The Shrinking Goddess

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 an