrell
Body Knowledge
The Travels of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Kathy Davis
Class Exercises, Lisa Jean Moore
Films with Somatic Themes
Index