The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior (review)

The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior edited by Rose Weitz. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 304 pp., $45.00 hardcover, $19.95 paper.

This anthology declares its focus clearly in its title: articles have been selected for inclusion for their explicitly political emphasis or their contribution to a feminist-political debate. Contributors, on the whole, employ grounded theory within specific case studies or fields of inquiry rather than pursue philosophical investigations. The editor, Rose Weitz, offers an admirably clear account of her editorial policy and practice: the articles selected are mainly recent (1990s), avoid "convoluted 'academese,'" and have been judiciously pruned for accessibility. She explains that this pruning process has enabled her "to cover many topics while restricting the book's size and, consequently, price" (xi). This attention to practical concerns complements the political emphasis of the book's contents. Another expressed editorial intention is to present a diverse range of topics and perspectives. Within her own parameters, Weitz fulfils this aim; within a broader arena the collection has its limitations.

The articles are arranged under four sections: "The Social Construction of Women's Bodies," "The Politics of Sexuality," "The Politics of Appearance," and "Bodies, Behavior, and Politics." The editor's own contribution, "A History of Women's Bodies," the only article written specifically for the anthology, offers a useful brief overview from a mainstream, U. S. perspective, incorporating an acknowledgment of the centrality of slavery and racism to that history.

Overall, there is a clear attempt to move away from anglo-centrism. This is most successful in the choice of African American perspectives such as bell hooks's "Selling Hot Pussy" and Marcia Ann Gillespie's "Mirror Mirror." While hooks's studies of representation are relatively well-known, Gillespie's piece is drawn from the popular press and is, therefore, less likely to be anthologized. The inclusion of articles such as Eugenia Kaw's "Medicalization of Racial Features: Asian-American Women and Cosmetic Surgery" makes it increasingly difficult for developers of "mainstream" courses to argue that examples drawn from minority groups are unavailable. In addition, many of the other articles (notably Janet Lee's study of menstruation) are careful to define their limits in cultural and cross-cultural terms.

The collection represents a diverse field of feminist research. At one extreme there is the thoroughly grounded, personal voice of Iris M. Young as she analyses "breasted experience," and of bell hooks's opening anecdote whereby she confronts white readers with our essential privilege of being able to treat racism as "an unpleasantness to be avoided," rather than a continuous embodied condition (112). Such essays speak directly in and about embodiment, they embody their theory. Other writers, such as Eugenia Kaw, write in a more authoritative and academic style, abstracting themselves from their studies.

On the whole, Rose Weitz's selection offers a good balance between more frequently cited articles, like Sandra Lee Bartky's feminist appropriation of Foucault's concept of the disciplining of "docile bodies," and those with a broad interest but hitherto more restricted publication. An example of the latter is Susan K. Cahn's excellent overview of images of sportswomen, "From the 'Muscle Moll' to the 'Butch' Ballplayer." With this article, as elsewhere in the collection, there is a sustained effort to problematize what Adrienne Rich has called "compulsory heterosexuality." The collection also covers the age spectrum from adolescence to menopause and beyond. One absence, however, is a feminist perspective on disability.

The Politics of Women's Bodies is a realistically-priced, accessible introduction to contemporary U.S. feminist perspectives on the body. As such it will be a useful core text for undergraduates and community education courses in Women's Studies.

Still, as a non-U.S. teacher of women's studies courses, I have one criticism. The lack of any contextualizing information on the authors, the editor's acknowledged standardization of spelling and grammar...