Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul

by Patricia Foster (Editor)

Twenty intensely personal essays on physical and emotional self-image by women writers from a wide range of ages, races, and conformity.
Table of Contents
"Reading" the body: an introduction / Patricia Foster
A weight that women carry / Sallie Tisdale
The floating lightbulb / Joyce Winer
Mirrors / Lucy Grealy
Coming into the end zone / Doris Grumbach
The female body / Margaret Atwood
Thicker than water / Kathryn Harrison
Beauty tips for the dead / Judith Hooper
First stirrings / Rosemary Bray
Out of habit, I start apologizing / Pam Houston
Department of the interior / Linda Hogan
Beauty and the beast / Connie Porter
Keep them implanted and ignorant / Naomi Wolf
Inside a Moroccan bath / Hanan al-Shaykh
Changes / Janet Burroway
Fighting natural / Lynne Taetzsch
Life-size / Jenefer Shute
Carnal acts / Nancy Mairs
Stiff upper lip / Patricia Stevens
The story of my body / Judith Ortiz Cofer

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, Womens, Gender Studies, Memoir, Short Stories

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book when it came out in paperback in 1995 and read half of it then. I've now read the other half, 20 years later. Believe it or not, I can still remember some of the essays from the first time, so I feel qualified to review this. (Although my mind is genuinely blown to realize I've had the book that long.) Anyway, there's no doubt that most of these essays are interesting and worth reading. However, despite all of them being about the body in one way or another, they're really too disparate to justify being collected into one book. Essays on having breast cancer or MS are right alongside essays about being ambivalent about bleaching your hair or getting an acid peel on your upper lip. Highly literary essays mingle with casually tossed-off pieces that would seem like blog posts if we had had blogs back in 1995. I can't say exactly how an editor can or should achieve unity among a group of essays collected for a book, but if you can't do that, why bother to collect them at all?

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of personal essays, some of which I strongly identified, some I related, some I barely followed. Overall, it was a good read for connecting to the sisterhood, for reflecting on what makes us female, and for accepting that in this world, each of us has a story worthy of being shared and heard.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty intensely personal essays on physical and emotional self-image by women writers from a wide range of ages, races, and conformity.
Table of Contents
"Reading" the body: an introduction / Patricia Foster
A weight that women carry / Sallie Tisdale
The floating lightbulb / Joyce Winer
Mirrors / Lucy Grealy
Coming into the end zone / Doris Grumbach
The female body / Margaret Atwood
Thicker than water / Kathryn Harrison
Beauty tips for the dead / Judith Hooper
First stirrings / Rosemary Bray
Out of habit, I start apologizing / Pam Houston
Department of the interior / Linda Hogan
Beauty and the beast / Connie Porter
Keep them implanted and ignorant / Naomi Wolf
Inside a Moroccan bath / Hanan al-Shaykh
Changes / Janet Burroway
Fighting natural / Lynne Taetzsch
Life-size / Jenefer Shute
Carnal acts / Nancy Mairs
Stiff upper lip / Patricia Stevens
The story of my body / Judith Ortiz Cofer

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this when it first came out and read most of it then. Moving around, college and life pushed it to the back of the shelf for a couple decades. I pulled it out thinking it wouldn't be relevant today, but thought I would read it again. I became very frustrated and angry that many of the same emotions I had then came up now in that in many ways NOTHING HAS CHANGED since the 90's for women. Sadly, this book is just as relevant today and really is worth the read. Yes, a couple of them are kind of "puff" pieces, but otherwise they are from the heart and soul of the continuous struggle women have with themselves and outlying influences. I think I'd like to read it again in another couple decades, but in the meantime I will be passing this on to my nieces in college.

[Elizabeth Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a thrift store. It was good timing as I was (am) thinking a lot about being a woman which is something that I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to and was really needing some direction. When I started this book I honestly had a lot of negative assumptions and figured I’d be rolling my eyes all the way through.
It did take me a few essays to really get into it but I was moved to tears multiple times and even inspired to write a few pieces. 5/5 - 10/10 would recommend and will read again. I’m going to be searching out other titles from the authors.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fancy feminist text, ala 2005.

[Suzanne Gillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating this book was tricky for me. The essays are quite disparate and the order in which they are placed is jarring at times. Some of the essays are exquisite and timeless. Others feel dated and fall flat for me all of these years after their publication. The essays that stood out will stick with me and I will return to them, and so I count this book as a very worthwhile read. As a whole it offers a snapshot of a time when I was coming of age as a much younger woman. Despite my 3 star rating (I was put off by a few of the essays and suspect their authors have evolved with the times and with age as I have evolved as a reader) I do consider this book a very worthwhile read. Most notably it helped me consider how some things change and some things don't as we as women think about our bodies and also how the culture has changed (sadly less than I would have dreamed it would) and how my self reproach about my own body has softened. As I write more, I realize how much I do recommend reading this book even if some of the essays don't stand the test of time.

[Sonakshi Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something about vintage bookstores,
you end up finding books that you wouldnt otherwise find in a normal bookstore.

