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Cheryl Krasnick Warsh, ed. Gender, Health, and Popular Culture: Historical Perspectives. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011. xvii + 308 pp. Ill. $34.95 (978-1-55458-217-4).
Gender, Health, and Popular Culture: Historical Perspectives examines the "perception and reception of gendered concepts of health" (p. vii) from a variety of perspectives, spatially and temporally, with an emphasis on North America, viewed through the lens of popular culture. The book is divided into two sections. Part 1 of the collection, "The Transmission of Health Information," focuses on how women as consumers, primarily within their traditional role as mothers and caretakers of the family, navigate "expert" knowledge and advice. The seven essays cover topics such as pregnancy, menstruation, contraception, abortion, and cervical cancer. In exploring the various mechanisms by which health information was transmitted, the authors show how powerful the "experts" were in defining, producing, and reinforcing specific meanings and messages around what constituted healthy behavior for men and women. At the same time, the advice-whether in the form of advertisements, films, or other media-may not be consumed the way the "experts" intended. The "receiver has the choice, or agency to accept, or reject" (p. xv) the information being presented.
Professional advice conveyed to women about pregnancy and about childbirth are the subjects of Lisa Featherstone and Lisa Forman Cody's respective articles. Featherstone asserts that childbirth was constructed differently in popular selfhelp texts and elite medical journals. The former emphasized the "ordering and preparation of the birthing room" (p. 12), underscoring the naturalness of childbirth. In contrast, elite manuals focused on the "extreme and pathological" (p. 7), underscoring "the pregnant and...