Feminism and the Body presents classic texts in feminist body studies. Intended for undergraduate and graduate students, the volume touches on the medical history of sexual differences, the political history of the body, the history of clothing and its cultural meanings, symbolic renderings of the body, male bodies, and the body in colonial and cross-cultural contexts.

This stimulating volume offers a cross-disciplinary selection of recent articles on feminist history. Dismissing essentialist accounts of a universal female identity, the contributors examine how ideas about sexual difference are shaped by specific socio-historical circumstances. How, for example, do issues such as race, class, gender, and sexuality impact on the experience of "women"? How are such categories defined in widely disparate cultures and time periods? Refreshingly open to non-western, as well as western, perspectives, Feminism and History addresses subjects from the experience of...