PM Press

Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon

mandy — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon review, short version: If you have children, know children, or were ever a child yourself, you need this new coloring book by Jacinta Bunnell and Nathaniel Kusinitz.

Long version: As a child of the Free to Be...You and Me seventies, dressed androgynously by a pair of liberal-minded parents, I never dreamed that I would have difficulty recreating a gender-neutral environment for my first child, born at the turn of the new millennium. What I didn't know was that there was a counter-revolution afoot, and it believed that infants should only wear onesies of blue or pink. Despite great social and legal victories made for GLBTQ civil rights since I was a kid, gender nonconformity remains a huge threat to the status quo—and while grown-ups can get away with picking and choosing their participation in the Gender Games (I have not worn makeup in almost twenty years), the battle lines for children remain fixed. I daresay they've hardened, no thanks to the complete Disney Princessification of childhood culture, as any walk through the kids' aisles at Target will tell you.

What's a parent to do? Why, pick up a copy of Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon, of course! While the title might lead a parent to believe that this is merely a gay re-imagining of old Mother Goose rhymes, the real theme of the book is freedom. A furry, sharp-toothed beast with accessorizes with sparkly gems that Paris Hilton might envy. A “breadwinner in the family” is a man who's the proud winner of a baking contest. A mermaid decides “I am making my way out of this fairy tale and starting a new life with two strong legs and a voice.”

In my favorite picture, an adorable kid in a dinosaur t-shirt holds a to-do list that reads: “1. plant garden 2. fix carburetor in truck 3. start presidential campaign 4. end war.” If either of my children presented such a list to me, I could quite happily drop dead on the spot, knowing that my life's purpose was fulfilled! Really.

My only complaint with the book is its price. I realize that this is an important, educational project from a morally noble, independent publisher, but come on—there is no parent in earth, radical or otherwise, who is going to lay down ten bucks for a coloring book. Coloring books get scribbled on, ripped up, scrunched into backpacks and quickly destroyed. I want to pay three bucks for it, tops. I may be a sellout for suggesting this, but I wouldn't mind if the Human Rights Campaign got behind Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon and lent its considerable financial and political power to making copies available in libraries and classrooms. Every kid deserves to meet this great group of gender-fluid friends and to color outside of these pages' lines.

Written by: Shannon Drury, April 26th 2011

Revolutionary Women: A Book of Stencils

barbara — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Queen of the Neighbourhood

PM Press

I'm all for learning more—and for disseminating information to a wide audience—about women who have played significant roles in history. All too often, women who have contributed to movements for change have been given all too little (or no) attention or credit.

I agree that we need to have a more complete picture of the female revolutionaries who risked and sometimes gave their lives for a cause. Many of the women in this book are conspicuously missing from history textbooks, as are their images: for this reason Queen of the Neighbourhood added stencils to each of the thirty women profiled in this short book. As one of the editors notes, we have seen so many images of Che Guevara that it has almost “become kitsch from overuse,” but where are the women?

That said, the celebration of some of the women profiled in this book gave me pause—namely, because I am a pacifist who believes that violence begets violence. While I love the DIY element of Revolutionary Women, I would have a serious problem if my little sister copied some of the stencils that the editors offer to “commemorate these women and their actions.” Why should we commemorate someone who hijacked a plane (Leila Khaled), for instance? It's insulting to include her alongside a modern-day heroine such as Malalai Joya, Afghanistan's youngest member of parliament, who has risked her life for daring to demand rights for women in her nation.

That said, I was thrilled to see some lesser-known activists honored here, notably Silvia Rivera, an American transgender activist who died in 2002 and even led meetings from her hospital bed; Olive Morris, a Black women's movement activist from the U.K. who died of cancer at age twenty-seven; and Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist who assists movements all over the globe.

Despite my disagreement that violent actions should be commemorated, I'd include this as a must-read for informational and historical purposes.

Written by: M.L. Madison, March 18th 2011

Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Bob Torres, Jenna Torres

PM Press

Wherever one falls on the meat-eater to vegan continuum, you need to make the Torres duo your truth-speaking, profanity-spewing, tough-loving pals. They will move you closer to ethical veganism. For the already-vegan, Bob and Jenna offer the rationale and the moral support to stay that way. For four years, these wacky Ph.D.s have provided social commentary and intellectual critique to and for vegans through their podcast, blog, online forum and publications. In so doing, they've created the Vegan Freak ethos: a celebration of the way vegans stand out in a society that normalizes brutality and exploitation.

