Tits up : what sex workers, milk bankers, plastic surgeons, bra designers, and witches tell us about breasts /
After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed. What had she lost? And gained? An experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cul...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
W. W. Norton & Company,
[2024].
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | After years of biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed. What had she lost? And gained? An experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance of breasts. Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to the operating room, from the nation's oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models and "free the nipple" activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women's chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender and desire. Everywhere she turns, Thornton encounters chauvinistic myths about this elemental body part that quietly justify deficits in women's bodily autonomy and endorse shortfalls in their political status. Blending sociology, reportage and personal narrative with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition, to liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice. |
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| Physical Description: | 321 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0393881024 9780393881028 |