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Cover of Tearing the Veil

Tearing the Veil Essays on femininity

  • Published: 2013
  • DOI: 10.4324/9780203084847
  • Print ISBN: 9780415637046
  • eBook ISBN: 9780203084847

This a collection of essays about women, by women, which examine the production of femininity within a patriarchal society. The essays show that characteristics generally considered to be ‘feminine’ are in fact cultural constructions within a patriarchal order. The patriarchal culture is taken by us to be a system of meanings, as well as power relations, which pervades our view of women at both a conscious and an unconscious level.

The symbolism of the rituals, myths, art works and polemics examined in the essays is related to the ways women are psychically constructed and constrained by the dominant heterosexual order. The Mother, the Witch, the Whore, the Pure Woman, the Amazon and the Free Woman are considered and the contributors make extensive use of original source material to give force to the argument that the stereotypic view of a feminine woman as naturally and inevitably weak, passive and powerless is one that can be seriously challenged.

Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction By Susan Lipshitz
  • Sexuality and the Body
    • The Mother
      • 1
        The Mother and the Hospital: An unfortunate fit between the woman's internal world and some hospital practices By Dana Breen
    • The Witch
      • 2
        The Witch and her Devils: An exploration of the relationship between femininity and illness By Susan Lipshitz
    • The Whore
      • 3
        The Whore in Peru: The splitting of women into good and bad and the isolation of the prostitute By Katherine Arnold
  • Representations of Women
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      The Pure Woman
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        4
        Tess: The Making of a Pure Woman By Mary Jacobus
    • The Amazon
      • 5
        The City's Achievements: The patriotic Amazonamachy and ancient Athens By Mandy Merck
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      The Woman-Power
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        6
        The Woman-Power: Religious heresy and feminism in early English socialism By Barbara Taylor
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    Back Matter