Two years ago my younger brother lent me the first version of Vegan Freak, a colloquial and genuinely caring guide to going vegan—covering everything from basic animal rights theory to getting along with non-vegans to where and how to find vegan products. I'd gone vegan as a teenager, emotionally devastated by exposés of modern industrial agriculture. But with the onset of my adulthood, Whole Foods markets were popping up like dandelions, and no less than Peter Singer had given the seal of approval to "humanely" raised animal products. The ideology of mainstream animal advocates looked hopelessly confused, applauding vegan diets and marketing cage-free eggs in the same breath, and my own veganism needed a shot of re-commitment. Vegan Freak offered that. In its pages I found a consistent, insistent morality and a practical guide to living it.

Now, the new edition appears and, as promised, it's been rewritten from the ground up. A thicker book both in page count and ideas, Version 2.0 reflects the clarity and maturity the authors have developed through years of vegan outreach. It still covers surviving holiday dinners and finding vegan alternatives for the leather fetishist in your life. Bad puns, tangential rants, and non sequitur chapter titles preserve the fun of the original. But new sections address recent trends in the vegan world: environmental veganism, veganism-as-body-image complex (or the Skinny Bitch effect), Oprah's vegan cleanse—all are sliced with a scalpel of abolitionist rationale.

For Bob and Jenna, there's no bad reason to go vegan, per se. Just inadequate reasons. Their goals—to help others go and stay vegan, to build a social movement recognizing animal rights—inform all their advice and criticism. Empathy bleeds through every sentence, but the Torreses treat their audience as responsible adults. They are not going to let us off the hook for failing to check if a soup is made with chicken stock or if our running shoes are all man-made materials. They are not content with vegetarians; cheese addicts get their own special page to bookmark and turn to whenever the craving strikes. Really, Bob and Jenna are sure we can make it through the traumatic dinner party with nothing but iceberg lettuce, and when we think about it, we are, too.

To their credit, the authors do not pretend to know what they don't. They frequently refer readers to other sources. The number of times they recommend Googling vegan product X will get tiresome if you read the book in one sitting. But for anyone attempting to make any kind of change, Vegan Freak is applicable and inspirational. The three-week, cold-tofu approach to personal lifestyle change worked for me when I decided to begin exercising regularly. And their thoughts about "impoverished veganism"—veganism that is only about what we consume and how we spend our money—encourages the already-vegan to think beyond personal choices. Most seriously, I credit my present involvement in any kind of activism, vegan-focused or not, to Bob and Jenna's inspiring, grassroots-y influence.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, May 31st 2010

500 Years of Indigenous Resistance

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Gord Hill

PM Press

We are all familiar with the smiling happy portrayals of pilgrims sitting down to dinner with Native Americans, or perhaps the slightly more critical viewpoint from many of our high school history books of the Indigenous people being simply helpless victims to European colonization. However, neither of these views is, in reality, very accurate.

500 Years of Indigenous Resistance was originally published in 1992 by Gord Hill, the native artist, activist, and at the time, member of the revolutionary Indigenous newspaper, OH-TOH-KIN. The book is in a pamphlet style with artwork throughout its pages. It starts with the arrival of Columbus in the Americas and goes up through history to chronicle native resistance in North and South America until after WWII, even up through the 1960s. It was originally published just before the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994, and so was extremely relevant and insightful both then and now.

Even though I was aware that the history of the Americas many of us were taught growing up was very skewed towards celebrating white European colonialism, I hadn’t read anything, until this, that so clearly shows all the various Native American resistance movements that have existed. Lacking from most of written American history of the past 500 years is a detailed exploration of the resistance of native peoples and how they influenced and limited the colonialism to which they struggled against. 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance fills in this gap in an extensive way. It also records all the horrendous and calculating strategies of colonization employed to destroy native people, wipe out whole cultures, and steal land.

While many people, including myself, could probably not give names of more than a few tribes, this book speaks of all the millions of indigenous people there were 500 years ago, an estimated 70 to 100 million people. Even now after hundreds of years of colonization there are still an estimated forty million indigenous people. The book chronicles the various resistance strategies that native peoples utilized: demonstrations, festivals, violent uprisings, the creation of alliances with other tribes or nations, protests, occupations, road blocks, forming organizations to oppose governmental policies, and most recently, organizing around international bodies.

