FemResThe Living Review
03Current issueThe body

Who gets to define the body?

From discipline and ageing to the internalised gaze, this issue follows the forces that watch, name and reclaim the body.

Cover story
The Substance

In this issue

30 items

Books6

01

Books · Jan 1990

The Beauty Myth

Naomi Wolf

Exposes how beauty standards have become a new tool for controlling women, analyzing the impact of consumer culture on women's bodies and psyche.

02

Books · May 2023

Naked Feminism: Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty

Victoria Bateman

A radical work by Cambridge economist Victoria Bateman, who has appeared naked on TV, stage, art and protests, using body and brain to deliver her message. Questions: Despite feminism's promises, why do women's bodies remain at mercy of state, society and religion? Are sexy and smart mutually exclusive? Traces bodily modesty pendulum from ancient Egypt to present, calling feminists to unite against female body repression.

03

Books · Mar 2023

The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom

Chrissy King

A groundbreaking work from strength coach and social justice educator Chrissy King that blends memoir, inspiration, and practical exercises. The book reveals how diet culture and the fitness industry are rooted in white supremacy and Eurocentric beauty standards, moving beyond body positivity to something more revolutionary: body liberation, recognizing that none of us are free until all of us are.

04

Books · Mar 2023

Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women

Victoria Smith

A sharp work by feminist writer Glosswitch exploring why women in their forties and beyond seem to enrage almost everyone. In an era of identity politics, middle-aged women are portrayed as bigoted, entitled, and morally inferior. Smith traces history to reveal why this specific form of misogyny is so rampant today. Shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Awards.

05

Books · Feb 2024

All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us about Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today

Elizabeth Comen

Memorial Sloan Kettering oncologist and medical historian Dr. Elizabeth Comen unveils the collective medical history of women, exploring how medicine has long misunderstood women's bodies and how these historical oversights continue to affect women's health today.

06

Books · Apr 2022

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves

Laura Erickson-Schroth

This community resource collects trans-authored and trans-centered guidance on health, law, culture, history, family, sexuality, and life course issues.

Films6

01

Films · Sep 2024

The Substance

Coralie Fargeat

A body horror film directed by Coralie Fargeat, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley. Following washed-up actress Elisabeth who, after being fired due to ageism, uses a mysterious drug to create a younger, perfect version of herself. Through extreme body horror aesthetics, the film deeply explores crucial issues including ageism, beauty standards, body politics, female self-hatred, and patriarchal control over women's bodies, becoming a representative work of contemporary feminist horror cinema.

02

Films · Apr 1962

Cléo from 5 to 7

Cléo de 5 à 7Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda's 1962 masterpiece uses real-time filming to depict the psychological journey of a young singer awaiting cancer diagnosis results over two hours, standing as a landmark of both French New Wave and feminist cinema.

03

Films · Oct 2002

Real Women Have Curves

Patricia Cardoso

18-year-old Mexican-American Ana García struggles between her college dreams and traditional family expectations. This groundbreaking independent film explores themes of body autonomy, cultural identity, class mobility, and intergenerational conflict through a Latina lens, becoming a milestone in the body positivity movement and Latina feminist cinema.

04

Films · Sep 2021

Happening

L'ÉvénementAudrey Diwan

Adapted from Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux's autobiographical novel, following a 23-year-old French university student's desperate and dangerous journey seeking abortion in 1960s France when it was illegal. Directed by Audrey Diwan, this award-winning film deeply explores reproductive autonomy, body politics, class inequality, and women's predicament in patriarchal society, becoming a powerful testimony to contemporary women's rights struggles.

05

Films · Sep 2023

Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos

A surrealist fantasy drama directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone. Adapted from Alasdair Gray's novel, it follows the extraordinary evolution journey of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life through brain transplantation in Victorian times. The film explores profound themes of female sexual autonomy, body politics, social liberation, and personal awakening through richly imaginative visual language, becoming a significant representative work of contemporary feminist cinema.

06

Films · Apr 2023

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Kelly Fremon Craig

Adapted from Judy Blume's groundbreaking 1970 novel, follows 11-year-old Margaret Simon as she navigates puberty's physical changes, religious exploration, and identity formation. This warm and honest coming-of-age film explores female adolescent experiences, mother-daughter relationships, religious freedom, and the universality of women's intergenerational experiences through a delicate perspective.

