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Loading... Butts: A Backstory (edition 2022)by Heather Radke (Author)
Work InformationButts: A Backstory by Heather Radke
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book immediately went onto The List after I ordered it for work: the combination of title, cover, and blurb being impossible to resist. And the book did not disappoint. In a series of essays, Heather Radke, explores the (feminine) butt. She starts with physiology and talks about how the butt is vital in being able to run (who knew?). She looks at the butt in fashion - exploring both the bustle in Victorian clothing and the pains of ready-made fashion which means no one's butt every truly fits well in a pair of pants. She also repeatedly engages with the intertwining of race and the perception of the female backside in multiple essays that are illuminating, enraging, and occasionally heartbreaking. There's also plenty of engagement with the butt in pop culture from J-Lo's butt to Baby's Got Back. I have been pushing this book at everyone I know since I finished it and if I'd borrowed it from my work library it would have gone back with a Staff Picks sticker. Highly recommended. no reviews | add a review
Biography & Autobiography.
Sociology.
Women's Studies.
Nonfiction.
HTML:*ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL: Esquire, Time, LitHub, The Every Girl, BookPage* "Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfictionâ??the kind that forces you to see something ordinary through completely new eyes." â??Esquire, Best Books of 2022 So Far "One of the year's most ingenious and eye-opening cultural studies." â??Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2022 Whether we love them or hate them, think they're sexy, think they're strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman's butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out. Spanning nearly two centuries, this "whip-smart" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like "Buns of Steel." She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the "Venus Hottentot," Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised. Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashionâ??and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)611.98Technology Medicine and health Anatomy Regional Anatomy Lower extremitiesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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This book briefly (un)covers the possible evolutionary advantages and uniqueness of the human butt. Then quickly goes into the history, including racism, sexism, gender "norms" and stereotypes.
It was very interesting, but I feel like a lot of history was overlooked or left out to make sure it didn't go against the narrative the author wanted to push. ( )