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Immaculate Forms: Uncovering the History of Women's Bodies
448 pages, Paperback
Published June 5, 2025
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20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 14, 2025
An alternative title for this book could easily be ‘A history of men’s opinions on women’s bodies’, which I wouldn’t have been that enthusiastic about reading.
Maybe it was wishful thinking to expect that this book would make me feel more positive about being a woman despite it being an uncomfortable experience at times… Well I kinda forgot that women’s opinions weren’t valued back in the day…
Therefore, this book doesn’t feel empowering at all to me, which made me sad :( it also makes men look really bad lol but I know they were trying (?)
It was very interesting, but there’s only so much you can read about men touching everyone to ‘figure things out’ and still not figuring anything out.
Maybe it was wishful thinking to expect that this book would make me feel more positive about being a woman despite it being an uncomfortable experience at times… Well I kinda forgot that women’s opinions weren’t valued back in the day…
Therefore, this book doesn’t feel empowering at all to me, which made me sad :( it also makes men look really bad lol but I know they were trying (?)
It was very interesting, but there’s only so much you can read about men touching everyone to ‘figure things out’ and still not figuring anything out.
September 25, 2025
a fantastic and exciting read. I was hooked on this fairly early on and having just read the conclusion, an pleased to say it carries right til the last word.
brilliantly written. a good, long look at religion and science and history in relation to the female form. segmented into its various parts the author deep dives into the language and symbolism used in relation to women's bodies.
it also does a good, albeit brief, look into trans bodies.
highly recommended reading for anyone interested in this topic.
brilliantly written. a good, long look at religion and science and history in relation to the female form. segmented into its various parts the author deep dives into the language and symbolism used in relation to women's bodies.
it also does a good, albeit brief, look into trans bodies.
highly recommended reading for anyone interested in this topic.
July 26, 2025
Listened to. Which brings me to my first comment. Helen King has a really lovely voice with a chuckle in it. Hard to describe if you've not heard it. The reading of this is good, but I'd have so much preferred Helen's voice because I know--having heard her talk--that the book would have been delivered with an undercurrent of humour. Instead it comes over as deadly serious. This isn't bad, but Helen would have been better.
--
Just really interesting as King explores the different ways in which parts of women's bodies have been isolated, imagined, treated, exploited, abhorred* and loved. The book comes up right to the present and is, thank heavens, trans-supportive. One never knows how old friends and acquaintances will have responded (I've lost two good friends to the GC cult).
Two small niggles:
1) King is a Christian. This affects the early parts of the book because in her descriptions of early Christian ideas of Mary, she never once links it to the stories of pregnancy in the Greek Pantheon in which immaculate/godly fertilisation is a thing, as is male pregancy. This Jewish is always a bit weirded out by the Greekness of Christianity.
2)In her discussion of the team who worked on the first test tube baby she only mentions the men. Steptoe and Edwards themselves worked hard to push back on the erasure of Jean Purdy.
But niggles. Otherwise a highly recommended read.
*Hard to escape the thought that certain male writers were gay, trapped in compulsory heterosexuality.
--
Just really interesting as King explores the different ways in which parts of women's bodies have been isolated, imagined, treated, exploited, abhorred* and loved. The book comes up right to the present and is, thank heavens, trans-supportive. One never knows how old friends and acquaintances will have responded (I've lost two good friends to the GC cult).
Two small niggles:
1) King is a Christian. This affects the early parts of the book because in her descriptions of early Christian ideas of Mary, she never once links it to the stories of pregnancy in the Greek Pantheon in which immaculate/godly fertilisation is a thing, as is male pregancy. This Jewish is always a bit weirded out by the Greekness of Christianity.
2)In her discussion of the team who worked on the first test tube baby she only mentions the men. Steptoe and Edwards themselves worked hard to push back on the erasure of Jean Purdy.
But niggles. Otherwise a highly recommended read.
*Hard to escape the thought that certain male writers were gay, trapped in compulsory heterosexuality.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews