Sculpting the Woman
eBook - PDF

Sculpting the Woman

Muscularity, Power and the Problem with Femininity

,
  1. 220 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Sculpting the Woman

Muscularity, Power and the Problem with Femininity

,

About this book

What is femininity?

Why does the idea of femininity not seem to «fit» with muscular women?

Why are muscular women the object of such controversy and skepticism?

Why do some women build muscle despite these strong cultural reactions?

Muscular women have long been the focus of public scrutiny, cultural contempt and fascination. Sculpting the Woman interrogates the protected status of femininity as it has been rendered irrelevant to the history, theory and politics of the muscular woman. This highly original and provocative work draws on important social thinkers including Michel Foucault and Judith Butler as well as recent theoretical developments on gender, identity and the body in poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, various feminisms and social and moral philosophy. This book offers a personal insight into one of the most threatening of cultural identities: the «muscular female». Through its analysis of femininity's complex relationship with muscularity, it explores the larger question: «What is a woman?»

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Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Acknowledgements
  4. Chapter 1: The Problem of the Muscular Woman
  5. Chapter 2: The Invention of the Muscular Woman as a Problem
  6. Chapter 3: Truth, Power and Relations to Self
  7. Chapter 4: Methodological Elements
  8. Chapter 5: What is a Woman?
  9. Chapter 6: The Victorian Strong Woman
  10. Chapter 7: The Myth of Femininity
  11. Chapter 8: Woman as Imagined
  12. Appendix
  13. References
  14. Index