Discusses the political implications of reproduction, examines feminist and traditional masculine theories, and suggests a reformed interpretation of Marxist principles.

This book brings together new work by some of the foremost writers in the health care law arena. It presents exciting new insights,drawing on feminist theory and methodology to further our understanding of health care law. Whilst the book makes a real contribution to both feminist debates and the analysis of this area of law, it is also accessible to the undergraduate student who is approaching this area of legal scholarship and feminist jurisprudence for the first time. Its focus is (...) not merely on those issues which have traditionally excited feminist attention, but also includes those subjects which have proved of less apparent interest such as confidentiality, medical research, medical negligence and professional discipline. (shrink)

Such an absence seems ultimately fatal. Yet as this volume amply demonstrates, the richness of his social theory can be opened up by contemporary feminism.

"The location of the author’s investigations, the body itself rather than the sphere of subjective representations of self and of function in cultures, is wholly new.... I believe this work will be a landmark in future feminist thinking." —Alphonso Lingis "This is a text of rare erudition and intellectual force. It will not only introduce feminists to an enriching set of theoretical perspectives but sets a high critical standard for feminist dialogues on the status of the body." —Judith Butler Volatile (...) Bodies demonstrates that the sexually specific body is socially constructed: biology or nature is not opposed to or in conflict with culture. Human biology is inherently social and has no pure or natural "origin" outside of culture. Being the raw material of social and cultural organization, it is "incomplete" and thus subject to the endless rewriting and social inscription that constitute all sign systems. Examining the theories of Freud, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, etc. on the subject of the body, Elizabeth Grosz concludes that the body they theorize is male. These thinkers are not providing an account of "human" corporeality but of male corporeality. Grosz then turns to corporeal experiences unique to women—menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, menopause. Her examination of female experience lays the groundwork for developing theories of sexed corporeality rather than merely rectifying flawed models of male theorists. (shrink)