In a country that still has offensive caricatures of Native Americans on display for sports team mascots, it is easy to get discouraged that there will be any real recognition of the magnitude of the American Indian Holocaust, the mass genocide of Native peoples that has run rampant the past 500 years and continues on today. But books such as 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance which don't glorify, romanticize, or just plain omit all the horrors that abound throughout this history of colonization, stand to give us some hope. For they just give us the facts, but, more importantly, the ones we most likely have never heard before.

It would be an amazing thing to make copies of this work and slip into every school in America and slide it into every history book for children to read. Well, it is no less crucial and eye-opening a book for existing simply on its own. It is a rare event to read books that really have the potential to change the way that you think about things, that help you unlearn many lies and find yourself faced with honest truths. It always gives me the chills to read something from a new perspective and to know that this information is being let loose in the world, seeking to help us to open our eyes, to learn from the past, and to ultimately change for the better.

Written by: Lesley Kartali, May 21st 2010

My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by Yantra Bertelli, Jennifer Silverman, Sarah Talbot

PM Press

My Baby Rides the Short Bus is an anthology of articles written by parents about their firsthand experiences of raising children with disabilities. In addition to their common identity as parents of disabled children, the contributors also share another trait: all of them find themselves outside of the mainstream by virtue of identity or political perspective. Together the articles make up a lively collection of authentic voices that speak to the joys and challenges of being marginalized and/or subcultural parents raising special-needs children.

Many of the authors write about how their non-mainstream identities have affected their experience of raising special-needs children. Thida Cornes writes about how she learned to work within the constraints of her own disability, dystonia (a physical disability that causes muscular spasms), to take care of her son, who has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. A lesbian minister, Maria June writes about becoming, at age twenty-three, the foster mom of a fifteen-year-old with special needs. Amber E. Taylor, a self-described “black biracial dyke with head-to-toe visible tattoos and a bald head” and an adoptive parent of a son with Down syndrome, writes about the backlash she receives from biological parents of disabled children who think she shouldn’t attend support group meetings because she “chose” to parent a special child.

The authors also write about the process of navigating the many institutions ostensibly set up to help special-needs children, but which often end up sidelining them. Several authors write about the experience of diagnosis: the behavioral testing milieu in which young children, separated from parents and subjected to unfamiliar conditions, unsurprisingly fail to show their full range of abilities, and then are slapped with labels that sometimes sound more like death sentences. Authors who spend 24/7 with their children write about the experience of not being believed by “specialists” about their children's abilities and needs, or being subtly blamed for their children’s disabilities. Expressing the frustration felt by many of the authors, Kerry Cohen writes, “Unless I hate the things that make [my son] different from other children, I will always be a wayward mother.”

But not all the stories are about frustration and tragedy—many of the authors write about the creative and energetic ways they have found to help their children thrive, often in direct opposition to the institutions that are set up to “help.” Karen Wang and Heather Newman write about “unschooling”—creating stimulating and safe learning spaces at home, tailored specifically to their children’s particular needs—while Shannon Des Roches Rosa tells how she co-founded a special education PTA that helps parents of children with disabilities advocate for their children in the local public school system.

As so many of us know from personal experience, it can be very difficult to be part of multiple marginalized communities. As one of the authors, Andrea Winninghoff, laments, “In a community of parents with deaf kids, I will always be the single, young, gay mom. Among gay parents, I will always be the one with the deaf kid that they can’t speak to.” While there are many books available on parenting special-needs children, very few of those books offer an explicitly political analysis of the rights of special-needs families and of the systems that do or don’t serve them, and very few of those books acknowledge the experiences of parents who are out of the mainstream, whether due to race, class, gender identity or sexual orientation, disability, political beliefs, or lifestyle. Frank, engaging, and broad-ranging, My Baby Rides the Short Bus is a rare and precious treasury of these too-often invisible stories.

Written by: Ri J. Turner, February 11th 2010

Self-Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:02:00 +0000

By Mickey Z.

PM Press

While it’s true that most conflict can and should be resolved with nonviolence, even peace-loving radicals like Mickey Z., the author of this alphabetical guide to self-defense, acknowledge that an absolute aversion to violence is nearly impossible in our war-loving (yet God-fearing) society that seems to tolerate blood-n-guts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In a country where a woman is raped every forty-six seconds, peaceful resolution can quickly become a warm fuzzy afterthought. The reality is that standing up for something usually requires standing up against something. That something may be a repressive and stubborn government, or it may be a big, scary and armed figure looming in the dark. Either way, knowing how to use your body in emergencies is as important as knowing how to argue for your beliefs in the face of adversity.

