Embodying Gender

Embodying Gender provides students and academics with a critical overview of body concepts in both sociology and in feminism. Previously, sociologists have attempted to gender the body and feminists have attempted to embody gender but Alexandra Howson's accessible new text draws these two literatures together, pointing to ways of integrating feminist perspectives on the body into sociological theory. Surveying all the key concepts in the field, this book introduces us to an extensive range of 'narratives of embodiment' and presents a full analysis of the most important texts in new feminist theories of the body. Key questions covered include: o What can sociology say about the body? o What impact has the body made on sociology? o What conceptual frameworks are used to address the body? How do these relate to issues of gender and embodied experience? o How do feminist conceptual tools sit within sociological analysis? Written in a clear, accessible style, Embodying Gender is an invaluable text for undergraduate students, postgraduates and academics in the fields of women's and gender studies and sociology, and is particularly relevant to those specialising in sociology of the body, feminist theory and social theory.

Howson begins from a conviction that embodiment lies at the heart of human experience and that both feminism and sociology have an interest in integrating insights about feelings, emotion, and sensations with insights about the impact of rational thought, action, and social structure on people's lives. It is a trick of Western thought, she says, that has allowed men to think and live as though they did not have to attend to or labor over their bodies, to forget the body, and academic feminism has explored the trick in ways that the social sciences and humanities have found useful. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR