power

Strip Club: Gender, Power and Sex Work

gwen — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In Strip Club: Gender, Power and Sex Work, sociologist Kim Price-Glynn analyzes the organizational structure of a strip club to explore whose interests strip clubs serve and how. To gain an insider’s perspective, Price-Glynn spent fourteen months working as a cocktail waitress in a strip club. During this time, she observed, analyzed, and interviewed strippers, employees, and patrons.

Price-Glynn seeks to demonstrate that the strip club she researched, like the majority of others in the U.S., is organized in a way that benefits male employees and patrons while socially and economically marginalizing strippers. She weaves her research with sociological and organizational theory, along with other scholarship on sex work, such as Wendy Chapkis’ Live Sex Acts and Katherine Frank’s G-Strings and Sympathy. In an attempt to situate sex work as an occupation that entails intense emotional labor, Price-Glynn also draws heavily on the works of Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild.

Price-Glynn argues that the strip club perpetuates gender inequalities. She distinguishes, however, from a generalized argument that stripping and sex work inherently contribute to gender inequality and posits instead that strippers were marginalized by the organizational structure of the strip club. She notes that there were no women in positions of authority and that employees, who were explicitly told to always supervise the strippers, believed that strippers were never to be trusted, had low self-esteem, and used drugs excessively. In a fascinating portion of the book, Price-Glynn highlights the differences in how strippers and other club employees receive their wages. Employees have fixed wages while strippers receive money solely from tips; they also pay the strip club for their use of the club and are required to tip other employees, like the deejay. This system decreases their profits and creates a paradigm where the strippers appear to depend on the club (even if the club profits solely because they feature strippers).

Price-Glynn highlights the ways in which strippers’ safety is compromised by an intense culture of masculinity, a lack of physical boundaries between strippers and patrons, and the fact that a club’s revenue is often boosted if patrons think they can have physical access to strippers. She recounts stories, told to her by strippers during interviews, of being digitally raped on stage, of being expected to perform oral sex, and of club employees looking the other way when patrons touched strippers. Building on past scholarship, she also focuses on the intense emotional labor, such as flirting, that strippers are expected to perform. Private dances, she argues, are not prized for their extended dance, but because of the (false) intimacy it creates.

Price-Glynn’s work is an important reminder of the dangers of sex work. At times, however, I questioned whether she excessively focused on the negative aspects of stripping. A section devoted to the women’s rituals when they returned home (one bathed in bleach) and the effects of stripping on outside relationships (such as an inability to enjoy sex) was profoundly sad. It also implies that none of the strippers were able to disengage themselves from their work and that they were all negatively affected, even “damaged,” by stripping. When strippers said they enjoyed stripping or found it empowering, Price-Glynn hints that this is simply a mask or coping mechanism. This is, of course, plausible, but diverges from other scholarship on sex work and comes close to supporting arguments that stripping categorically harms women.

Strip Club offers important insight for those strippers and advocates of sex worker rights who want to improve the environment of the strip club and increase opportunities for women to be empowered within sex work. Price-Glynn’s choice to use organizational theory allows the reader to find concrete examples, such as wage reform, that could have very immediate and positive results. This method also distinguishes her book from other recent scholarship on sex work and stripping. I recommend the book, therefore, for those interested in learning more about the culture of the strip club or to sociology students interested in a unique application of organizational theory.

Written by: Shannon Hill, December 19th 2010

Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules

priyanka — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Anastasia Powell

Cambridge University Press

I have been always interested in the problems, points of view, and so much more in the lives of young people; I also decided at the ripe age of twenty that at some point in my life I was going to be a lecturer!

Despite educating teenagers (and being taught by them) for the last twenty years and more, I have not lost my enthusiasm for knowing and guiding them from the perspective of what youngsters of eighteen to twenty consider an ‘old’ wise woman!

How do young people live their lives these days? Do they have the same problems that I had when I was eighteen? So much has changed in the last twenty to thirty years. We are bombarded by a sex-crazed culture, sex-everywhere phenomena. When we switch the TV on, we are faced with sex or violence in movies, shows, talks etc. In the words of Anastasia Powell, the author of Sex, Power and Consent: “contemporary Western Culture has been described as the age of raunch, generation sex, and generation SLUT (Sexually Liberated Urban Teens)."

