Feminizing venereal disease

by Mary Spongberg

Feminizing Venereal Disease traces the medicalization of the prostitute as a symbolic source of social disease - the ordinary sick body - of Victorian England. In doing so it presents a forceful argument about the gendering of nineteenth-century medicine, drawing out the inter-relationship between concepts of femininity, public health regulations and the state. A fascinating example of how history can enlighten contemporary discourse, the book concludes with a compelling discussion of the impact of Victorian notions of the body on current discussions of HIV/AIDS, arguing convincingly that AIDS, like syphilis in the nineteenth century, has become a feminized disease.