multiculturalism

Fatherhood 4.0: iDad Applications Across Cultures

annette — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

From the outset, I was behind author Dalton Higgins’ endeavor in Fatherhood 4.0: iDad Applications Across Cultures. As an African-Canadian of Jamaican decent, Higgins writes to and for dads like him—multicultural, technologically and culturally current thirty-somethings figuring out how to parent in their contemporary Canadian society. And wouldn’t you know it, apparently he has quite the audience to speak to. Citing numerous Statistics Canada numbers, Higgins makes a case for Canada’s new generation of dads—racially and ethnically diverse, many being partners in mixed marriage couplings, and hardly any (just seventeen percent in 2006) mirroring the nuclear family image. He also notes an upswing in fathers taking advantage of the nationally available five weeks paternity leave, as well as an increase in stay-at-home dads. Alongside these paternal shifts, Higgins is hyper-aware of and interested in the role Internet, smartphones, and pop culture saturation has on influencing twenty-first century fatherhood.

But, this is not a self-help or how-to book. It is much more about voice and self-representation. Largely a patchwork of Higgins’ own writings on parenting within the black community, from hip-hop to absent fathers, as well as an incorporation of his interviews with Canadian public figures on their being fathers, Fatherhood 4.0 attempts a lot. Towards the book’s end, there are also quite a few essays on fatherhood trends within Canada’s indigenous population; a transgender man’s experience getting pregnant, and more musings on seeking (positive) representations of fathers of color in the media. However, despite a lot of the book’s promise, I found much to be desired.

As a writer, I felt that Higgins was too casual in language and analysis of his subject matter. Yes, I understand that he is a blogger, a pop culture/hip hop expert, and supportive of using contemporary slang and lingo to reach the younger generation of fathers he is targeting… but still. You can talk about Snoop Dogg and tweeting and fatherhood, and still do so at an authoritative and exploratory level. The splices of Higgins’ segments throughout repeated much of the same kitschy popular references, statistics, and general themes without ever developing any of them—at least to my satisfaction. And although Higgins interviews showcase stories from a diverse range of “media-savvy, multi-culti dads,” they all read rather stale. To be fair, I know very little about contemporary Canadian culture, and had to Google all of his interviewees, save for Broken Social Scene’s Charles Spearin. This, I am sure, considerably affected my lack of engagement with each man’s narrative. But, I also think that as an interviewer and framer, Higgins could have delved deeper. Although there were narrative similarities, I struggled to latch onto the unique aspects of each father’s circumstances in light of being a person of color, technologically inclined, or both.

My two favorite contributions were sandwiched at the book’s end—a segment written by Dr. Jessica Ball, entitled “Fathering in the Shadows: Indigenous Fathers and Canada’s Colonial Legacies” and excerpts from trans father Syrus Marcus Ware’s “Boldly Going Where Few Men Have Gone Before.” Although brief segments, I found myself most engaged here, as both not only presented fatherhood narratives foreign to me, but also followed through in their presentation as informative sources.

Overall, the book’s organization was off-putting, as I could never really understand Higgins’ intention. At one moment seemingly focused on various contemporary efforts to promote fatherhood within the black community, and another addressing technology and culture, this book lacks focus—and unfortunately, the multi-faceted narratives, and all that could be discussed, suffer from it.

Written by: Alison Veith, February 20th 2011

You Have Given Me a Country

caitlin — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Neela Vaswani

Sarabande Books

At the beginning of You Have Given Me a Country, author Neela Vaswani writes, “What follows is real, and imagined.” Thus begins Vaswani's memoir, a dreamy collection of reflections on her family's multiracial, multinational history.

Ashok Vaswani, Neela's father, was born in Sindh (now a province of Pakistan) before the cataclysm of Partition. As a toddler, Ashok fled with his family to the new state of India, where his father found a job as a traveling railroad physician. Later, Ashok traveled to the US to practice medicine and to leave behind a tense postwar economy and a family that had fractured under the pressure of exile. “To my father, nationality was fickle, unreliable,” writes Neela. “My father said, 'Homeland is in the body,' and 'Land is in the blood.'”

