Gendered Bodies Feminist Perspectives

by Lorber, Judith; Moore, Lisa Jean

• ISBN13: 9780195330793
• ISBN10: 019533079X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

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, 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, Lorber and Moore present feminist contributions to social and cultural studies of the human body, showing the construction of gendered bodies in different contexts. The authors argue that the ideology of the perfect body is a powerful means of social control for girls and boys as well as 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 somatic themes.

Table of Contents

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

"Are You My Mother? My Father?"

Gendering Procreation

Prenatal Sex Testing and Social Consequences

Kristen Karlberg

Shaping Babies

No, Not THAT Kind! Can I Try Again?

New Technologies

Boon or Bane?

Pregnancy and Childbirth

Responsibility and Powerlessness

The Medicalization of "Natural Childbirth"

Carine M. Mardorossian

Laboring Women, Coaching Men

The Male Pill

Sperm and Insemination

Representations of Masculinity

Lisa Jean Moore

Sperm, the Lovable Character in Facts of Life Books

Making Bodies Masculine and Feminine

The Shape of the Ideal Body

Children's Games

The First Playing Grounds of Gender

Michael A. Messner

Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters

Title IX and Gender Equality in Sports

Steroids and Sports

Michael Sokolove

In Pursuit of Excellence

Sports and Violence

Loic Wacquant

Controlled Violence

The Manly Sport

Constructing Women's Bodies

Menstrual Activism

Chris Bobel

Resistance with a Wink

Young Women, Feminism and the (Radical) Menstruating Body

Women's Sexuality

Discovering the Clitoris

Ritual Genital Cutting

Wairimu Ngaruiya Njambi

Telling My Story

The Unattainable Venus

Cosmetic Surgeries

Victoria Pitts

The Surface and the Depth

Medicalization, Beauty and Body Image in Cosmetic Surgery

Breasts and Body Image

Eating Disorders

Controlling the Body

Adonis, Don Juan, and "Real Men"

Constructing Men's Bodies

Adonis

The Ideal Masculine Body

Mister Cool

Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson

Walkin' the Cool Walk

Metrosexuals and Bears

Peter Hennen

Bear Bodies, Bear Masculinity

Don Juan

The Importance of Sexual Performance

Prostate Cancer and Masculine Identity

The Male Circumcision Controversy

Michael Kimmel

The Kindest UnCut

Transgender and Intersex

Living on the Boundaries

Transgendering

Raine Dozier

Beards, Breasts, and Bodies

Intersexuality

Sharon E. Preves

Intersex Pride

The Politics of Ambiguity

Johanna E. Foster

Paradoxes of Identity Politics

Gender and Disability

What Is a Disability?

Gendering and Disabling

Disability and Gendered Sexuality

Irving Kenneth Zola

Tell Me, Tell MeCommunity and Isolation

Eli Clare

Flirting with You

Transcending the Body

Susan Wendell

The Suffering and Limited Body

Political Bodies

Violence and Violations

Military Bodies

Imprisoned Bodies

Sexual Torture

Pauline Oosterhoff, Prisca Zwanikken, and Evert Ketting

Sexual Torture of Men and Women

Suicide Bombers

Amal Amireh

Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers Through Western Eyes

Women's Vulnerability

Grace M. Cho

Prostituted and Invisible Bodies

Communities and Control

What Makes a Body a Social Body?

Judith Butler

Precarious Lives

Body Economics

Bodies as Religious Symbols

Susan A. Farrell

Hidden Symbols

Women's Religious Bodies

Body Knowledge

Kathy Davis

The Travels of Our Bodies, Ourselves

Class Exercises

Lisa Jean Moore

Films with Somatic Themes

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.