Lifting the Taboo

This work is a study of the sexual politics of death. It explores the specific relationship women of many colours, cultures, ages and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, looks at their attitudes towards loss, and their responses to their role as primary carers to the dying. Aiming to help readers to come to terms with the taboo that surrounds death, it looks in particular at ways in which cultural taboos and sexual politics shape and restrict women's roles and responsibilities around the sick and the dying. It discusses, for instance, Alzheimer's disease and women's roles and responses to AIDS and suicide, as well as the politics of illnesses such as breast cancer. Sally Cline won an Arts Council Writers Award for her work on this book, and is the author of "Women, Celibacy and Passion", "Just Desserts: Women and Food" and "Reflecting Men at Twice Their Natural Size".