Elevate Difference

Reviews by Gwen Emmons

Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas

Of the many things I accomplished in high school, “leading a political uprising” was suspiciously absent. Yet around the world, teenage girls are organizing their own social revolutions, a trend largely undocumented and unanalyzed before Jessica Taft’s Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas.

Misframing Men: The Politics of Contemporary Masculinities

The media’s obsession with the “crisis” of masculinity has long reached a feverish, cliché-filled pitch. “We’re losing our boys,” one article proclaims. “We must save the males,” says another. It’s unnerving, particularly since that identity crisis is pinned on the advancement of women in formerly male-dominated spheres. There is a masculinity crisis, according to Michael Kimmel’s latest book Misframing Men.

In Our Control: The Complete Guide to Contraceptive Choices for Women

The pill is turning fifty this year, and article upon article is being written trumpeting how hormonal contraception has revolutionized women’s lives. While this is true, perhaps the bigger story is how for many women, the pill is the default contraceptive option – despite potential side effects or inconveniences. Laura Eldridge wants to change that.

American Catfight: Political Wisdom for Women and Other Thoughts Towards Feminine Statecraft in the 21st Century

The biggest obstacle to women, according to Maryann Breschard, is other women. In American Catfight, Breschard posits that even the best-intentioned feminists have, along the way, exploited and undermined other women in their mad dash to power.

Politicking Online: The Transformation of Election Campaign Communications

By now, we are all so familiar with the way the Obama campaign used technology to revolutionize politics that it almost seems cliché. Media coverage of the campaign’s strategy has made it seem as if Obama invented Internet campaigning.

Moral Panics, Sex Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights

The war on drugs. The down low. Rainbow parties. Obamacare death panels. Our society has a crazy way of taking contemporary moral issues and, with a dash of religious fervor and moral superiority and a pinch of media dramatization, blowing them up into large-scale panics.

Success and Solitude: Feminist Organizations Fifty Years After The Feminine Mystique

Much ado has been made over the fact that an increasing number of women do not identify themselves with the feminist movement, but there has been little consensus over why this is so. Why, in an era where girls grow up being told “you can be anything you want to be,” do many women reject affiliation with feminism?

The Rights of Women: The Authoritative ACLU Guide to Women’s Rights

The authors claim at the beginning of this book, “The law now can be used to advance women’s opportunities, rather than restricting them as it did in the past.” Yet for many of us (myself included), the law often seems like a daunting wall instead of a useful tool.

Christotainment: Selling Jesus through Popular Culture

For years now, “Bible-thumping ideology” has clashed with a mainstream popular culture that seems to stand for everything fundamentalist Christians oppose. That is, however, until fundamentalist Christians discovered how they could harness the power of popular culture to sell their own messages of purity, penance, and prayer. This is where Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kincheloe’s anthology Christotainment: Selling Jesus through Popular Culture begins.

The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make A Big Difference

Using organic sunscreen. Buying beer on tap. Opting for eco-friendly hair dye. Simple things that can go a long way towards making a greener planet. That's the philosophy of Jodi Helmer’s book, The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference.
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