Gender, Body, and Medicine is a collection of nine theses on the genderized concepts of body and medicalization. Although these theses were presented in the Symposium on the History of Health and Beauty and in workshops by the Research Group on the History of Health and Healing a few years ago, their penetrating observations on the body are still very instructive to those in relevant fields. For example, how do people act when the concepts of body are changing? People rarely transform themselves passively. A new model of the body is established through active practice, as David Harvey explained, saying "new technologies (hardware, software, organizational forms) have no meaning or value without active users" (2003: 23). Suzuki Noriko and Chien-ming Y u show us women in modern Japan and China how to be enthusiastic participants in "body reform." Noriko's research, "Beauties in the Mirror: Changes in Beauty Consciousness as Seen in Makeup Guidebooks in Edo Japan," is one of the few dissertations not highlighting reproduction in this collection. According to classical aesthetics, Noriko supposes that traditionally Japanese bodies were thought difficult to change and that people paid more attention to self-cultivation. By the end of the eighteenth century, people gave more weight to the body's appearance than to self-cultivation. At the same time, inexpensive and portable mirrors for commoners helped to intensify the concept of transforming the body. People stressed the body only from face to torso; thus, cosmetics and medicines were regarded as tools to reshape bodies. As education became widespread and job opportunities increased in cities, women could afford more tools to reform their bodies purposely.
