Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment

Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment

Rodriguez, Sarah B. M. Webber

Hardcover

Series: Rochester Studies in Medical History, Book 29

Medical Reference

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 158046498X
ISBN13: 9781580464987
Publisher: Univ Of Rochester Pr
Published: Oct 15 2014
Pages: 292
Weight: 1.35
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.20
Language: English
An engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing what the therapeutic use of female circumcision and clitoridectomy tells us about American medical ideas concerning the female body and female sexuality.

From the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, American physicians treated women and girls for masturbation by removing the clitoris (clitoridectomy) or clitoral hood (female circumcision). During this same time, and continuing to today, physicians also performed female circumcision to enable women to reach orgasm. Though used as treatment, paradoxically, for both a perceived excessive sexuality and a perceived lack of sexual responsiveness, these surgeries reflect a consistent medical conception of the clitoris as a sexual organ. In recent years the popular media and academics have commented on the rising popularity in the United States of female genital cosmetic surgeries, including female circumcision, yet these discussions often assume such procedures are new. In Female Circumcision and Clitoridectomy in the United States: A History of a Medical Treatment, Sarah Rodriguez presents an engaging and surprising history of surgeries on the clitoris, revealing how medical views of the female body and female sexuality have changed -- and in some cases not changed -- throughout the last century and a half.

Sarah B. Rodriguez is lecturer in medical humanities and bioethics and in global health studies at Northwestern University.

Also from

Rodriguez, Sarah B. M. Webber

View All

Also in

Medical Reference

View All