Considers the social and political ideologies that affected the design of illustrations of the female body in English Renaissance medical manuals. Through a semiotic analysis, we examine medical illustrations explicitly tied to female bodies-anatomical illustrations of female genitalia, a clitorectomy and a hymenectomy-to show that the ways in which a body or surgical procedure was visually represented served to create the "other". We learn, by extension, how social and political ideologies affect the decision-making of modern-day technical communicators.

The inclusion of a course in gender issues in a technical communication curriculum affords students the opportunity to confront objectivist and rationalist paradigms still found in the discourse of technical communication. The theoretical and practical foundations of a course that examines feminist inquiry into the production and dissemination of knowledge, as well as the language practices associated with professional writing and communication, are discussed. Issues of gender roles within organizational collaborative work groups, as well as issues related to gendered assumptions in science and technology, are also integral parts of the course design. A description of objectives, assignments, and tests for the course, as well as a full syllabus, are included.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>