Being part of such a cultural make-up, what are the views of young people on sex and love these days? Do they have more sex, more sexual relationships than my so-called liberated generation of the late 1970s? Do the youth talk openly about sex? Do they equate sex with love? How long do their relationships last when they are still teenagers? What is it that they want from relationships at the tender age of eighteen to twenty?

Powell’s indisputably needed and thorough book provides most answers to my questions. Her research and interviews with 117 teens and young adults of diverse sexualities in Victoria, Australia, provides readers with a wealth of knowledge about young people of today. She limited her research to one country but unquestionably, it is the representative study of Western youth.

Her book would be of interest to young and not-so-young readers as the author answers many questions that trouble Generation Y (born in or after 1982). It explores issues surrounding youth sex within popular culture, sexuality education and sexual violence prevention. It also clearly presents unwritten rules and the gendered power relationships which have not changed as drastically as I had always thought it had over the last twenty to thirty years. I was surprised to read that despite the apparent sexual freedom, the rates of sexual assault continue to rise with ninety-nine percent of offenders being male and ninety-two percent of sexual assault victims being women (according to Victoria Police data from 2008-2009).

The book also provides practical strategies for young people and for those who work with them towards the prevention of sexual violence. This very well-researched and written study would also be a useful reading for young women who feel pressured into unwanted sex. It might help them to be more aware of their choices, which is always welcome.

Written by: Anna Hamling, December 14th 2010

Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women

priyanka — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Holly Kearl

Praeger

Street harassment is rampant in all parts of the world—from New York City to Tokyo to Cairo—yet it is still accepted globally. This largely ignored problem is thoroughly discussed and analyzed in Holly Kearl’s book entitled, Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women. Defined by Kearl in the first chapter as “unwanted attention” in public places, street harassment includes and is not limited to “physically harmless leers, whistles, honks, kissing noises, and nonsexually explicit evaluative comments,” but also extends to “more insulting and threatening behavior like vulgar gestures, sexually charged comments, flashing, and stalking, to illegal actions like public masturbation, sexual touching, assault, and rape.” Many (if not most) women experience it; very few men know about it.

The second chapter explains the context in which street harassment occurs. If a young girl, perhaps wearing a short skirt, walks alone on a street at night and is sexually assaulted, she would most likely be blamed for the assault, right? Wrong, Kearl tells us; her clothing and time she chose to walk outside is not her fault that she was sexually assaulted. As someone who lived in a small town in Morocco for half a year, I can attest that I wore conservative clothes yet still experienced men whistling and throwing rocks at me in the light of the day. Therefore, Kearl explains, street harassment is a power dynamic that shows which gender wields more power and control in a given society.

Yet street harassment is not just a gendered issue; it is multi-layered with race, socioeconomic status, gender expression, and disability, as Kearl writes in the third chapter. It is “a global problem,” as the title of the fourth chapter states. It not only happens in cities, it is more likely to happen wherever women are alone and/or traveling in public by taxi, public transportation, and on foot.

More than Kearl’s analysis and extensive research about the topic, the quotations that she includes throughout the book helps the reader to understand why street harassment is a big problem. These quotations are from Kearl’s surveys of people (the majority women) who experienced sexual harassment in public places. You can read more information about her surveys online. These written experiences illuminate women’s views and thoughts about harassment which Kearl explains in the fifth chapter that can vary from woman to woman.

Women view street harassment differently and therefore they deal with street harassment differently. Kearl notes in the sixth chapter that some women choose to ignore it; others choose to directly address the harasser. A missing link in solving the street harassment issue, as explained in the seventh chapter, is to include male allies by educating and engaging them that street harassment is not okay. Equally important in combating this problem is empowering women and raising public awareness, which Kearl gives specific ideas and suggestions as to how to do this in the eighth and ninth chapters respectively. Finally, in the tenth chapter, Kearl notes that we must make street harassment an issue. If we shrug it to the side and ignore it, we are making a statement that street harassment is okay.

I suggest that everyone—women and especially men (because street harassment needs male allies)—pick up a copy of Kearl’s book to understand the complexities of street harassment and why it should not be ignored any longer. More importantly, though, after reading Stop Street Harassment, think about what you can do to stop street harassment in your own community. Because street harassment is not going to go away—and the time to take action is now!

Cross-posted at Gender Across Borders

Written by: Emily Heroy, November 12th 2010

Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974-2007

mandy — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Suzanne Lacy

Duke University Press

A student of Judy Chicago and Allan Kaprow, Suzanne Lacy’s collection of essays about her performance art pieces showcases not only Lacy’s development as a powerhouse feminist artist of her time but also the changing landscape of political art throughout the past four decades. Following a thoughtful introduction by her friend Moira Roth, Leaving Art traces Lacy’s self-criticism, the intended meaning behind her pieces, and reflections about the effectiveness of her work, at times in journal form (e.g., “While I was working on this piece I figured out why it has been so hard for me to consider myself grown up”) and at times as she reflects about the meaning of art more broadly. As an introduction to Lacy’s work, or as an in-depth look at Lacy’s artistic process, the book will appeal both to those newly familiar with Lacy or with those who have long followed her career.

Cleverly titled, Lacy intends Leaving Art as a meditation on the various objects and stories she and her colleagues have left behind; still more, the title implies that their collective departure from the art world—through retirement or even death—looms imminently. Aside from considering what it means to leave art, the volume addresses a startling array of subjects: rape, violence, gender, race, speaking across identities, sexuality, power, injustice, challenging institutions, solitude, connection, friendship, speech acts, performance, and community. Lacy’s impact on feminist art reveals itself throughout the book not by loud proclamations of her importance, but via a layered portrait of how her work chipped away at the injustices she saw happening around her and to her.

During the early days of feminist consciousness raising, Lacy tackled such difficult topics as the role of prostitution in a feminist politics, the dismemberment of women’s bodies (metaphorically and literally), and the process of witnessing a rape narrative. She followed these pieces with sweeping tableau vivant performances where she drew together over 400 performers to converse and dialogue in public view along the shores of La Jolla, CA. Her later pieces, drawing together such disparate subjects as Buddhist philosophy and police brutality, engaged people in performance demonstrations where they confronted each other in order to challenge powerful social ills like racism and sexism. In each decade, Lacy reinvented herself as artist and social critic.

Pushing art as a mechanism for social change, she admitted in the 1990s to questioning “whether it was possible for artists to exert a substantial impact on communities…; whether civic institutions could be significantly recruited for social and aesthetic claims; and how to transform hundreds, even thousands of personal attitudes that might, in turn, be measured through policy outcomes.” Certainly, Lacy’s work responded to these questions by adamantly demanding that art (and artists) continually re-imagine themselves in relation to their political usefulness. In particular, Lacy’s work prioritizes the urgency of listening to marginalized voices just as it delves into content that lies beneath the surface of our lives. Lacy provokes us to consider what has become forcibly out of sight (e.g., stories of cancer, narratives of rape, privilege of Whiteness), and what we drive underground because of fear, shame, and the difficulty of seeing ourselves.

Written by: Breanne Fahs, October 24th 2010

Law of Attraction

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Allison Leotta

Touchstone Books

As far as my taste in reading material goes, I tend to avoid genre books, particularly cookie cutter thrillers and mysteries as many most often lack originality, societal observation, and genuine writing skill. Alison Leotta’s novel Law of Attraction, however, manages to be the exception to the rule, creating a mystery that adheres to the genre standards but also manages to transcend them through tackling the heavy hitting topics of domestic abuse and power struggles within heterosexual relationships.

The novel’s protagonist Anna is an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington DC; many of the cases that come across her desk are domestic violence cases in which she observes women suffering through the cycle of abuse at the hands of their husbands and boyfriends. Anna seems to identify readily with the women she helps, and through a series of flashbacks it is slowly revealed that Anna’s own mother was a victim of domestic violence.

Among her cases is Laprea, a woman who seeks legal help to escape abuse at the hands of her boyfriend D’marco, only to continually drop the charges and let him into her life. The day after Valentine’s Day, a bloody Laprea enters Anna office seeking to press charges, sure that this time she is done with D’marco. At the same time, Anna also reconnects with Nick, a former law school classmate who has long been holding a torch for Anna. Sparks fly between the two until it is revealed that Nick is D’marco’s lawyer. Things get messy when Anna begins an impassioned relationship with Nick. While their relationship initially seems to be an idyllic one, Nick is quickly shown to be a man of questionable character when he cajoles Laprea to change her testimony and claim D’marco’s innocence. Things take a turn for the worse when shortly after Nick’s release Laprea’s bloody body is found in a trash bag.

