About this item
Highlights
- Even though we often think of bodies as natural and given, or else as freely plastic objects, bodies are both constructed and fundamental to our sense of self.
- About the Author: Roberta Sassatelli Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna.
- 248 Pages
- Social Science, Gender Studies
Description
About the Book
Drawing on classical sociological ideas about modernity and contemporary studies that emphasise intersectionality, the book looks at how the gendered body has been conceptualised with special attention to body politics, the power of appearance and the representation of embodied identity. It also considers the interplay between body, sex and sexuality and the way gendered bodies intersect with other dimensions of social inequality such as race, age, class and disability. This exploration of the rich field of sociological inquiry into the gendered body will be an invaluable read for all seeking to understand gender, sexuality and embodiment in contemporary society.Book Synopsis
Even though we often think of bodies as natural and given, or else as freely plastic objects, bodies are both constructed and fundamental to our sense of self.
This book investigates the body as an essential vector of inequality, shaped by institutions, interaction and culture, and how in turn it contributes to partly modify them. Sassatelli and Ghigi show how the process of embodiment is at the same time naturalized and contested, particularly evident in the case of gender. Drawing on classical sociological research about modernity and contemporary studies that emphasize intersectionality, the book looks at how the gendered body has been conceptualized with special attention to body politics, the power of appearance and the representation of embodied identity. It also considers the interplay between body, sex and sexuality and the way gendered bodies intersect with other dimensions of social inequality such as race, age, class and disability.
This exploration of the rich field of sociological inquiry into the gendered body will be an invaluable read for all seeking to understand gender, sexuality and embodiment in contemporary society.
Review Quotes
"Body and Gender is a comprehensive feminist and sociological account of how the body is socially constructed as gendered. Informative and thoughtful, it would be a broadly useful text for gender studies and embodiment studies."
Judith Lorber, City University of New York, author of The New Gender Paradox
"Sensitive to the materiality of the body and its deeply constructed character, Sassatelli and Ghigi have produced a comprehensive study of the sociology of the body and the many social, political and legal complexities of gender from birth to old age."
Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University
"This book is both innovative and necessary, making it a must-read for an international audience. One of its strongest points is its ability to merge classic sociological theories with the latest feminist research... This is an essential text for anyone wanting to understand what sociology and intersectional feminism can reveal about our embodied existence in contemporary society."
Mario Cardano, University of Turin
"Sassatelli and Ghigi provide the foundational groundwork for body studies by using a gender lens. [...] Over the course of Body and Gender, Sassatelli and Ghigi adeptly move from micro to meso to macro, starting with the social construction of the body itself, to bodies in interaction, to bodies represented and staged in society. [...T]he strength of Body and Gender is how thorough it is in presenting a sociological and feminist overview of the state of body studies. I found it to not only explain intersectionality but be intersectional in its content."
Gender and Society
About the Author
Roberta Sassatelli Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna.Rossella Ghigi is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna.