In this collection of essays, Ann Oakley, one of the most influential social scientists of the last twenty years, brings together the best of her work on the sociology of women's health. She focuses on four main themes - divisions of labour, motherhood, technology and methodology - and in her own inimitable style, combines serious academic discourse from a feminist sociological perspective with a practical understanding of what it is to be women facing the often impersonal world of twentieth-century medicine. (...) Updating and substantially expanding on her earlier work, Telling the Truth About Jerusalem, this new collection bridges the medical/social divide in an accessible and personable way. (shrink)

This revised edition includes a New Intergalactic Introduction by the Author. Mary Daly's New Intergalactic Introduction explores her process as a Crafty Pirate on the Journey of Writing Gyn/Ecology and reveals the autobiographical context of this "Thunderbolt of Rage" that she first hurled against the patriarchs in 1979 and no hurls again in the Re-Surging Movement of Radical Feminism in the Be-Dazzling Nineties.

"--David Dickson, New York Times Book Review "The Whale and the Reactor is the philosopher's equivalent of superb public history.

Motherhood Reconceived reveals the emphasis on motherhood that lies at the heart of modern feminism: as both a utopian frontier for countercultural ideals and a metaphorical cement for a fragmented women's movement.