For health and beauty
Subtitle: physical culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s-1930s
By: Mary Lynn Stewart
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 274
Subjects: Women -- France -- History; Women -- France -- Physiology; Women -- Health and hygiene -- France; Body, Human -- Social aspects -- France -- History; Beauty culture -- France -- History; Physical education and training -- France -- History
Description: "In For Health and Beauty, Stewart reviews the new scientific and medical attention to women's bodies during the Third Republic and traces the growing emphasis on women's private hygiene as the basis for public hygiene.

She then examines compulsory education in hygiene and gymnastics, the flourishing genre of women's medical and sexual self-help literature, and the commercialization of health, beauty, and fitness products - all contributing to new scientific and commercial representations of the female body.

In both the scientific and popular works including women's autobiographical writings, bodily ideals changed from rounded, plump figures to straighter, slimmer contours, and from relatively immobile to relatively active bodies."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index