Neela's mother, Sheila Vaswani (nee Kent), was born an Irish Catholic American to a family that could beat up and then forgive an uncle who had molested another relative, but that could never accept a gay cousin. Sheila remained a lifelong Catholic, sitting stone-faced at church with her mixed-race daughter, forevermore denied the privilege of communion for having married outside her faith. It was Sheila who castigated Neela's father's colleagues for calling him Frank: “It's not hard. Ashok. Rhymes with Coke.”

The book is told in a loosely chronological series of vignettes and family stories. On the whole, You Have Given Me a Country is told through Neela's eyes, but it is not Neela's story. Although we learn the journeys, prides, and sorrows of Ashok and Sheila, we catch only glimpses of Neela: a nosebleed here, a day in preschool there, and then, at the end, the preparations for her wedding, to a man whom we never really meet. What we do learn about Neela, though, is that she has consistently watched and loved each of her parents, seeing the complexity, the isolation, the miracle of their lives together, creating one tiny space where, as Neela writes, “difference was a way of life. A constant negotiation of respect, ignorance, new understanding... What was not accepted by society was real and lived by me and mine. Love, the great border crosser. No passport required.”

By deliberately framing her story as a “mixed-genre memoir” (which is to say a lived history, but one that refuses to claim perfect allegiance to fact), Vaswani makes a contribution to the contemporary debate about trauma, memory, and narrative. By refusing to promise truth, Vaswani protects her story against anyone, be it relative or critic, who would wish to discredit its accuracy. At the same time, she carves out space to tell as much truth as she wants while still protecting her family's privacy; readers are bound to remember that each story she tells could be a fabrication, after all. (It should be noted that Vaswani is not the first author to take this approach: Audre Lorde's “biomythography” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name comes to mind.)

Critics sometimes have a point when they complain about the accuracy or objectivity of memoirs. However, sometimes these complaints are merely cleverly—and perhaps unconsciously—disguised ruses to silence marginalized stories that are, at best, uncomfortable, and at worst, incriminating. By sidestepping the demand to portray herself as an objective witness, Vaswani shrewdly protects her own story against such attempts to discredit it. Simultaneously, she subtly makes the point that when it comes to narrative, validity and significance stem from something more complicated than mere literal truth.

Vaswani's prose is spare and vivid and her characters richly human. In this series of carefully chosen, effortlessly linked memories, she tells the histories, the romances, and the tragedies of her own family's dance with diaspora, exile, homeland, immigration, identity, and dignity.

Written by: Ri J. Turner, October 20th 2010

Beauty

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Raphael Selbourne

Tindal Street Press

Beauty is the outstanding first novel of British author Raphael Selbourne, winner of the prestigious 2009 Costa First Novel Award (formerly known as the Whitbread Literary Awards). The novel’s plot is seemingly predictable–an illiterate girl runs away from an abusive home where she had been forced to marry a much older mullah (religious man) at the age of fourteen. However, Selbourne’s pen transforms the story into an insightful glimpse into British-style multiculturalism and immigration, from the point of view of a young woman. Beauty Begum’s tragic tale is one of a young immigrant woman doubly alienated by her family and her environment.

Beauty's timely publication in 2009 is worthy of note, given the paranoia and terror surrounding the tragic London bombings in 2005 and the overt racial profiling that has been ongoing in the Western world. Writer and filmmaker Hanif Kureishi (himself a Whitbread prizewinner) had previously focused in on the immigrant experience and depicted the struggles of Muslim immigrant families in Britain in his screenplays for My Beautiful Laundrette and My Son the Fanatic, for example. Selbourne’s novel can be seen as a valuable continuation of these themes.

Although Beauty never directly addresses the reasons and context for the racism it exposes, it presents us with diverse xenophobic scenarios that are all equally deserving of consideration. It also brings to light the very complex circumstances of women immigrants, domestic abuse, and the everyday struggle of women who are caught between lived tradition and modernity. The author, previously a student of Islamic Studies, is clearly knowledgeable about the topic, a fact that counteracts any reservations we might have about the author’s being just another patriarchal gaze on the “subordinate.”