Articles5

01

Articles · Aug 2011

Moving Toward the Ugly

Mia Mingus

Mingus writes from disability justice to critique how beauty, normality, and desirability organize bodily value, proposing a liberatory politics of moving toward the ugly.

02

Articles · Aug 2017

Forced Intimacy: An Ableist Norm

Mia Mingus

Mingus names the structural experience of disabled people being forced to disclose bodies, needs, medical histories, and vulnerability in order to access basic survival.

03

Articles · Feb 2011

Changing the Framework: Disability Justice

Mia Mingus

Mia Mingus explains why social justice movements must move from treating disability as an individual problem or single-issue rights concern toward understanding it as political experience, community history, and a framework for collective liberation.

04

Articles · Nov 2024

Reproductive Rights in the Digital Surveillance Era: When Technology Becomes a Tool of Oppression

Electronic Frontier Foundation & Privacy International

In the post-Roe era, digital privacy has suddenly become a matter of life and death for abortion seekers. Period tracking apps, search histories, and location data can all become evidence for prosecution. This article analyzes how digital surveillance threatens reproductive freedom and how women can protect their digital privacy.

05

Articles · Mar 2024

The US War on Reproductive Rights Should Concern Women Everywhere

Mariam Khan

In the United States, women's reproductive rights are rapidly being eroded. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, nearly 30 states have restricted abortion access. This war on bodily autonomy threatens not just America, but women's rights globally.

Videos4

Podcasts4

01

Podcasts · Mar 2019

Decolonizing Sex

Matika Wilbur, Adrienne Keene, Kim TallBear

This All My Relations episode with Kim TallBear discusses critical polyamory, Indigenous relational ethics, feminism, and settler marriage, making it a key audio resource on how sex, intimacy, and family are structured by colonial power.

02

Podcasts · Sep 2025

The Fat Feminist Witch

Paige Vanderbeck

The Fat Feminist Witch is a feminist spiritual podcast hosted by Paige Vanderbeck, centered on fat advocacy, witch practice, and cultural critique, exploring the intersection of body politics and modern witchcraft. With a humorous, frank, and critical style, the content covers witchcraft history, feminist magic, religious critique, and cannabis culture.

03

Podcasts · Sep 2025

Feminist Wellness

Victoria Albina

Feminist Wellness is a podcast hosted by nervous system specialist and life coach Victoria Albina, dedicated to helping women break free from emotional outsourcing, build self-worth, and establish authentic self-care. The show blends feminist psychology, holistic medicine, and neuroscience, exploring how to break people-pleasing patterns, functional freeze, and other adaptive patterns. Victoria provides practical body exercises and cognitive frameworks to help listeners rebuild connections with themselves. The podcast style is warm yet sharp, suitable for women audiences seeking psychological growth and emotional recovery.

04

Podcasts · Sep 2025

Masala Podcast: The South Asian feminist podcast

Sangeeta Pillai / Soul Sutras

Masala Podcast is hosted by Sangeeta Pillai, an award-winning South Asian feminist podcast focusing on sex, body, mental health, and cultural taboos. The show features intimate narrative and critical reflection, exploring themes of shame, sexual harassment, menopause, belonging, and motherhood pressure, emphasizing diverse experiences of South Asian women and intersectional feminist perspectives.

Papers5

01

Papers · Oct 1975

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Laura Mulvey

In this seminal essay, Laura Mulvey introduces psychoanalytic theory to film criticism, coining the concept of the 'Male Gaze' to reveal how classical Hollywood cinema constructs images of women around male visual pleasure.

02

Papers · Jan 1980

Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality

Iris Marion Young

This groundbreaking 1980 essay analyzes the particularity of feminine bodily experience through a phenomenological lens. Young combines Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body with de Beauvoir's existentialist feminism to explore how patriarchal society shapes women's bodily comportment, movement patterns, and spatial perception, revealing how gendered bodily experience limits women's agency and self-realization.

03

Papers · Jan 2005

Feminist Disability Studies

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Garland-Thomson maps feminist disability studies as a field, showing how disability reshapes feminist questions about bodies, staring, normalcy, dependency, and public life.

04

Papers · Jul 2017

Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism

Loretta J. Ross

Loretta J. Ross situates reproductive justice in women of color organizing, showing how it connects bodily autonomy, parenting, community safety, human rights, and structural inequality.

05

Papers · Jun 1989

Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability

Susan Wendell

Wendell's classic article places disability inside feminist philosophy and medical ethics, critiquing how medical authority, bodily norms, and social environments produce disabled experience.