Sex and the Married Girl

This book examines how embodied, heterosexual, married sexual experiences were constructed for, and by, Canadian women in the postwar era.

Heather Stanley is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Lethbridge.

"If you believe in the sentimentalized myths and idealizations of 1950s wives and mothers, be forewarned: this book challenges, dissects, and explodes these stereotypes. This book is an outstanding contribution to Canadian gender and sexuality scholarship, with an original and welcome focus on Western Canada and on rural women."

Jane Nicholas, Associate Professor of History and Sexuality, Marriage, and Family Studies, University of Waterloo:

"In this clear and compelling book, Heather Stanley strips away the stereotype of the 1950s housewife to reveal the medical and religious discourses that shaped and reshaped postwar white, married, middle-class women’s bodies. Covering a range of subjects from psychoanalysis and birth control to religious marriage manuals and motherhood, Stanley contributes significantly to our understanding of post–World War II heterosexual marriage and the female body."