Mickey does not discourage standing firm in pacifism, but advocates that we all (especially women, who are statistically at a greater risk of physical attack) prepare for the worst. You may choose not to live in fear of fire, but this doesn't mean you forgo the fire alarm. In this vein, Mickey has armed us with a manual of self-defense techniques cleverly written with the help of motivating anecdotes and quirky cartoons by fellow radical, Richard Cole. Whether it is mustering every bit of might in our bodies to scream and run, or delivering a precise finger jab to the eyes followed by a hard kick to the balls, Mickey supplies us with a handy bag of tricks to use under pressure. The guy knows what he's talking about—with a personal history of martial arts, kickboxing and personal training—he values equally the power of body with the power of mind.

Sprinkled with quotes from Bruce Lee, Emma Goldman, Malcolm X, and others, Mickey Z.'s Self-Defense for Radicals makes for a quick and entertaining read for anyone conscious of the potential danger we face. Pass it on to your mother, sister, daughter, and anyone else whose safety you worry about. It is an empowering statement dovetailing the greater feminist movement, however personally defined. Mickey states that, "many physical attacks are essentially oppressive gestures spawned by a perceived ability to exploit a weaker (sic) gender. Any struggle to eradicate such gestures is by definition self-defense."

Essentially, we can conceive fighting back as feminism in action. Whether you are a practiced veteran of the martial arts, or a ruthless bar brawler, the fight remains the same and there is only one winner. To dive into the essence of this provocative parallel, start with the section "I" for individuality. Then learn and practice tactics like the left hook, the elbow jab, and scan your surroundings to make sure you have access to such multifaceted weapons as a broom, scarf, pocket change, or a hot drink. And remember, “You are the weapon. Everything else is a tool.”

Written by: Katy Pine, January 31st 2010

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:01:00 +0000

Directed by Euan Preston

Bonobo Films, PM Press

Recorded from a lecture in May 2008, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is an engaging, well-crafted talk by economist-writer-activist Naomi Klein about the problems of increasingly pervasive neoliberal privatization of land and resources on a global scale. Based on the same premise as her most recent book, Klein’s lecture is aimed at people who have not necessarily read The Shock Doctrine—in part, she said, because the book was “hideously overpriced in hardback.” The lecture marked the release of the book in paperback, as well as its availability in Spanish.

In the book and for the purposes of this talk, Klein’s analysis is centered on the idea that widespread privatization of public spaces and services often takes place in the aftermath of large shocks: military coups, economic crises, natural disasters. This pattern has played out repeatedly in Latin America, and most recently, it has been seen in Iraq, New Orleans, and in the wake of the 2004 tsunami that ravaged Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, among others. Though Burma was already run by a crony capitalist regime before the 2008’s Cyclone Nargis destroyed significant infrastructure and killed tens of thousands of civilians, the disaster accelerated the country’s last major wealth grab. Forty-three private reconstruction contracts were already in place before any relief had been done.

Anecdotally, Klein cites a recent National Science Foundation study that shows that conservatives are generally happier people, better able to rationalize social and economic inequality. Calling the mindset an “elaborate form of self-deception” and a “political sedative after the fact,” she explains that in reality, neoliberal policies treat entire nations and peoples as testing grounds and laboratory subjects. In the wake of large-scale disasters and upheaval, people are often rightfully focused on self-preservation. By the time new constitutions have been put into place, water supplies have been privatized, and public school systems have been turned into privately-funded charter schools, it is often too late to debate—let alone reverse—such massive systemic changes.

What is crucial to remember is that none of these events are inevitable. Indeed, they are being resisted, often most effectively by indigenous groups. While certainly not simple problems with easy solutions, Klein believes there are two ways to respond. We can develop policies and technologies that change our way of life; or, as is increasingly and frighteningly common, we can devise policies and technologies that can be used to protect and shield ourselves from those we have enraged and displaced.

If you don’t live in an urban area likely to be visited by a luminary like Klein, this skillfully produced lecture is an excellent way to supplement the experience of an in-person lecture. A portion of DVD proceeds go to War On Want.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, January 3rd 2010

Cook Food: A Manualfesto for Easy, Healthy, Local Eating

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:05:00 +0000

By Lisa Jervis

PM Press

I’ve long enjoyed Lisa Jervis’ critical analysis, a woman best known in feminist circles as the co-founder of Bitch magazine. Growing into my own love of all things kitchen this past year, I fully expected to be won over by Cook Food; sadly, I was not.

