Themes of gender have been relatively absent in Polish ethnography and ethnology, despite the fact that from the very beginning the discipline enticed many women. Of the first generation of ...researchers, only Regina Lilientalowa in her studies of Jewish folklore reflected on gender issues. Later it was Maria Czaplicka and Józef Obrębski, who were more concerned with these problems on a theoretical level – both were influenced by the British social anthropology with its sociological bias, while Polish ethnography focused mostly on material culture and folklore, thus gender problems were unimportant. After the Second World War women occupied many important positions in academic ethnography, but this did not mean a more gendered perspective, which can be explained by the theoretical weakness of Polish ethnography at the time and the specificity of Polish emancipation, which was rather practised than reflected upon. It is only recently that young researchers focus on the problems of gender and sexuality, often inventing original ideas and theories. Unfortunately, mainstream Polish ethnology is still to some extent gender blind.
This is a fascinating book, almost impossible to put down. It explores how the contemporary contradiction generated by post-feminist rhetoric is both produced and partially resolved through the ...marketing and practice of Ann Summers parties. These parties play with the dynamic of useless men and liberated women, offering sex toys as the solution to the power gap; they promote hegemonic masculinity as inevitable whilst ridiculing it at the same time. This book shows that sex toys are symbolically central to current power formations in gender and class relations. I can guarantee that you will learn a lot from this book. (Professor Beverley Skeggs, Department of Sociology, University of Manchester) Meticulously researched, and written with great verve and style, Latex and Lingerie makes a major contribution to our understanding of heterosexual femininities. It shows how being ‘one of the girls’ is constructed around manifold exclusions of class, sexuality, ‘race’ and ethnicity, and how the ‘fun’ on offer in Anne Summers parties is of a distinctly post-feminist variety. Storr has fashioned a highly original analysis of female homosociality that takes both its pleasures and its problems seriously. This is an extremely important book that is destined to become a classic in the fields of gender, sexuality and cultural studies. (Rosalind Gill, Gender Institute, London School of Economics)
PDF
