The Shrinking Goddess: Power, Myth and the Female Body

A radical exploration of the power and public (mis)representation of women’s bodies, from ancient mysteries to the present day.

Wild and strange stories have been told about the female body since antiquity. While legends of poisoned hymens and fanged vaginas circulated, the first creation figure, Mother Earth, fell out of popular cultural history and Christianity introduced the birth of woman, Eve, from a crooked rib. Ranging from the empowering to the absurd, ancient tales about the female figure and gendered body parts have not only survived the twenty-first century but continue to influence modern discourse.

The Shrinking Goddess brings together these myths about the female form and traces subsequent male efforts to ‘tame’ it. Mineke Schipper examines how women’s bodies have been represented since records began – the first Venus and vulva figures date to 40,000 BCE – and around the world, from the so-called island of menstruating men in Papua New Guinea to the Japanese supermarkets and European festivals where ‘breast puddings’ are still considered delicacies. Drawing together the vast reservoir of myths, proverbs, art, science and scripture that shape how women are seen in the present day, Schipper reclaims the female body as a source of power.

The Shrinking Goddess  will appeal to readers of Mary Beard, Angela Davis, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Audre Lorde and Marina Warner

Mineke Schipper is a cultural historian and writer. She is the author of seven critically acclaimed works including Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet: Women in Proverbs from Around the World and 

Naked or Covered: A History of Dressing and Undressing Around the World. 

Her writing has been published in The Times, El Mundo and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Schipper was foreign secretary of Dutch PEN, chair of Index on Censorship Nederland and currently serves as Emeritus Professor of Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Leiden, with visiting professorships in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso and China. She received a Royal Order of Knighthood for her contribution to social and cultural studies. She lives in the Netherlands.