Selbourne’s secondary characters are rich in detail and complexity. From Mark, the gruff bloke who takes Beauty into his dog-infested home, to Peter, the newly single, perverted neighbor who fantasizes about seducing her, all the characters are cleverly constructed. However, Selbourne’s tour de force lies in his depiction of the feminine psyche. Beauty is very much a convincing female character, of the depth and quality that I had previously only encountered in Roddy Doyle’s Paula Spencer from The Woman Who Walked into Doors. The writer’s sensitivity is key to developing a plausible protagonist.

Raphael Selbourne establishes himself in the proud tradition of English-language writers who manage to paint realistic and tender portraits of specific social groups. Having lived in West Midlands teaching English, he captures the much-ridiculed West Midlands accent in his writing in the same way Roddy Doyle captured the Irish brogue in his novels. Selbourne’s Bangladesh-born Beauty speaks a drawl that is perfectly representative of the West Midlands (UK) setting of the novel. Furthermore, the author scatters Bengali terms in the novel, such as Beauty’s interjections, or explanations for her reactions, thoughts, or actions. Admittedly, Beauty is occasionally an exercise in reading; one must decipher, literally, the spoken language that the author has committed to the page. However, do not let this dissuade you from reading this engaging and thoughtful novel.

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, June 27th 2010

Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:01:00 +0000

By Emma Tarlo

Berg Publishers

In her new book, entitled Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, Emma Tarlo captures the diversity in the way that Islam is practiced against the backdrop of multicultural Britain. Refreshingly, the book did not aim to answer whether or not covering was a part of Islam, and neither did it represent the views of Muslim women as a monolithic body.

In her book, Tarlo shows a snapshot of the way in which the veil has manifested itself within the Muslim population of Britain. In focusing on the way that different Muslim women struggle to find common ground between various identities, and the reactions of those around them, Tarlo looks at the veil as a part of the changing dynamics of members of a newer community, rather than an exposé that aims to penetrate the “secret world of Muslim women.”

Within the book, Tarlo moves from discussing high-profile Muslim women, to fashion, the hijab as a part of politics, and the fluid relationship between culture and religion. She does not gloss over the difficulties in finding a bridge between identities. When I saw the words “fashion” and “veil” together, I was worried that I would be confronted with a piece that would merely wax poetic about the intricate embroidery of hijab and the wonderful colors and trends that are starting to rival the Western fashion industry. Tarlo does depict changing fashions for Muslim women, but rather as a part of personal journeys. Furthermore, she analyzes the discourse surrounding the emerging market for “modest fashion.”

The most hard-hitting theme of the book was that of integration. In writing about some of the challenges faced by Muslim women within British communities, I could definitely relate. While Tarlo introduced a great deal of personal narratives from a wide range of women, she also brought into play some of the debate surrounding the hijab within the Muslim community itself. Finding a sense of identity and purpose is a concept which most people–not just Muslims–can relate to.

What was refreshing was that she did not glorify or vilify groups that were more “modern” than others, but simply left the reader to try to understand the realities of grasping for a sense of identity. In showing this theme of integration as a part of juggling different identities, rather than a poisonous and foreign part of society, it forced me to really reflect on how difficult it is for anyone to try to fit in on any level. Rather than trying to promote an “acceptable” level of integration, Tarlo merely provides a picture of the realities of the Muslim community in Britain. This is significant because she does not depict it as a threat, but rather as important debate that shows that the face of Islam is changing and growing, as with many immigrant communities.

What I felt was monumentally missing from Tarlo’s work was the voice of Muslim women who have either been forced to veil or took it off. While she did a great job in showing the diversity of religious views and coming to the veil, I think that in analyzing the world of hijab, it is important to understand why women may reject it entirely. Also, I felt that she could have analyzed the role of socioeconomic status a bit more within the book. While the role of fashion is very significant in trying to understand the identities of Muslim women, I felt that fashion may have a different place and even the hijab itself may play a different role for someone that may not be able to afford the diversity in dress.

