Katrina Forman

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

In Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn lay out a powerful argument about the importance of development work paying heed to gender. Since both Kristoff and WuDunn are well-known and respected journalists, this book will undoubtedly be widely read and influence policy and practice. Skillfully composed of narratives of women’s plight and resistance in Africa and Asia, the authors incorporate scientific and policy research to support their argument. They attempt to outline some of the most significant ways in which women’s oppression plays out; through sex slavery, inadequate maternal health care, rape, and lack of education. The book is obviously a labor of love, and the couple draws their first person narratives from their travels around the globe to bear witness to these situations.

Kristof and WuDunn deal respectfully with issues of cultural relativity, including an insightful and knowledgeable chapter on Islam and its relationship to sexism and women, but they fall short of thoroughly addressing issues of power and privilege in their own relationships to the issues. While they allude several times to critiques of cultural imperialism—mentioning women who have challenged them on their presence and role in the struggles of women from the variety of countries included here—they never seem to delve into the matter deeply, offering blanket statements about morality that are supposed to supersede these critiques.

The authors pay lip service to the leadership of the women most affected by the issues at hand; they also write with a clear intention of encouraging involvement of affluent Americans of all genders through philanthropic and missionary projects. Without passing judgment on these sorts of interventions, what was missing in their analysis was a clear role for the history of colonization and neoliberalism in shaping the relationships between the US and Africa and Asia.

This book will undoubtedly serve as a call to arms to take more seriously the issues facing poor women in Africa and Asia. My only worry is that in ignoring the role of colonialism and capitalism in shaping these problems, the solutions offered will fall short. In one of the final chapters, the authors defend sweatshops from liberal critiques, arguing that because garment work employs women and elevates their economic status above men’s, they can only be a good thing. While sweatshops may, in fact, provide an important source of income for women in impoverished countries, I find their blindness to the ethical and moral implications of such labor practices in contradiction with their righteous stances against sex slavery and other abhorrent practices.

All in all, Half the Sky is an educational and accessible read. The authors have clearly done their research and present an arsenal of knowledge and narrative that supports their call to action. In the midst of economic crisis, while we bear witness to the collapse of American capitalism, I hesitate to endorse a strategy of empowerment for women in “developing countries” that is a path to the same. Perhaps other readers will be inspired to find more creative solutions than the ones offered by the authors.

Written by: Katrina Forman, January 7th 2010

World for Palestine 2010 Calendar

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Resistance Art

The World for Palestine 2010 Wall Calendar features twelve cartoons drawn by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff. Latuff’s images are stark, simple, and unflinching in their support of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. His images, like most political art or propaganda, do not explore political complexities or nuances, but rather bluntly convey the truth through art. His images emphasize themes of global silence around the genocide of Palestinian people, the struggle of resistance by Palestinians against Israeli violence, and the emotional foundation of hatred that enables the destruction of Palestinian people and their homeland to continue.

This calendar will only satisfy those that are looking for blatantly politicized images. The use of cartoons for political purposes in the U.S. is most commonly associated with revealing the hypocrisy of elected politicians in daily newspapers. These cartoons were, at first, surprising to view because their intention was more simplistically and fiercely stated than I was used to. The artwork in the calendar is meant to nourish the spirits of those fighting the Israeli occupation and to uncover the brutality of the Israeli state.

As an example, one month of the calendar features an older Palestinian man’s hands and head sticking out of a set of gallows. The gallows are made out of a full Israeli flag, and the man’s face conveys pain and humiliation. The calendar succeeds in presenting such unwavering political metaphors, and the write-up in the beginning of the calendar that describes the Brazilian cartoonist, his intentions, and the context of his art helps to promote a better understanding the goals of the calendar and its art.

It is interesting to imagine other ways this calendar could have been presented. Latuff has a particular style, and the calendar may have benefited from a variety of artists. This would have shown the common elements of cartoons used to bolster Palestinian resistance, rather than focus on one artist’s work, which reinforces a similar aesthetic and specific political priorities. After a whole year of looking at these cartoons, it is easy to imagine how the complicated and profound human aspects of the struggle could be lost amidst the constant righteous outrage elicited by the images of one artist. More artists would have strengthened the depth of the viewers’ understanding.

This calendar certainly isn’t for everyone, and definitely not for fence-sitters regarding Palestinian peoples’ liberation. The World for Palestine 2010 Wall Calendar is strong and powerful in its convictions; hopefully Resistance Art will produce more calendars in the future that follow in this tradition.

Written by: Katrina Forman, December 22nd 2009

In and Out of the Working Class

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:30:00 +0000

By Michael D. Yates

Arbeiter Ring Publishing

To be perfectly honest, I have not read any of Michael Yates’ other work, and only know his name as a radical economist. I was interested in In and Out of the Working Class to see how he would turn his lens of analysis on his own life, in hopes that he would not only tell his own story, but illuminate the world that we all inhabit. This reading of the personal as political is an important part of feminist writings, and I was curious how Yates, as a radical economist, would present the personal.

