Susan Bordos The Male Body Summary
1999 saw the publication of two widely-publicized feminist studies of men, Susan
Bordo’s The Male Body, and Susan Faludi’s Stiffed.
1
Written for a broad readership, these works emerge at the end of a decade during which academic gender studies has turned the methods of feminist, gay and lesbian inquiry to a consideration of masculinity. The scholarship on masculinity has expanded the terrain of gender and sexuality, bringing fresh insights to familiar texts, and revealing the category of straight white manhood to be something like the Wizard of
Oz, a tenuous, vulnerable figure hiding out behind a screen of smoke and mirrors. Men across the disciplines have been interrogating their own masculinities, interpreting their relationships with fathers,
Bordo’s The Male Body, and Susan Faludi’s Stiffed.
1
Written for a broad readership, these works emerge at the end of a decade during which academic gender studies has turned the methods of feminist, gay and lesbian inquiry to a consideration of masculinity. The scholarship on masculinity has expanded the terrain of gender and sexuality, bringing fresh insights to familiar texts, and revealing the category of straight white manhood to be something like the Wizard of
Oz, a tenuous, vulnerable figure hiding out behind a screen of smoke and mirrors. Men across the disciplines have been interrogating their own masculinities, interpreting their relationships with fathers,