While Law of Attraction has all the ingredients of a typical genre thriller, it somewhat transcends the genre. Leotta’s obvious writing skill is apparent and the characters and scenes are more richly developed than is commonly seen in other thrillers. Many of the legal details and scenarios throughout the course of the book ring true, which can be credited to Leotta’s employment as a federal sex crimes prosecutor. The novel’s exploration of domestic violence and the psychological implications of it are also handled well by Leotta. Much like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this subject matter elevates the novel as it provides valid societal observation and insight, often into the inequalities that frequently exist in heterosexual relationships.

While Law of Attraction may be more a fun thriller than a substantial work of literary merit, it is nonetheless a joy to read. Those readers who often pass over the thriller genre may find Law of Attraction to be more cerebrally stimulating.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, October 12th 2010

Sport, Power and Society: Institutions and Practices

priyanka — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Edited by Robert E. Washington, David Karen

Westview Press

Presenting the multifaceted world of sports, this book introduces a multitude of perspectives into the sports world. While encompassing many specifics about the whole idea of what makes up sport, this book offers views into aspects that create the sports world into a fully participatory and also a spectator-oriented institution. With many selections of essays that delve into specific topics like ownership, media, participation, violence and more, the institution of sport becomes a full-on demanding, powerful, industry like many other money-making organizations. In-depth and relatively stimulating, this compilation serves as terrific resource for readers interested in how sport has become, and continues to be, the "institution" it represents in many perspectives.

Not without rhetorical and sociological views, the book elaborates on many scholarly issues. The editors elaborate on each chapter heading to outline the premise for each collection of essays, culminating in the possible problems with sport in modern society. With this in mind, the reader may pick and choose essays that fit their own interests, from race issues to the politics of to fans of various sport to the money that supports specific sports. In sum, this book offers a huge amount of reading materials as well as resources for the readers.

Although published in 2010, some references for articles are gathered from 2000 and earlier. These research bases are older, and they serve a good base for starting research, but with technology and ten years, the articles in the book are outdated—a more recent selection of research may offer more current ideas and objective facts. As a compendium of resources, this reader or anthology serves as a good base for future research. For example, essays of sports ownership date to the late 1990s, and they are somewhat outdated for the reader of today.

However, in the end, the reader is left with a better understanding of the sports world and how it exists in our day-to-day living regardless of how much or how little we want it there. Its influence on society and children (as well as on adults) definitely makes the idea of sport a powerful tool in our lives. Modern society grabs onto the business of sport in many cases, and this leads to immense financial investments. Shocking at times, clearly disturbing at others, Sport, Power and Society: Institutions and Practices gives all of its readers a little more to chew on in its presenting of critical thinking about sport. Definitely one to keep on the shelf.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, October 4th 2010

Privilege: A Reader

admin — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Michael Kimmel, Abby L. Ferber

Westview Press

A historian once said that the more one can know about something, the more you can control it. Michel Foucault was specifically talking about the control of psychiatric patients, prison inmates, and people's sex lives, but we can certainly extend his thoughts to a plethora of other examples. What Foucault did not say, however, was how exposing and learning about power and dominance can lead to their dismantling.

After more than two decades since his passing, the inheritors of Foucault's ideas make an appearance in a handsome new book that explores the invisible power of privilege; namely the privilege of being White, heterosexual, and middle class in America. Privilege: A Reader is a collection of essays compiled and edited by Michael Kimmel and Abby L. Ferber, both scholarly experts in masculinities and ethnic studies respectively. The book takes on a welcoming and accessible feel with essays that come a personal place, many written from a first-person perspective by heavyweights like Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, and Tim Wise.

Some, like Allan Bérubé's experience as a gay rights activist brings to light the complications of being White in anti-racist gay rights movement. Not being White, I found Bérubé's angst about pointing out the Whiteness of influential gay groups in the U.S. an eyeopener. For White people, it seems, it was convenient to remain racially invisible and to depend on the unspoken rules about keeping that Whiteness unchecked. Awkward silences, defensiveness, and hostility form the repertoire of White discomfort when the racial gaze is turned to Whiteness.

