Athena to Barbie: Bodies, Archetypes, and Women's Search for Self

Athena to Barbie explores the vexed nature of being a woman. It maps the four corners of impossible choice a female faces because of the female body—her body as spiritual space (Mary), as political space (Athena), as erotic space (Venus), and as materialist space (Barbie). The book tracks the difficulty women face in understanding themselves as someone who has, but is not only, a body. The question of identity is particularly fraught and complicated when it comes to women—because the abilit...