The Once and Future Sex
Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society
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The Once and Future Sex
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Narrated by:
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Samara Naeymi
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By:
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Eleanor Janega
About this listen
A vibrant and illuminating exploration of medieval thinking on women's beauty, sexuality, and behavior.
What makes for the ideal woman? How should she look, love, and be? In this high-spirited history, medievalist Eleanor Janega turns to the Middle Ages, the era that bridged the ancient world and modern society, to unfurl its suppositions about women and reveal what's shifted over time—and what hasn't.
Enshrined medieval thinkers, almost always male, subscribed to a blend of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and Christian theology for their concepts of the sexes. For the height of female attractiveness, they chose the mythical Helen of Troy, whose imagined pear shape, small breasts, and golden hair served as beauty's epitome. Casting Eve's shadow over medieval women, they derided them as oversexed sinners, inherently lustful, insatiable, and weak. And, unless a nun, a woman was to be the embodiment of perfect motherhood.
In The Once and Future Sex, Janega unravels the restricting expectations on medieval women and the ones on women today. She boldly questions why, if our ideas of women have changed drastically over time, we cannot reimagine them now to create a more equitable future.
©2023 Eleanor Janega (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about The Once and Future Sex
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 18-01-24
Books like this make me love history
I love Eleanor Janega in everything I can find from her. I love the way she writes about the past. It feels accessible and … well like real people in the past. 10/10. Also the voice artist did an amazing job.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-06-24
Makes history so accessible
I enjoyed the colloquial style of the book. It was really fun and easy to listen to. I liked that it looked at church, state, science (or natural philosophy as the medieval person understood it) and kept circling back to the lived experiences of the peasantry.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-09-23
History done right
It’s rare to find a book that’s so enjoyable and hugely enlightening in equal amount. It’s also not everyday that you find a history book that so deftly lines up contemporary issues with their historical counterparts and draws such a neat line between the two. I would have loved the book to be narrated by the author; the narrator does a fantastic job, but Dr Janega is such a wonderful orator that it seems like a waste. That being said, her voice shines through in the text nonetheless.
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2 people found this helpful