ABSTRACT
If, in general, the sociology of the body is a relatively late arrival on the scene, the sociology of the male body would seem to be even more of a newcomer. Most of the examples treated at any length in Turner’s The Body and Society (1984) deal with women, their bodies, complaints and conditions, and studies of the representation of the female body still clearly outnumber those dealing with the male body. Few of the articles in the three volumes edited by Feher et al. deal specifically with issues of men and male bodies, and the same applies to the comprehensive bibliography in the third volume (Feher et al, 1989). This concentration on women’s bodies is clearly apparent in that area of sociology most directly concerned with bodily matters, the sociology of health and illness. This is not simply a greater representation of issues dealing with women-childbirth, menstruation, eating disorders and so on-but the greater likelihood of a more gendered discussion where women are the subject of the research in question.