Despite being left with these questions, overall I was impressed with the book’s fluid style, beautiful pictures, and honest stories. Furthermore, I enjoyed Tarlo’s dedication to trying to capture not only a snapshot of the Muslim community within Britain, but also in trying to introduce the difficulties within the Islamic community itself. She does not glorify the hijab or Islam, but rather highlights the realities faced by Muslim women.

Cross-posted on Muslimah Media Watch

Written by: Sara Yasin, April 13th 2010

Off and Running

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Nicole Opper

First Run Features

Considering the number of children in need of adoption—and the number of children who are actually adopted each year—it's surprising there aren't more adoption stories being told. Aside from The Locator, we've had especially limited access to stories about adopted children reaching out to their birth parents. The delicate, vulnerable position of someone sending a letter out into the world, waiting and hoping to hear back about where they come from, is still a bit of a mystery, and more than worthwhile. In fact, I knew little about it until my own adopted mother finally reached out to her birth parents at age fifty-six.

Not only is that seminal search a matter of discovering identity for the adoptee; it is, potentially, a matter of deep-seated tension between the child and her adoptive parents. My mother actually waited until both of my grandparents had passed before seeking her own answers, to avoid the risk of hurting them.

Nicole Opper's Off and Running provides a candid, thoughtful portrait of such a situation in all its complexities. The documentary follows Avery Klein-Cloud, a charismatic star high school athlete from Brooklyn, who attempts to continue living the life she and her adoptive parents carved out for her while waiting on correspondence from her birth mother. The fact that Avery is trans-racially adopted—the African American daughter to two White Jewish mothers—makes her quest for identity that much more significant.

At the beginning of the film, Avery frankly admits her persistent discomfort in Black social spheres growing up, and later, when a counselor asks, “Do you feel Black?,” Avery says she doesn't know what that means. Her brother Rafi, also adopted but of mixed race, provides an interesting contrast; not only does he seem to have little interest in contacting his birth parents, but he seems entirely unconcerned with his origins. At the very least, he doesn't seem as dependent on where he came from for a sense of self.

Still, Avery's bravery in her search for answers is admirable, and considering how obviously torn she is about her particular situation, she is incredibly forthcoming and self-aware. We get an unexpected amount of access to her private thoughts and feelings about what she's going through, often things that she doesn't even share with her mothers. But as the tension in the Klein-Cloud household escalates, Opper seems to pull back and even gloss over certain pivotal incidents, like a falling out between Avery and her parents that results in her moving out for a period. Opper barely addresses an abortion Avery decides to get when an unwanted pregnancy threatens to impede her track career. In fact, this part of the story is so glossed over that I wasn't entirely sure that it happened.

In the end, Avery's coming of age—and to terms with the fact that she may never meet her birth mother—feels undeserved though still inspiring. Perhaps the fact that Opper has a personal relationship with the family (she was one of Avery's teachers in middle school) can account for her trepidation in handling such sensitive issues. But her reluctance does take away from the moral lesson of the film: that adopted children need to stand by those who've cared for them and showed them support every step of the way, which, in this case, is Avery's unconventional but extraordinary family.

Written by: Caitlin Graham, March 30th 2010

Off and Running

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Directed by Nicole Opper

First Run Features

Off and Running is a very non-traditional coming-of-age story told in a way that deftly conveys one young woman’s unique situation as well as more universal themes. Filmmaker Nicole Opper was afforded intimate access to her subjects, which enabled her to invite the viewer to take a sensitive and warm perspective as the events unfold.

The film’s central subject, a high school track star named Avery Klein-Cloud, is honest and likable. Her story, though specifically about interracial and intercultural adoption, asks questions that many young adults often don’t dare ask aloud. Avery introduces us to her family of white Jewish lesbian mothers and adopted brothers from multi-racial backgrounds during the Jewish festival of Chanukah. At the start of the film, she speaks very matter-of-factly about her decision to attempt to contact her birth mother during her junior year of high school. The significance of this year will be clear to those who have attended school in the U.S.—this is the year that standardized tests and sports results can affect college choices and scholarship options— not a year to be taken lightly. Avery begins to feel the strain, yet perseveres in her quest to find out more about her biological family and reconcile this aspect of her identity with her, at first, seemingly incongruous upbringing.

