Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body

Women and Psychology

by Jane M. Ussher

Managing the Monstrous Feminine takes a unique approach to the study of the material and discursive practices associated with the construction and regulation of the female body. Jane Ussher examines the ways in which medicine, science, the law and popular culture combine to produce fictions about femininity, positioning the reproductive body as the source of women's power, danger and weakness.
Including sections on 'regulation', 'the subjectification of women' and 'women's negotiation and resistance', this book describes the construction of the 'monstrous feminine' in mythology, art, literature and film, revealing its implications for the regulation and experience of the fecund female body. Critical reviews are combined with case studies and extensive interview material to illuminate discussions of subjects These insights into the relation between the construction of the female body and women's subjectivity will be of interest to those studying health psychology, social psychology, medical sociology, gender studies and cultural studies. The book will also appeal to all those looking for a high-level introduction to contemporary feminist thought on the female body.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Horror, Philosophy, Research, Psychology

236 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2005

About the author

Jane M. Ussher is Professor of Women's Health Psychology, and leader of the Gender Culture and Health Research Unit: PsyHealth, at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. She has published widely on the construction and lived experience of health, in particular women's mental health, the reproductive body and sexuality. She is editor of the Routledge Women and Psychology book series and is author of a number of books, including The Psychology of the Female Body, Women's Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness?, Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex, Managing the Monstrous Feminine: Regulating the Reproductive Body, and The Madness of Women: Myths and Experience . She has also edited a number of books: Gender Issues in Clinical Psychology; The Psychology of Women's Health and Health Care (with Paula Nicolson); Psychological Perspectives on Sexual Problems ; Bodytalk

Reviews

[Jana Keir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant unpacking of the female body and western society's disgust with periods and feminine excess. Will never think the same way about PMS again (spoiler alert: it may not even exist, but simply be a social construction...) Although its an academic text, this is a highly readable work that I'd recommend to feminists or people interested in asking deeper questions about women's roles, their bodies, and how we portray periods, childbirth and post-natal depression in our society.

[Col]

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