In Michael A. Messner's piece on "Becoming 100 Percent Straight," he raises questions that heterosexual people rarely ask: how do we know for sure we're straight? And what made us straight? Messner's question is interwoven in a study of his own sexuality that touches on his memories as a young man who was infatuated with a male classmate and friend. In repressing this infatuation, he belittles and rejects his friend—a process Messner calls the heterosexualisation of his masculinity.

With every chapter I am reminded of the discomfort the topic of privilege raises and how important that it should remain unsettling. I learn that Black men and working class White people, as privileged groups, are highly contested categories in the face of institutional racism and poverty. And dishearteningly, I discover that the gateway to social mobility undermined by the unearned privilege of being accepted to Ivy League colleges by virtue of having parents who are alumni.

Kimmel and Ferber's book takes us on a journey of self-reflection, of deconstructing the power of invisibility, and asks us some difficult questions about our many roles in maintaining oppression. But it does not try leave us beset with racial or class guilt. Rather, it invites us to pursue, both on a theoretical and practical level, ways of recognising the overlapping nature of social privileges and overcoming differences in the name of solidarity against oppressions.

Though Privilege: A Reader could be a more comprehensive, far-reaching catalogue of dominance, both insidious and overt, if it had taken on board the narrative of privilege from other non-White experiences and interrogated what being able-bodied and cisgendered mean. The absence of trans, disabled, Asian, and Native American voices speaks, ironically, of Kimmel's and Ferber's privilege of omitting these important experiences that are key to dismantling the edifice of privilege.

I praise Privilege: A Reader nonetheless, for its courage to speak from a place that prefers to remain silent, for raising attention to a things that want to stay hidden, and its overall critique of life's many taken for granted experiences and “common sense.” I'm sure Foucault would be proud of that.

Written by: Alicia Izharuddin, May 8th 2010

Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women's Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Hester Eisenstein

Paradigm Publishers

I have been waiting for a book to tell me how things went wrong, how we ended up with lady cops and mothers in combat zones, how “feminist” became an insult. Did we women do it to ourselves, or were we pushed? Hester Eisenstein, professor of sociology at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, has offered Feminism Seduced, which, as promised and despite its flaws, does map elements of the neoliberal project to some “feminist” initiatives, but it is not the book I have been wanting, the one that explains, not so much the academically popular theory of “recuperation,” but how the radical women might have kept the momentum of the women’s movement going and in the right direction.

Let’s get the most obvious major flaw of the book out of the way: the near total omission of lesbian-feminism, a powerful influence in the radical wing of the women’s movement in the 1970s. Though it is like blaming a reporter for the headline on her story to blame Eisenstein for the judgments of her indexer, the lack of an index entry for lesbianism reflects the extreme once-over-lightly she gives to the historical role of this feminist tendency, which cannot be subsumed under “queer theory” or dismissed with “conflicts over suppression of lesbian influence... eventually faded.”

Eisenstein’s nuanced concern about the limitations of the “women of color” construct apparently does not extend to the inability of the category “GLBT” to comfortably incorporate Rita Mae Brown’s “woman-identified woman.” This is a glaring oversight from an author who rightfully chastises a movement which often alienated women of color and working-class women.

Eisenstein’s argument or rather arguments are directed, she insists, mostly at hegemonic, state feminism (an approved version of reform feminism). She views feminism as driving out what she calls “labor feminism,” the initiatives for women within the labor movement that resulted in laws protecting women. Essentially she argues that women’s demands for wage equality, while benefiting professional women, put working- and lower-middle class women into poorly paid service jobs and undermined the expectation of a “family wage.” These feminist demands served to facilitate more direct anti-union activities begun by big business at the same time. (She seems less interested in the exclusion of women from trade unions in the higher paying blue-collar occupations like plumbing and carpentry.)

Moreover, feminist emphasis on paid labor undermined women’s work in the home and thus “welfare” programs. On a global level, feminism linked with modernity destroyed traditional societies and allowed access to markets to the forces of globalization, by focusing on such issues as “genital cutting,” which Eisenstein comes close to defending. She charges that the empowerment of individual Third World women through measures such as microfinance has taken the place of state-led development. She then recounts the use of feminist ideology in the promotion of imperialist initiatives, such as President George W. Bush crowing about liberating the women of Afghanistan from Taliban oppression, and in encouragement of Islamophobia.

