Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture ebook download Gimlin $16.00

Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture

Today women are lifting weights to build muscle, wrapping their bodies in seaweed to reduce unwanted water retention, attending weigh-ins at diet centers, and devoting themselves to many other types of "body work." Filled with the voices of real women, this book unravels the complicated emotional and intellectual motivations that drive them as they confront American culture's unreachable beauty ideals. This powerful feminist study lucidly and compellingly argues against the idea that the popularity of body work means that women are enslaved to a male-fashioned "beauty myth." Essential reading for understanding current debates on beauty, Body Work demonstrates that women actually use body work to escape that beauty myth. Debra Gimlin focuses on four sites where she conducted in-depth research--a beauty salon, aerobics classes, a plastic surgery clinic, and a social and political organization for overweight women. The honest and provocative interviews included in this book uncover these women's feelings about their bodies, their reasons for attempting to change or come to terms with them, and the reactions of others in their lives. These interviews show that women are redefining their identities through their participation in body work, that they are working on their self-images as much as on their bodies. Plastic surgery, for example, ultimately is an empowering life experience for many women who choose it, while hairstyling becomes an arena for laying claim to professional and social class identities. This book develops a convincing picture of how women use body work to negotiate the relationship between body and self, a process that inevitably involves coming to terms with our bodies' deviation from cultural ideals. One of the few studies that includes empirical evidence of women's own interpretations of body work, this important project is also based firmly in cultural studies, symbolic interactionism, and feminism. With this book, Debra Gimlin adds her voice to those of scholars who are now looking beyond the surface of the beauty myth to the complex reality of women's lives.

Share your thoughts on the Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture ebook with other internet viewers!

Title of ebook: Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture
ISBN: 9780520926868
parent-ISBN: 9780520210516
Publisher: University of California Press
Internet download file size: 1168 kb
Published: 01-2002
Released online for download: 01-02-2002
Author of eBook: Gimlin, Debra

Format

Encrypted

Sku

ISBN

File size

Security

Printing

Copying

Read aloud

Devices

Digital Editions

Yes

0520926862

9780520926868

1168 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

Top eBooks in Women's Studies

The Vagina Monologues - The V-Day Edition
by Ensler, Eve

Loved by everyone from Calista Flockhart to Joy Behar, the talk of tabloids and TV, performed at over two hundred colleges every year for V-Day -- a dynamic ...more

Best price: $11.21

Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World
by Thomashauer, Regena

"The irrepressible founder of a hugely popular "school for goddesses" shows you how celebrating your sensuality can help you achieve your dreams. You've ...more

Best price: $11.21

The Beauty Myth
by Wolf, Naomi

The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women...more

Best price: $10.34

The Two Finger Diet

Customer review:
I am working on my doctorate and have been studying this subject for the past 8 years. This is the FIRST book that marries advertising to women and eating disorders/problems/...more

Best price: $5.34

How to Jump From a Ferris Wheel and Land on Your Feet

Customer review:
With the same dynamic energy that drives thousands of readers to her books, Author Miriam Jacobs has assembled an amazing group of women to present a powerful anthology. The ...more

Best price: $11.62

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels

Customer review:
Written with humor, irreverence, and an obvious love for the wide wild world of romance novels, this book is hellagood snarky delight. Ranging from serious to silly and back again...more

Best price: $12.55



CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html) via ,,38.107.191.111