the French use of the body as a means of social classification (1740-1800) "created the basis for a divergence in the way the body was experienced that has remained potent into the twentieth century: foreign races, peasants, the poor, and women clung to the traditional perceptions of the body"
"Both peasants and women became examples of defective health. A new concept of the individual, closed body that was intended to be 'healthy,' which corresponded to a concept of nature as fundamentally without defect, made the bodies of peasants and women appear pathological" (16)