This book is a collection of essays and personal accounts from different female authors.
Ranging from body dysmorphia to ageing to eating disorders to disability and fertility issues this book talks about it all,
Though written in 1994, when the beauty standards were entirely different from today, this book still holds great relevance
I feel this book has atleast one essay for everyone which they can relate to

Fun fact : one of the essays is written by Margaret Atwood

[Days · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed a lot of these essays, a couple fell flat for me but for the most part they were really great. It was obvious that a lot of these essays were quite dated, but they were still very relevant and bought up a lot of important ideas.

[Jules Simone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this anthology. I loved all stories except the one of the woman with an eating disorder, as it was fiction, and all other stories I believe were autobiographic which I appreciate more. Very moving book!

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75: A handful of the essays in this book spoke to me, however, some seemed a bit out of place/unorganized.

[Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

inspirational

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very mixed bag - most interesting, a few I really did not like, and a few amazing stories ('Department of the Interior' and 'Carnal Acts'.) Rating 2 stars, because I can only recommend some of the stories and the experience of reading cover-to-cover was just okay.

[Joslyn Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What more appropriate way to kick off this year-long adventure than with Patricia Foster's collection "Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul." In this beautiful, decades-old work, twenty women contribute essays on a variety of topics, issues that seem at once universal and yet particular to the female experience. From weight issues, motherhood and fertility, race, and self-esteem, these women share personal anguish and triumph.

As Nancy Mairs writes in her essay "Carnal Acts", "The voice is the creature of the body that produces it." Just so, this collection is full of distinctly female voices sharing thoughts on the bodies that made them. And it is heart wrenching and heart-warming all at once. I feel I can't improve upon the words I've read. I struggle simply to tie a few selections together as I let my mind continue to mull the messages it has received. And so, for now, I take the easy way out, closing this entry with two excerpts from Lucy Grealy's essay "Mirrors".

"On one level I understood that the image of my face was merely that, an image, a surface that was not directly related to any true, deep definition of the self. But I also knew that it is only through image that we experience and make decisions about the everyday world, and I was not always able to gather the strength to prefer the deeper world over the shallower one. I looked for ways to relate the two, to find a bridge that would allow me access to both, anything no matter how tenuous, rather than ride out the constant swings between peace and anguish. The only direction I had to go in to achieve this was simply to strive for a state of awareness and self-honesty that sometimes, to this day, rewards me and sometimes exhausts me."

"I once thought that truth was an eternal, that once you understood something it was with you forever. I know now that this isn't so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things. Society is no help; the images it gives us again and again want us only to believe that we can most be ourselves by looking like someone else, leaving our own faces behind to turn into ghosts that will inevitably resent us and haunt us."

More at chronicbibliophilia.wordpress.com

[Ash Sandstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the essays are heart wrenching, I'd say they were all beautiful in some capacity. Many of them really resonated with me as a Mother. It is notably missing queer and trans voices, but it was also published almost 30 years ago. I think it just barely missed the mark there, but there are essays from many different women, from many perspectives, on many topics. I was brought to tears by multiple of the authors and think it was a wonderful read.

[Tiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked some of the essays and really disliked some others.
Also, most of the writers were in their 50's. I would have liked to read what women of all ages have to say about their bodies, even though it is interesting to hear the perspective of women above 50 as opposed to only hearing the voice of young women

[Lily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this collection. The essays were brief and impersonal. I wanted to know more about the lives of each of the women, I think their reflections on body would have been more meaningful in that context.

[Chelsey Clammer]

so far this is an amazing anthology! wrestling with weight, age, life illness, and the philosophical matter of being a woman are just some of the topics covered. the authors in it are all fabulous...margaret atwood, lucy grealy, and many others. can't wait to finish it!

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely dated/needs to be revised for a modern reader. I wish the contributors embodied a wider range of perspectives; it seemed as though they were many essays from older women and less writing from younger voices and experiences.

[Lauren Bayles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this collection many years ago.
These stories affected me profoundly at the time, led me to read (contributor) Lucy Grealy's "Anatomy of a Face," which is excellent.
I plan to reread, now in my late 50s. I am guessing that different stories will resonate with me.

[Kristi Marshae · Rating 2 out of 5]

as an overall collection it wasn't incredibly memorable, however there were a few wonderful essays that resonated within me.

[Sara Lamers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays by various women.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of the stories in there would get a perfect five, but the overall collection as a whole is not as good.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of essays by great female essayists/writers about their own bodies and various body issues from pregnancy to eating disorders to cancer.

[Stacie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite book club choice, but interesting to hear different womens' opinions on the stories.

[Eriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of essays by a host of women on our minds, bodies, and how we view them. A perfect during the chaos of the holidays.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the stories are breath taking. That sentence sounds obnoxious but honestly I loved the frankness, honesty and reality all of the authors gave. It has a wide verity of experience and views.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved that this was a collection of essays, I could stop at night after each one and reflect.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Sallie Tisdale's essay a lot.

[JoAnna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading this classic after gifting to a former student. The essays are still as powerful to me as they were when I was nineteen.