Using humor and personal anecdotes, Muscio traces the history of a word that has come to be considered one of the most shocking and vulgar in the English language. The author asserts that cultural fear and hatred of the vagina is the basis of social, political, and economic oppression of women. What do menstruation, abortion, IUD's, and rape all have in common? That anatomy to which the title so indelicately refers, according to Muscio. She envisions what birth control, pregnancy, abortion, and feminine hygiene (a phrase she disparages at some length) would be like if they were designed by and for women. She identifies silence, self-hatred, and inter-female competition as widespread tactics of oppression and concludes that knowing and loving the female body is the ultimate act of social rebellion.
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The review of this Book prepared by Jennifer Martin-Romme
