Rutgers University Press Bodies Unbound: Gender-Specific Cancer and Biolegitimacy (Critical Issues in Health and Medicine)

Bodies Unbound is a story about the relationship between bodies and gender. Drawing on the experiences of individuals whose bodies and gender identities don't match medical and social expectations, Piper Sledge explores how ideologies of gendered bodies shape medical care when medical professionals use their position of authority to dictate which combinations of bodies and genders are legitimate or not. Review "Bodies Unbound has many strengths and is written for scholars, students, and health practitioners who are interested in learning about how medicine normalizes and legitimizes gender and body and how patients and providers alike can resist and change the gendered health care system. Bodies Unbound makes important contributions to the scholarships of medical sociology, gender, and embodiment through addressing critical questions with careful analysis and compelling evidence."-- "Gender & Society""In a system that renders some relationships between bodies and gender identities legitimate and others illegitimate, Sledge employs an innovative research design that compares the experiences of patients with the 'wrong body' for gynecological and breast cancers. Each of these groups of patients disrupts normative expectations about gendered bodies. Conceptually integrating well-known but limiting 'doing gender' perspectives with more recent work on bio-citizenship, Sledge vividly illustrates how gendered biolegitimacy offers a powerful new theoretical framework for the study of gender and health."--Asia Friedman "associate professor of sociology, University of Delaware""Sledge's fieldwork has led to a rich and vibrant analysis of how gender is enacted, resisted, performed, and policed in medical settings. Her accessible writing style and complex sociological analysis make this a powerful and unique contribution to the field."--Lisa Jean Moore "author of Buzz: Urban Beekeeping and the Power of the Bee" About the Author PIPER SLEDGE is an assistant professor of sociology and affiliated faculty with the Gender and Sexuality Studies, Health Studies, and Africana Studies programs at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.