Originally published in 1993, the book’s Tenth Anniversary Edition was first published in 2004.
In this provocative book, Susan Bordo untangles the myths, ideologies, and pathologies of the modern female body. Bordo explores our tortured fascination with food, hunger, desire, and control, and its effects on women’s lives.
A New York Times Notable Book of 1993
Distinguished Publication Award, Association for Women in Psychology.
A classic of feminist theory.
The New York Times
Original, stimulating, and witty.
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
This excellent study links the fear of women’s fat with a fear of women’s power and shows that as opportunities for women increase, their bodies dwindle.
New York Times Book Review
To read Susan Bordo is to take a wild ride through the cultural images that form our daily lives, and to see them with a startling x-ray vision that reveals their blood and guts and bones, a vision that reveals us, finally, to ourselves.
Leslie Heywood, author of Pretty Good for a Girl
A masterpiece of complex and nuanced thinking
Susan Griffin, author of Woman and Nature
Challenging, subtly argued philosophical essays… humanized by the author's anecdotes of her own experience as a female body.
Kirkus Reviews
Brilliant…Scholarly yet accessible
Publishers Weekly
Brilliant. From an immensely knowledgeable feminist perspective, in engaging, jargonless prose, Bordo analyzes a whole range of issues …in a way that makes sense of our current social landscape.
Katha Pollitt, author of Pro
