Butts

Starred review from August 1, 2022
This whip-smart history charts the changing symbolism and meanings associated with the female bottom in “mainstream, hegemonic, Western culture” over the past two centuries. Radiolab reporter Radke delves into the eugenicist underpinnings of Sarah Baartman’s performances as the “Hottentot Venus” in 19th-century London, the giant faux posteriors of Victorian bustles, Jane Fonda’s butt-centered aerobics in the 1970s, the “lineage of butts in mainstream hip-hop,” and the concurrent rise of fashion’s flat “Kate Moss” butt and the Brazilian butt lift in the 1990s, among other milestones in cultural attitudes toward women’s rear ends. Radke also explores the physiology of running and various biological explanations for why humans developed butts, and interweaves recollections on her own early struggles to accept her “generous butt” with details about historical shifts in preferred posterior proportions. Throughout, Radke sharply challenges white women to examine how “women’s butts have been used as a means to create and reinforce racial hierarchies,” describing Miley Cyrus’s twerking “as an almost cartoonish example of cultural appropriation.” Marked by Radke’s vivacious writing, candid self-reflections, and sophisticated cultural analyses, this is an essential study of “ideas and prejudices” about the female body.

September 1, 2022
A thorough uncovering of the symbolism, history, and significance of the female posterior in Western culture. "Women's butts," writes Radke, a contributing editor and reporter at NPR's Radiolab, "have been used as a means to create and reinforce racial hierarchies, as a barometer for the virtues of hard work, and as a measure of sexual desire and availability." Following the introduction, the author divides the book into seven sections and accompanying subsections. The section titled "Sarah" refers to Sarah Baartman, born into the Khoe tribe, in present-day South Africa, in the late 1770s. She was captured and forced to perform as a fetishized specimen ("Hottentot Venus") whose large butt represented a European "fantasy of African hypersexuality." "Norma" was fashioned by American eugenics in 1945 to represent the so-called "normal" American female body: fertile and "native-born white." Having codified a staggering amount of information, the author relays her research coherently, but her language and sentence structures are repetitive, even tedious. Radke's insertion of her own experiences often casts her as an enthusiastic, earnest guide, but in certain sections, it serves only to underscore the often tame nature of her investigation. "The first time someone told me my butt was sexy," she writes, "was in 2003....Since high school, my butt had grown ever larger." To her credit, Radke includes a suitably wide array of sources, from studies suggesting that "hominids may have become bipedal, in part, in order to run" to the classic rap track "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. "From the start," she writes, "the people involved in producing the song and video...interpreted it differently: some found it hilarious, others uncomfortable and objectifying, still others empowering." The author also includes excerpts from her numerous interviews with other relevant cultural figures, such as the creator of the late-1980s, early-'90s fitness phenomenon Buns of Steel. An intermittently informative, surprisingly staid treatment of the subject.

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Starred review from September 23, 2022

In this riveting and fun book, Radke (contributing editor and reporter at WNYC's Radiolab) traces the history and significance of the cultural obsession with butts and considers why the butt has become a unique, and often stigmatized, symbol beyond its function as part of the human body. The book covers the butt's social evolution over the last two centuries, largely focusing on women and Western popular culture and seamlessly balancing many intersections of history, science, and culture that relate to butts, including racism and cultural appropriation, body image, sexuality, and celebrity representation. Radke thoughtfully, and without judgment, addresses the complexities and contradictions that this body part evokes and delves into some surprising topics that may spark further curiosity in readers. Her captivating writing and witty approach to a taboo topic will appeal to a variety of nonfiction readers, particularly those interested in cultural history and gender studies. After reading Radke's book, audiences looking for another pop-culture deep dive might enjoy Kaitlyn Tiffany's Everything I Need I Get From You: How Fangirls Created the Internet as We Know It. VERDICT A fun, fascinating, and surprisingly empowering exploration of the history and cultural significance of the butt.--Kate Bellody

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2022
In this unique, thoroughly researched history of the derri�re, journalist Radke remembers watching her mom get ready in the morning, curling her lashes, "her butt sticking out." Like her mother, she possesses an ample rear end. A former curator at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum in Chicago, she takes a sweeping look at this body part, looking back to Kenya 1.9-million years ago, where the first known hominid roamed on to the Victorian bustle; songs like "Big Ole Butt," "Rump Shaker," "Baby Got Back," and "My Humps"; and the celebrated backsides of Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian. Radke notes that the gluteus maximus is the biggest muscle in the human body and that the butt enables humans to run for long distances without injury and to be able to climb, throw, lift, and squat. As she puts it, "We are humans, you could say, thanks to our butts." Today ample bottoms are celebrated, with women posting "belfies" (selfies of their behinds) and surgeons performing more butt lifts. Radke presents a fascinating look at a sexualized yet underappreciated body part.

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