The Perfectible Body: The Western Ideal of Physical Development (Sexual politics) - Softcover

K-r-dutton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0304332305 ISBN 13: 9780304332304

Publisher: Continuum, 1995

Synopsis

From Greek kouroi to modern male strippers and pin-ups, traces 2500 years of the male form.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

What's most troubling about The Perfectible Body is that Dutton seems to think perfection comes in only one gender. An Australian professor of French, Dutton presents a readable and nuanced history of male body-building, from the ancient Greeks to today's pumped, steroid-enhanced, depilated, oiled and photographed trophies. His scholarship is thorough, and his grasp of the issues broad and complex, with a few true gems of insight. Though Dutton claims to take a balanced tone and to present no particular polemic, he nevertheless focuses his discussion of the "developed body" almost exclusively on the male body, slighting the female for "obvious reasons." These unexplained "reasons" may not be so obvious to many readers, and the tone reflects a running dismissiveness of legitimate feminist concerns. Others will not recognize Dutton's version of Western art and history, one that is revisionist, oversimplified and on occasion simply wrong. Dutton's ideal is a conservative, masculine one that excludes women, "cripples" (a term he uses) and essentially anyone else who isn't a hairless, youthful, pretty gym-jock.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0304332305
• ISBN 13: 9780304332304
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400