Description
Reducing Bodies: Mass Culture and the Female Figure in Postwar America explores the ways in which women in the years following World War II refashioned their bodies-through reducing diets, exercise, and plastic surgery-and asks what insights these changing beauty standards can offer into gender dynamics in postwar America. Drawing on novel and untapped sources, including insurance industry records, this engaging study considers questions of gender, health, and race and provides historical context for the emergence of fat studies and contemporary conversations of the "obesity epidemic."
About the Author
Elizabeth M. Matelski is Assistant Professor of History at Endicott College, USA.
Reviews
"Matelski offers a useful comparative study of bodily norms in postwar America. She looks at and beyond white women's culture to show how ideals shifted in representations in men's magazines and black periodicals, revealing competing understandings of beauty in this time period."
- Jenny Ellison, Curator of Sport and Leisure, Canadian Museum of History and Co-editor of Obesity in Canada: Critical Perspectives
Book Information
ISBN 9781138681668
Author Elizabeth M. Matelski
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 272g