An informative, funny, feminist history of the clitoris.
THE SWEETNESS OF VENUS
by Sarah Chadwick
Armin Lear, February 2021
(chez Laura Dail – voir catalogue)
The clitoris is the final taboo in the world of gender equality. For centuries, science thought women were inside-out men, and anxiety about female sexuality framed attitudes and perpetuated inaccurate information. The reality of women’s sexuality was ignored, repressed, or defamed. THE SWEETNESS OF VENUS takes a rigorous romp through science, religion, philosophy, and psychology, to unravel the history of the clitoris, and then uses this context to explore the language, literature, and art around it. Much of the clitoris’s story has been defined by those who discovered and mapped her. However, even after the true anatomy of the clitoris was finally fully mapped with 3D imaging in 2005, it still hardly gets a mention in America’s bestselling teen sex education book for girls, and no mention at all in the parallel book for boys. Equality when it comes to sex has not been achieved, yet.
Sarah Chadwick began writing her first book after a family move from the UK to Chicago in 2016. “I had always wanted to write, but once I had the idea for The Sweetness of Venus it was as if my chequered career came together – my love of reading, teaching, research, studying, libraries, high and low culture and writing seemed to coalesce with this project. While I was excited about the journey to America, I had given up a teaching career and PhD scholarship with the Perdita Project at Warwick University, but as these doors closed, I knew this one had always been ajar so I decided it was time to open it.” Sarah also runs the gritty, feminist @its.personalgirls Instagram page.
In 1932, Roy Chapman Andrews, president of the men-only Explorers Club, boldly stated to hundreds of female students at Barnard College that “women are not adapted to exploration,” and that women and exploration do not mix. He obviously didn’t know a thing about either… THE GIRL EXPLORERS is the inspirational and untold story of the founding of the Society of Women Geographers—an organization of adventurous female world explorers—and how key members served as early advocates for human rights and paved the way for today’s women scientists by scaling mountains, exploring the high seas, flying across the Atlantic, and recording the world through film, sculpture, and literature. Follow in the footsteps of these rebellious women as they travel the globe in search of new species, widen the understanding of hidden cultures, and break records in spades. For these women dared to go where no woman—or man—had gone before, achieving the unthinkable and breaking through barriers to allow future generations to carry on their important and inspiring work. THE GIRL EXPLORERS is an inspiring examination of forgotten women from history, perfect for fans of bestselling narrative history books like The Radium Girls, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, and Rise of the Rocket Girls.