Along the way, we get to know her adoptive mothers and adopted siblings who all share a similar ‘tell it like it is’ vibe when speaking about serious issues with warmth and humour. Avery meets her old friends from her Jewish elementary school in scenes that further contextualise her upbringing. Filmed chats with another adopted young woman of colour raised by Jewish parents are natural and open—inviting the viewer in and allowing us to experience something we might never have seen otherwise. We also see Avery training for and competing in track meets supported by her long-term boyfriend, and getting to know African American culture with a group of high school friends. She is truly a professional and takes her sport seriously.

What makes this story all the more poignant is that her desire for more contact with her birth mother thwarts her progress in athletics and is detrimental to her relationships within her family. Although there are unexpected developments in this story, Opper maintains a strong, real narrative that shows a complete picture of the desires and feelings on all sides in this family. Opper’s choice to conclude the story the following autumn during the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah is culturally and narratively satisfying.

I found myself empathizing with everyone, which is a testament to the director’s craft. Each of Avery’s brothers shares opinions about her quest, and though one brother is a Princeton freshman and the other is a second-grader, Opper affords them equal screen time in well-framed sequences. Avery’s mothers receive the same fair treatment, and disagreements on screen never feel voyeuristic or melodramatic. There are many television shows aiming for this level of intimacy and family drama. All pale in comparison to Off and Running. Opper has done a great service to this genre, allowing me to reinvest in it as an audience member.

The film looks good as well—kudos to director of photography Jacob Akira Okada and editor Cheree Dillon. Thankfully, there is no voice-over narration, or even excessive exposition: occasional captions show the passage of time. A sympathetic and unobtrusive soundtrack by Daniel Bernard Roumain gives the film even greater depth. Home movie footage and a few still photos provided by this very honest and dignified family round out the story visually.

Feminist? Yes. This is a true story about a young, Jewish, African-American woman who knows her own mind, stands by her decisions, and learns from her mistakes. Unusually, but very successfully, Avery Klein-Cloud co-wrote the film and has actively supported the production process. I’m sure others who see this original documentary will join me in routing for Avery’s and the film’s continued success.

Written by: Chella Quint, February 16th 2010

Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:34:00 +0000

By Suzanne Kamata

Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing

Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering is a collection of essays by twenty different women who are all raising children in a multicultural environment. The children in this book mainly fall into three categories: they are of mixed racial heritage, they are being raised in a country to which their parents have immigrated, or they have been adopted by parents from another culture. Being multiracial myself and having been raised in an army town where interracial relationships, foreign mothers, and multiracial children are fairly common, I was interested to see what Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering had to say.

Overall, I found the stories in the book to be very hit or miss. Some were moving and touched on issues that multicultural families sometimes face. One stand out is “Fade to Brown,” the story of a woman of mixed race who worries how her daughters’ differing skin colors (one is light, the other dark) will affect their relationship with each other and their cultural identity. It’s an insightful story, dealing with real concerns and specific problems that many people of mixed race can relate to.

Other stories in the collection are less on target. For instance, “Dr. Bucket in Bishkek” has nothing to do with raising children in a foreign country or culture. Instead, it is an amusing tale about an English woman’s experiences while being pregnant in Kyrgyzstan. While it makes for a good fish-out-of-water story, the essay has little to do with the central theme of the collection. Many of the stories were also centered more on how the mother was reacting to the family’s environment or circumstance instead of focusing on the children. These stories were more about bad marriages and personal prejudices than about mothers coping with unusual situations.

My main problem with many of these stories is that due to the way they were written, they just did not feel real. Don’t get me wrong—the writing is good, but it’s all very fanciful and poetic, making the work seem more like fiction than a relating of real life events. Instead of flowery prose, I would have preferred straightforward accounts of the obstacles and triumphs these mothers have encountered. In the end, Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering is worth a look for the better stories, but be prepared to have to wade through the bad ones as well.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, April 28th 2009

Lessons in Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in American Schools

admin — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:19:00 +0000

By Erica Frankenberg and Gary Orfeld

University of Virginia Press

This dense volume brings together a wealth of scholarly essays that address the topic of integration in American schools in the early twenty-first century. The book is the fruit of a collaborative research roundtable convened by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Harvard University in 2004.

