Lifting the Taboo: Women, Death, and Dying is the first major study of the sexual politics of death in the West. As such, it splits open the silence which both surrounds mortality and shrouds women's relationship to it. Illuminated by a profound yet humorous vision, Lifting the Taboo explores the specific relationship women of many colors, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations have to their own deaths, their attitudes towards loss, and their disposition to their role as primary care-givers to the dying.