It seems like a complicated time to write this book. Educated liberals finally care about “food studies” now that Michael Pollan is writing books about his omnivorous dilemma. At the same time, many progressives have long known about the risks associated with genetically modified foods and hydrogenated oils, the benefits of plant-based (or at least plant-heavy) diets, and the importance of eating slowly and locally. Many are also aware of how hard it is to find affordable, fresh produce in many areas of the country.

It’s hard to know to whom this book is marketed. Anyone who has read any of Michael Pollan’s books or articles in the New York Times Magazine is likely familiar with the concepts that influence Jervis’ writing. Yet because this short book mostly lacks larger systemic analysis about how gender, race, and speciesism plays into your dietary options and choices, it’s hard to know Jervis’ point of departure—and thus it’s difficult to gauge what ours should be.

Because the book is seemingly geared towards socially-conscious people without much experience in the kitchen, many recipes use basic vegan ingredients. This is both a strength and a weakness. While soy mayonnaise is never called for—which is great in terms of keeping the recipes as universal as possible—a meal based on tempeh and kale also isn’t often wildly appealing to people unfamiliar with vegetarian or vegan cooking. Jervis also admits that being from the Bay Area, her surroundings—plentiful farmers markets—influence her attitudes and writing. Unfortunately, that specific context doesn’t necessarily lend itself to using this book’s recipes across varying regions and availabilities.

A number of the recipes—five of the twenty—in Cook Food are modified from the originals found in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. While I appreciate Jervis’ honesty, none of the recipes are all that unique, which is noticeable even without reading her necessary disclosure. It seems a little tricky to call one’s book a "manualfesto" while borrowing so heavily from others' work.

Jervis states repeatedly that we should all do the best we can, but in the end, I’m not left very convinced that she believes you can manage your own kitchen without a plethora of local green grocers, markets that stock tofu, a pepper grinder, and quality cookware. That this book doesn’t win over a frugal vegan like myself cannot be considered a generalized condemnation of good work; a reviewer’s ego needs to be reigned in when personal essentializing overshadows objective judgment. Still, if I’m looking for a cozy vegan-ish book to gift to a friend, I’m afraid this won’t be the one.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, October 17th 2009

Geek Mafia

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:48:00 +0000

By Rick Dakan

PM Press

Rick Dakan’s novel, Geek Mafia, tells the exciting tale of Paul Reynolds, a recently unemployed comic book artist/videogame designer who befriends a wild crew of techie con men and women living in Silicon Valley. His relationship with the crew (and its attractive head con woman, Chloe) blossoms as they help Paul to get back at his former co-workers, and while doing so, give him a glimpse of how thrilling life can be when it is lived “completely off the grid.” Throughout the novel, Paul vies for the acceptance and approval of both Chloe and her crew. It all comes to a head when he devises a con of his own and presents it to the crew with the promise that if his plan does not work out, he will share the money they helped him scheme out of his former co-workers with all of them.

During the weeks Paul spends cavorting with Chloe and her crew, he finds himself falling in love with not only Chloe, but with the wild life that she and her crew lead. They party hard, and work equally as hard, sustaining themselves by ripping off those they believe deserve it, or simply find to be easy targets. But as Paul attempts to put his own plan into motion with the crew, he also comes to see the dangerous side of living in their nonconformist world. He also learns of secrets and deceit between friends and crew members.

Geek Mafia is an engaging tale about those who choose to live their lives rejecting mainstream society while existing parallel to it. Living under the radar and renouncing all the societal norms and obligations that govern our daily existence is an idea many people find sexy, and many of us have fantasized about it. The book does not delve deeply into the real implications that would accompany the lifestyle lived by the book’s characters, but reality checks would make the book much less fun to read.

Written by: Becky McBride, September 22nd 2009

The Real Cost of Prisons Comix

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:27:00 +0000

By Lois Ahrens

PM Press

As activists know all too well, crafting a political message and effectively mobilizing an audience is an elusive task. In The Real Cost Of Prisons, Lois Ahrens and her contributors beautifully stage a difficult dialogue—about mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and the “war on drugs”—with comics.

Comics are an accessible, popular form of education, and most importantly, addictive, and hence become a subversive way to raise awareness. The Real Cost of Prisons Project has distributed 115,000 comics to the incarcerated, affected families, and social justice organizations free of charge. Comics are just one part of the organization’s mission to end mass incarceration; since Lois Ahrens founded organization in 2000 a coalition of artists, activists, and researchers has produced and distributed educational materials about the costs—material and affective—of the prison industrial complex and it’s devastating impact on family preservation, women’s reproductive rights, rural economies, and much more.

