1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819598303321

Titolo

The last taboo : women and body hair / / edited by Karín Lesnik-Oberstein

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester, : Manchester University Press, 2006

ISBN

1-78170-256-X

1-84779-444-0

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (233 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

Lesnik-ObersteinKarín

Disciplina

305.4

306.4613

Soggetti

Body image in women

Hair - Social aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Copyright; Contents; Figures; Contributors; Acknowledgements; 1. The last taboo: women,body hair and feminism; 2. 'The wives of geniuses I have sat with'1: body hair, genius and modernity; 3. A history of pubic hair, or reviewers'responses to Terry Eagleton's After Theory; 4. Hairs on the lens: female body hair on the screen; 5. 'La justice, c'est la femme à barbe!':the bearded lady, displacement and recuperation in Apollinaire's LesMamelles de Tirésias; 6. 'That wonderful phænomenon':female body hair and English literary tradition; 7. Fur or hair: l'effroi et l'attirance of the wild-woman

8. Designers' bodies: women and 9. Bikini fur and fur bikinis; 10. Women with beards in early modern Spain; 11. On Frida Kahlo's moustache:a reading of Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and its criticism; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This is the first academic book ever written on women and body hair, which has been seen until now as too trivial, ridiculous or revolting to write about. Even feminist writers or researchers on the body have found remarkably little to say about body hair, usually ignoring it completely. It would appear that the only texts to elaborate on body hair are guides on how to remove it, medical texts on 'hirsutism', or fetishistic pornography on 'hairy' women. The last taboo also questions



how and why any particular issue can become defined as 'self-evidently' too silly or too mad to write about.