The author presents a not entirely trustworthy account of feminist history and its continuance in women’s studies and a fairly standard leftist rendition of the neoliberal project—a lot of ground to cover. The reader is left to piece together her thesis from topic-based chapters that operate as silos, disrupting both the narrative history and the argument—without the aid of a Venn diagram.

In the end, she presents a post hoc analysis that stops short of proving her case against even mainstream feminism. Her solutions—maternalism, a socialist state, ACORN, and the California Nurses Association—seem neither particularly feminist nor radical. Perhaps that feminism is best that doesn’t take a gendered view of all the evils of the world but rather gives women the power of agency to uproot them.

Written by: Frances Chapman, April 9th 2010

Epistemic Injustice: Power & The Ethics of Knowing

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:52:00 +0000

By Miranda Fricker

Oxford University Press

In Epistemic Injustice, Miranda Fricker identifies and explores the role of identity prejudice (based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) in producing both systematic and incidental epistemic injustices or injustices against people in their capacities as speakers, informants, or participants in the community’s sharing of knowledge. Fricker also carefully traces the injurious practical and epistemic effects these injustices can have on those who are stereotyped by identity prejudice. Finally, she attempts to define the joint intellectual-ethical virtues that may help “hearers” identify and counteract identity prejudices in their interactions with the victims of these injustices.

Fricker’s primary focus throughout the book is on testimonial injustice, a deflation in the credibility granted to a speaker based on identity prejudice. Using the theoretical framework of epistemology, a State of Nature model, and both literary and real world examples, Fricker carefully differentiates instances of credibility deflation resulting from true injustice from those that constitute mere bad luck and shows how testimonial injustice relates to and often causes discrimination against, objectification of, and dehumanization of the powerless. Although the vocabulary of epistemology is foreign to many of us, most members of marginalized minorities will probably recognize the real world incidents and structures that produce testimonial injustice as well as the very real effects that it has on our lives. Women, specifically, would understand the lack of credibility afforded to women and the damage that can cause both professionally and personally. Whether it is being ignored, underestimated, or undermined in the workplace or having to fight against the “no really means yes” stereotype that permeates the rape culture, we have experienced testimonial injustice and its effects first hand.

Secondary to testimonial injustice is hermeneutical injustice, a gap in hermeneutical resources (or social vocabulary/means of communicating) that prevents the victim from making sense of or giving voice to his or her experiences. As with testimonial injustice, Fricker draws on a variety of resources to explore the injustices perpetrated when there simply are no words for what someone is experiencing or when the manner in which he or she communicates ensures that the hearer will neither understand nor attempt to do so. In one of many examples provided in a rather powerful exploration of hermeneutical injustice at work, Fricker examines the difficulties women had of making sense of and combating unwanted “flirting” in the workplace prior to the coining of the term "sexual harassment." It may seem alien to those of us who grew up in the wake of second wave feminism, but there simply were no words for many of women’s experiences and this often placed women at a tremendous disadvantage in even understanding what was happening to them and even more so when it came to doing something about the problems they faced in a male-dominated world.

This brief summary, I’m afraid, does not fully encapsulate Fricker’s detailed examination of all of the epistemological and practical implications of identity prejudice in the epistemic relationships built around the community‘s need to share knowledge. Nor, I’m afraid, does it do the book much justice. Although Fricker does tend towards academic language, she does so less egregiously than most and her liberal use of clear, concrete examples makes her ideas relatively easy to follow even for someone with no background in epistemology. Overall, Epistemic Injustice is an exciting examination of a widespread problem that is rarely discussed in such terms so that it can be understood and communicated and perhaps, someday, solved.

Written by: Melinda Barton, December 25th 2009

The Female Brand: Using the Female Mindset to Succeed in Business

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:05:00 +0000

By Catherine Kaputa

Davies-Black Publishing

Ask yourself this question: what is your unique quality or attribute that makes you an asset to a company? Can you answer that? Whether you are a recent graduate or have been laid off from your job, you need to know how to market yourself and create your own brand. That's where Catherine Kaputa comes in with The Female Brand: she teaches how to brand yourself and helps you stand out from the rest of the applicant pool.

