This award-winning study traces the ways in which female bodies were viewed, imagined, and subordinated in the 15th to 17th centuries through historical, literary, and artistic representations. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of “invagination,” the book examines how anatomical and medical explorations of women’s bodies were tied to broader colonial projects—including population growth, wealth production, and the regulation of difference. By analyzing these intertwined discourses of gender, power, and empire, the work offers a critical lens on early modern strategies of control and classification.