Feminizing Venereal Disease

Know about the book -

Feminizing Venereal Disease is written by Mary Spongberg and published by NYU Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0814780822 (ISBN 10) and 9780814780824 (ISBN 13).

Feminizing Venereal Disease traces the medicalization of the prostitute as a symbolic source of social disease - the ordinary sick body - of Victorian England. In doing so it presents a forceful argument about the gendering of nineteenth-century medicine, drawing out the inter-relationship between concepts of femininity, public health regulations and the state. A fascinating example of how history can enlighten contemporary discourse, the book concludes with a compelling discussion of the impact of Victorian notions of the body on current discussions of HIV/AIDS, arguing convincingly that AIDS, like syphilis in the nineteenth century, has become a feminized disease.