The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction

A bold reappraisal of science and society, The Woman in the Body explores the different ways that women's reproduction is seen in American culture. Contrasting the views of medical science with those of ordinary women from diverse social and economic backgrounds, anthropologist Emily Martin presents unique fieldwork on American culture and uncovers the metaphors of economy and alienation that pervade women's imaging of themselves and their bodies. A new preface examines some of the latest medical ideas about women's reproductive cycles.

Martin's analysis of the images that surround the female body in American culture contrasts the views of medical science with those of women from many social and economic backgrounds. In particular she stresses how metaphors of mass production, with their emphasis on machine-like regularity and efficiencies of scale, inform medical descriptions of women's bodies, frequently to the detriment of women's image of themselves and their life's purpose. Martin teaches anthropology at Princeton U.

Annotation © Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Library Journal

Over 150 women, representing a variety of ethnic, age, and socioeconomic backgrounds, participated in the survey upon which this book is based. Anthropologist Martin sought to discover how these women experienced the uniquely female functions of menstruation, childbirth, and menopause. Using medical text definitions (which rely heavily upon a model of production/failed production) as a standard, she studied the ideas and attitudes of women she surveyed, finding not unexpected class and age differences in their acceptance (or rejection) of the medical metaphor. She examines how traditional cultures validate women's bodily functions, while industrial society requires women to deny the reality of their bodies. A fascinating study; for academic and large public libraries.Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.

Emily Martin is professor of anthropology at Princeton University and author of Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in American Culture from the Days of Polio to the Age of AIDS.