2004 was also the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka that led to the end of legal segregation in American schools. However, fifty years after Brown the authors of these essays look deeply into what is working, what is not working, and what has been forgotten since the desegregating schools was a serious project. Many of the essays put the focus squarely on the damage wrought by President Bush’s education agenda and No Child Left Behind, particularly the lack of bilingual education and the focus on high stakes testing.

Written by a range of researchers from developmental psychologists to education professors the essays in Lessons in Integration provide a range of scholarship that supports education policy makers and practitioners who are advocating for strategies that value students cultural backgrounds and make schools and classrooms welcoming, safe learning environments for all. Many of the chapters, with their charts, graphs, and formulas, may be overly scientific and dry for the casual reader, but this book will be a valuable resource for those in education studies.

Two of the most compelling essays break out of the scientific style employed by the other authors and focus on case studies. "Desperate to Learn: The Schooling Experience of Latinas in North Carolina" by Maria Teresa Unger Palmer documents the mismatch between secondary schools structure and the needs and expectations of immigrant students. It does so by documenting the experiences of thirteen Latina students over the course of several years. The students’ voices in Palmer’s piece remind readers what the authors of the book aim to do: better serve students from a range of backgrounds and provide quality education for all.

"Preparing Teachers for Multiracial and Underserved Schools" by Christine E. Sleeter focuses on the need to train a more diverse group of teachers and teachers who are prepared for the challenges for the multicultural classroom. She argues that novice teachers must be in training programs that are diverse and that these programs should admit students that want to pursue cross-cultural learning experiences, have maturity to fully consider their students backgrounds and learn from them, and possess academic ability.

Taken together, this volume provides a framework for educators, administrators and researchers to take leadership roles in ensuring that American schools live up to the promise of high-quality, accessible education for all. While much lip-service has been paid to the multicultural vision of America perhaps best represented by the election of President Barack Obama, Lessons in Integration provides strong research of what schools and educators must do to actively serve and support America’s diversity.

Written by: Eleanor Whitney, April 11th 2009

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

admin — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:24:00 +0000

By Rosemarie Tong

Westview Press

Rosemarie Tong’s Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction offers a clear, thorough introduction to feminist theory. With detailed chapters on Liberal Feminism; Radical Feminism; Marxist and Socialist Feminism; Psychoanalytic Feminism; Care-Focused Feminism; Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism; Ecofeminism; and Postmodern and Third Wave Feminism, the book presents even-handed coverage of the major schools of feminist thought.

The chapters are on average thirty to thirty-five pages long. The text is, thus, concise enough to be useful in survey or introductory feminist theory courses. The theoretical origins of each school thought are examined, and each chapter also considers supportive and opposing views in relation to the different ‘branches’ of feminism. As such, the book offers a useful dialogue that not only reveals the important contributions of these different feminisms (and the key thinkers from each branch), but also scrutinizes the unexamined assumptions and biases in each approach.

While portions of the book are dry and a bit tedious to wade through, this is understandable given the wide-ranging coverage and the textbook type format. It would be difficult for any author, even one as obviously well-versed in feminist theory as Tong, to share a history of feminist thought that didn’t sometimes tend towards an encyclopedic style. Moreover, even though the coverage of primary sources becomes wearisome at times (especially for readers already well versed in feminist theory), the comprehensive approach that considers the strengths and weaknesses of each theoretical branch is well worth wading through (and particularly useful for those new to feminist theory).

One area that seems missing in this revised addition is a consideration of transnational feminism. An overview of this branch, especially considering its current importance to the field, would have improved the chapter entitled “Multicultural, Global, and Postcolonial Feminism.” Another missing area of feminist thought is sexuality studies and queer theory. Given the explosive growth of these branches of thought, this seems an odd omission. However, in spite of these absences, the book is certainly a very useful introduction to feminist thought. In addition to being useful for survey courses in feminist theory, the book also serves as a great reference text to have on hand, especially given the excellent bibliography.

Written by: Professor What If, October 21st 2008