“What does it cost to lock up 2.3 million people each day in the world’s biggest prison system?” ask Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore in the introduction to The Real Cost Of Prisons. In addition to the staggering economic costs (the U.S. spends $60 billion per year on prisons) that could otherwise be directed at health care, public education, and other social services, the human costs are immeasurable.

In the comic “Prisoners of a Hard Life: Women and Their Children,” illustrated by Susan Willmarth, we learn about the cost of incarceration for women and their children: One out of every 109 women in American is incarcerated, on parole, or on probation. Half of all women in prison are incarcerated more than 100 miles from their families. Seven million children have a parent in prison, on probation, or on parole. Seventy-nine percent of all women in New York State’s prisons are Black or Hispanic.

The Real Cost Of Prisons documents the vital efforts of the movement to end mass incarceration, and is an exceptional resource for all activists seeking creative ways to build and sustain a political movement.

Written by: Jeanne Vaccaro, July 9th 2009

Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

admin — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:37:00 +0000

By Victoria Law

PM Press

Of the many staggering statistics in Victoria Law’s eight-year study, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, the following fact will make your jaw drop: the number of incarcerated women in United States prisons has almost doubled from 68,468 to 104,848 between 1995 and 2004.

Like their male counterparts, this population of women is overwhelmingly comprised of African Americans and Latinas, which can be largely attributed to racial profiling—not, as popular mythology might suggest—an ad hoc increase in crime amongst these ethnic groups. Law’s fascinating text is born from her personal experience as a teenager who narrowly avoided incarceration herself, and the friendships she cultivated with women who were not so lucky. As Law raised her own consciousness about the prison-industrial—complex, she began investigating incarcerated women’s involvement in prisoners-rights movements and was told flat-out by other activists that “Women don’t organize.”

Resistance Behind Bars is a compelling testament to the untruth of this statement, and offers innumerable examples of women’s prison uprisings. One such instance is a 1975 sit-down demonstration for improved medical care at the North Carolina Correctional Center for Women, in which women fought back against prison guards attempting to beat and herd them into a gymnasium. Creatively, these prisoners used volleyball net poles, chunks of concrete and anything else immediately available, causing the state to invoke the aid of over 100 guards from other prisons to pacify the rebellion.

Law’s exhaustively researched text includes anecdotal information she harvested from interviews, letters, and conversations with prisoners as well as government reports and major media sources. Most importantly, Law highlights the deeply gendered nature of women’s prison experiences, which cuts across virtually all aspects of incarcerated life. Sexual abuse, motherhood, physical labor, education, medical care, and the extent to which women prisoners’ activism receives media attention are all areas that Law treats with a distinct sense of urgency. What’s more, Resistance Behind Bars has bonus features that underpin Law’s activist project: a list of resources organized according to region for how readers can get involved in the prisoners-rights movement, and an annotated list of recommended readings.

Written by: Heather Brown, July 5th 2009

I-5: A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:10:00 +0000

By Summer Brenner

PM Press

Sexual slavery is a serious problem in the world. While the numbers vary between agencies, the most commonly reported statistics are from the U.S. State Department’s 2005 report on trafficked persons, which estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders, with 14,500 to 17,500 trafficked to the U.S. These numbers include all forms of forced labor, but sexual slavery has the highest percentage, affecting both women and children. Women are lured with the promise of jobs in other countries, but are subjected to sexual servitude. Summer Brenner’s novel I-5 follows the story of Anya, a young woman from Russia, who is stuck in prostitution in the U.S., unable to get out.

Anya’s story is gritty, and not for the weak of heart. Brenner delves deep into the character, creating a realistic narrative. Because of the subject material, there are scenes that are explicit, but it only strengthens the story. Brenner takes a powerful stance in telling Anya’s story. Anya is not shown as a victim; rather, she is a strong woman who has taken her situation and used it in an attempt to secure her freedom. While Anya tells the reader that she enjoys sex and is good at it, she does not like being ordered to service strange men, and desperately wants her freedom.

As the story progresses, Brenner includes flashbacks to Anya’s childhood, and Anya further explains how she ended up in the U.S. as a sexual slave. Besides describing Anya’s story, Brenner also goes into detail about the men who control the “market.” This gives a deeper insight into how women are drawn in, and taken to foreign countries for sex work. In addition, it sadly shows how women who try to retaliate are broken into submission. Brenner does an excellent job portraying this dark world to a chilling degree.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, June 29th 2009