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This renowned history of intersex in America has been
comprehensively updated to reflect recent shifts in attitudes,
bioethics, and medical and legal practices. In Bodies in Doubt,
Elizabeth Reis traces the changing definitions, perceptions, and
medical management of intersex (atypical sex development) in
America from the colonial period to the present. Arguing that
medical practice must be understood within its broader cultural
context, Reis demonstrates how deeply physicians have been
influenced by social anxieties about marriage, heterosexuality, and
same-sex desire throughout American history In this second edition,
Reis adds two new chapters, a new preface, and a revised
introduction to assess recent dramatic shifts in attitudes,
bioethics, and medical and legal practices. Human rights
organizations have declared early genital surgeries a form of
torture and abuse, but doctors continue to offer surgical "repair,"
and parents continue to seek it for their children. While many are
hearing the human rights call, controversies persist, and Reis
explains why best practices in this field remain fiercely
contested.
What does it mean to be human? To be human is, in part, to be
physically sexed and culturally gendered. Yet not all bodies are
clearly male or female. "Bodies in Doubt" traces the changing
definitions, perceptions, and medical management of intersex
(atypical sex development) in America from the colonial period to
the present day.
From the beginning, intersex bodies have been marked as "other,"
as monstrous, sinister, threatening, inferior, and unfortunate.
Some nineteenth-century doctors viewed their intersex patients with
disrespect and suspicion. Later, doctors showed more empathy for
their patients' plights and tried to make correct decisions
regarding their care. Yet definitions of "correct" in matters of
intersex were entangled with shifting ideas and tensions about what
was natural and normal, indeed about what constituted personhood or
humanity.
Reis has examined hundreds of cases of "hermaphroditism" and
intersex found in medical and popular literature and argues that
medical practice cannot be understood outside of the broader
cultural context in which it is embedded. As the history of
responses to intersex bodies has shown, doctors are influenced by
social concerns about marriage and heterosexuality. "Bodies in
Doubt" considers how Americans have interpreted and handled
ambiguous bodies, how the criteria and the authority for judging
bodies changed, how both the binary gender ideal and the anxiety
over uncertainty persisted, and how the process for defining the
very norms of sex and gender evolved.
"Bodies in Doubt" breaks new ground in examining the historical
roots of modern attitudes about intersex in the United States and
will interest scholars and researchers in disability studies,
social history, gender studies, and the history of medicine.
In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early
America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan
theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem
witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for
understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than
men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused
other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about
the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the
discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and
men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable
of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains,
womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts
of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared
hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was
their vile natures that would take them there rather than the
particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem
witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and
the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who
tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one
who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became
increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more
than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt,
even after the Great Awakening.
Spellbound: Women and Witchcraft in America is a collection of
twelve articles that revisit crucial events in the history of
witchcraft and spiritual feminism in this country. Beginning with
the "witches" of colonial America, Spellbound extends its focus
through the nineteenth century to explore women's involvement with
alternative spiritualities, and culminates with examinations of the
contemporary feminist neopagan and Goddess movements. A valuable
source for those interested in women's history, women's studies,
and religious history, Spellbound is also a crucial addition to the
bookshelf of anyone tracing the evolution of spiritualism in
America.
In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early
America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan
theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem
witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for
understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than
men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused
other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about
the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the
discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and
men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable
of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains,
womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts
of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared
hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was
their vile natures that would take them there rather than the
particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem
witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and
the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who
tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one
who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became
increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more
than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt,
even after the Great Awakening.
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