Throughout the book, Kaputa recognizes the differences between the female and male gender, and how they work differently in the corporate world. However, Kaputa emphasizes to her readers NOT to act like men, but use their feminine qualities to their advantage. Examples include being a team person instead of the barking leader, using your intuition to understand people, and having an unique image. When Kaputa discusses image, it's not about being a beauty queen, but projecting your confidence. This could be a suit that makes you feel like a million bucks, or (for me) a pair of cool glasses that always get noticed.

The emphasis of the book is to catapult women to the CEO and other top corporate positions. Besides the branding lessons by Kaputa, every chapter ends with a story by a successful woman who tells her story and her rise on the corporate ladder. In addition, inspirational quotes appear before each story from other powerful women.

As a member of the Class of 2009, every single section of The Female Brand was essential. It has taught me to re-sculpt what my professional goals are, and how to get them. An additional tool that the book provides is worksheets to help you put your plans into action. Kaputa also encourages communication with other co-workers and senior administrators to help you improve. Whether you have a job, looking for one or want a change, this is the perfect book to plan your corporate image.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, July 19th 2009

Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South

admin — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:16:00 +0000

By Hannah Rosen

University of North Carolina Press

Hannah Rosen's Terror in the Heart of Freedom is an essential historical document. This text is a detailed analysis of the connection between gendered rhetoric, sexual violence, and the oppression and resistance of freed people during the reconstruction era. Rosen demonstrates a thorough understanding of gender, race, and power dynamics and how these issues are employed through politics on different levels.

Terror in the Heart of Freedom is not light reading. The subject matter is intense and often disturbing considering the brutal gendered and racial violence that occurred during the reconstruction in the United States. Rosen builds a virtual theatre for these events, illustrating the antebellum attitudes of many whites, the social and political situation of southern urban areas after the civil war, and the radical reclamation of public space by Black citizens at this time. The extreme discomfort that White people felt during this Black reclamation of space was palpable, and the violence that ensued was a reassertion of power on the part of White men. Hannah Rosen extrapolates on these events, displaying White men's recreation of a racist rhetoric that was used to oppress the newly freed population, and explores how much of this rhetoric was, in fact, based in gender.

One of the most poignant points that Hannah Rosen makes is in noting the repercussions for Black women speaking out about the sexual violence they experienced during this turbulent time. Rosen extrapolates on this further, explaining that these women were not only articulating their experiences, but were reframing the common narratives of Black women's sexuality, while also claiming their space as women and citizens. Indeed, as Rosen points out, in this process, they also challenged the conventional way for women to handle sexual assault.

Aside from the implications of sexual assault during the reconstruction, Hannah Rosen very concisely handles the intricacies of federal versus local authority at this time. This is no easy task, as the actual written law, and the de facto law of the time were often so contradictory. Rosen leads the reader through these complications rather gracefully, not allowing them to snag on the details. The grit of policy is extremely relevant here, and aids in explaining the dynamics of this very specific social atmosphere.

At 384 pages, Terror in the Heart of Freedom has over 100 pages of notes and footnotes. The text stands out as a meticulously-researched, well-written, and, most of all, vital historical document. Hannah Rosen has written a detailed analysis of the convoluted relationships between power, rhetoric, race, and gender during what could have been a period of victory for equality in this country. Consider it necessary for your history reading list.

Written by: Kate Wadkins, April 3rd 2009

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship: Maria de Luna

admin — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:30:00 +0000

By Nuria Silleras-Fernandez

Palgrave MacMillan

In Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship, Nuria Silleras-Fernandez examines the life of the Spanish queen, Maria de Luna, from her childhood amongst the sons and daughters of the royal court, to her successes and failures as queen in the Crown of Aragon until her death in 1406. Silleras-Fernandez systematically demonstrates how “in an age in which queens were expected to act as no more than intersectors between supplicant subjects and the authority of the king, Maria [de Luna] was an active and independent political agent.”

Maria de Luna understood that the source of her power as queen was inextricably tied to the success of her husband’s rule as king, but she also had an understanding of the measures necessary to ensure the preservation of his power, an understanding that was, many times, far superior than her husband’s. She had great foresight for the implications of and potential repercussions from political and military actions, and she took the reins when she saw her husband or son acting in ways that might jeopardize their hold on the crown. Through the course of this book, Silleras-Fernandez shows how Maria de Luna manipulated all aspects of her life to serve her power-hungry agenda, particularly those of patronage and piety. Her acts of sponsorship were used to make loyal dependents out of her subjects, while her pious acts toward the Christian clergy and her husband were used to portray a queenly image that would win the support and respect of those over whom she ruled.

