Title: Feminizing venereal disease
First published: 1996
Description: 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.
Subjects: Sexually transmitted diseases, Health and hygiene, Prostitutes, Prostitution, History, Feminism, Women, health and hygiene, Women, sexual behavior
Places: History
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: RC201.47