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship demonstrates how exceptional Maria de Luna was at navigating the politics of the fourteenth century, and I believe that she would be a skilled politician according to today’s standards as well. Unfortunately, that is because she managed to use her relationships to further her political aims and maintain power. She was by no means a feminist, and her patronage was extended to the women in her court insofar as she could help educate and refine them so the could be strategically married off to suitors who would fortify certain political bonds.

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship offers interesting insight into the life of an exceptional woman, who had an understanding of the politics of power far superior to that of most men of her time, but she relied on and clung to the power of her husband all the same. Thankfully, the past few years in Chilean, Israeli, and American politics (to name a few examples), have proven that women have come a long way from the days where their power was only derived from their male counterparts.

Written by: Rebecca McBride, October 12th 2008

HELP! I'm Living with a (Man) Boy

admin — Sat, 19 May 2007 13:57:00 +0000

By Betty McLellan

Spinifex Press

Seems like writer and feminist psychotherapist Betty McLellan has heard my cries. Help! I’m Living with a (Man) Boy tackles what really needs to happen in dealing with the men (or boys) in your life. As a mother of two - one by birth and one who suddenly morphed into my own personal man/boy after we said “I do” - I think McLellan hit the head on the spot: “Poor men.” Okay, don’t jump out of your seat quite yet.

McLellan takes a new approach to typical problems that women encounter in their relationships with men - “men are sold a lie… believing they are superior” - and she wants to put an empowering spin on typical self-help books for women. Rather than advising women to grin and bear it or, better yet, fix themselves, she empowers women to take charge of these relationships and shape those boys into the men that are hiding under that little boy demeanor.

McLellan packs a punch with her true-to-life advice, mixed with a light and humorous touch. What happens when the man of your dreams turns out to be a child? McLellan urges women to take a look at the behavior of children and place those behaviors in a body resembling their dream man to truly understand them. So what’s that mean for those of us living with these boys? And what’s the relationship fix? McLellan doesn’t promise that this advice will always work, but she does discuss the joy of a mutually respectful, honest and loving relationship and how to help the man/boy in one's life get there.

Written by: Megan Blair, May 19th 2007

Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track

admin — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:58:00 +0000

By Melissa Joulwan

Touchstone

Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track is a wonderfully weaved account of roller derby. The author, Melissa “Melicious” Joulwan, paints a complex tale of strength, teamwork, empowerment and politics that may remind you of a soap opera set in a junior high school. Joulwan gives the reader a first person account on how the league works and the bumps in the road that goes along. She gives us the history of the league, from its 1950s birth and exponential growth to its sharp decline after the '80s and its revival in the birth of the new century. From the new birth in Austin, TX the reader is treated to witnessing the metamorphoses of the league going from “a really good idea” to a national phenomenon.

Joulawn gives us a detailed account on the exponential popularity of flat track derby complete with skater profiles, numerical charts and amusing quotes from people she personally knows. The reader is taken through a turbulent, competitive journey of how the author leaves her dot-com executive position and moves with her husband to Austin where she discovers the sport.

Through her eyes we see the derby grow from a bunch of girls who don’t really know how to skate to a thriving local sport to a national frenzy in the span of five years. The reader is treated to witnessing the politics and power struggle between the skaters and the “She-EOs” and the eventual split from them that resulted in a new league under the philosophy “by the skaters, for the skaters.” This split also leads to the “She-EOs” decline, hilariously narrated as Joulawn describes the “She-EOs” fiasco climaxing in the aftermath of a Jell-O wrestling match, complete with lots of stickiness and hungry flies.

Rollergirl is really a book about power and less about roller derby. It’s about the power of casting off the materialist identity assigned to you by the capitalist ways of a patriarchal society and carving out a niche for yourself in an area that’s outside of that system. It’s about the politics of working with people - from the crowd to the lawyers and the leadership of the league. It’s about socialist organizational methods versus capitalist methods. Then there’s the power of marketing, the power of controlling your crowd and getting them to react the way you want them to. The message of the book is subliminal and clear: you can do anything.

Written by: Nicholas Johnson, February 26th 2007