Yates succeeds in using an economic lens to place his own life within the capitalist class system. He traces his family’s history as immigrants, workers in western Pennsylvania’s factory and mining towns, and his trajectory towards academia. While Yates' stories of unionization, poverty, and the travails of youth point us toward an understanding of his own class position and politicization, his writing tends toward the nostalgic.

What I took away from Yates’ many stories—most non-fiction, with a few fictional narratives thrown in—was a determination to reinvigorate class struggle in America. I appreciated his attention to the differences and similarities of work in factories and work in universities, drawn out in a useful and coherent manner. Yates never loses his sense of purpose in helping the reader come to an understanding of all kinds of work as part of the same capitalist system, which he paints so clearly as unjust.

Yates’ purpose, however, falls short of bringing new and exciting ways of understanding work, class, and poverty. His autobiography feels, at times, self-indulgent; I remain unconvinced that his story is the one that we all need to read. At the same time, for those well acquainted with Yates' work, it may be of interest. I found it more useful as a model for what we each could do to examine our own lives and role in movements for economic justice.

Written by: Katrina Forman, August 17th 2009

Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:52:00 +0000

By Louis Adamic

AK Press

Originally published in 1931, Dynamite hearkens back to an era of American capitalism a little less glossy, a little bloodier, and with striking parallels to today. In this account, Adamic provided one of the first overviews of U.S. labor history to that point, although his narrative is clearly not intended to be comprehensive, but rather focuses on the role of violence in the movements. Jon Bekken’s introduction helpfully contextualizes Adamic as a would-be Socialist, and the writing within a slew of other labor books that would provide more comprehensive analysis. Bekken also makes the important parallels to contemporary capitalism, in light of recent government bailouts for the rich and powerful, a revitalized labor movement may be exactly what we need. Adamic’s book certainly imbued me with a new sense of urgency, history and power.

Written in short chapters that capture different groups, movements, and strikes chronologically, Dynamite is easy to read casually and at your own pace. Adamic makes the overarching point that violence in the labor movement emerged because of violence at work and from the capitalist class. Many famed episodes of violence have in fact been misrepresented, including episodes wherein laborers were framed for what was perpetrated by capitalists.

There are, of course, plenty of examples of laborers using violence as a strategy for their cause. My favorite example were the Molly Maguires, an Irish immigrant group that settled in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia coal mines, led by Molly Maguire herself, but was made up largely of young men, who used assassinations of owners to demand complete control of all work and rent in the area. While unimaginable today, Adamic does a terrific job of painting the conditions of life in industrializing America that makes one understand how so many could be driven to violence to improve their situation.

While Adamic purports to center the immigrant in labor history, his focus on western European immigrants largely ignores race or gender as important lenses of analysis. To be real, this was 1931 so such an analysis from a white guy may be a bit much to ask, and Jon Bekken does address this in the introduction.

All in all Dynamite is entertaining and informative, and probably best for labor and social movement nerds who may have some of the background information already.

Written by: Katrina Forman, May 11th 2009

Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class

admin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth Oldfield, Richard Greggory Johnson III

SUNY Press

This anthology of writings from a variety of queer professors and administrators from the working class aims to shed light on the myriad of ways that gender, sexuality, and class intersect and come into play in the academy. Each author offers his or her unique story, producing testimony to the salience of multiple identities in understanding power within the university and more broadly.

The strength of this anthology is the dialogue between authors of multiple generations and geographic regions. The reader begins to build connections between a young Black man from the Bronx and an older White woman from the rural south. These differences keep the book from falling back on tropes of individualism that often come from 'inspiring' individual stories. One of the strongest pieces was Felice Yeskel's "My First Closet Was the Class Closet." It highlights how she came to focus on queer and working class issues of social justice, and through collective action found strength in her identities and politics. The narrative became more than just her own story; it also offered historical lessons in social movements and the challenges of developing an intersectional praxis of radical politics.

One of the advantages of an anthology is that every reader finds different pieces insightful and valuable. The editors explain in the introduction that they hope the book will educate people who possess class and heterosexual privilege on the reality of oppression faced by queer, working class professors, and that these qualitative accounts of lived experience will enrich scholarly work around class and sexuality. Resilience certainly provides the material for success.

Written by: Katrina Forman, February 8th 2009

Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

admin — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:32:00 +0000

By Andrea Gibson

Write Bloody Publishing

As a newer reader of and listener to poetry, I often find it overly dramatic or flowery for my tastes. When I started reading Andrea Gibson’s collection, Pole Dancing To Gospel Hymns, I was not drawn to her lyrical love poems, which I read too cynically, but as I read on, I was drawn in by her humor, self-reflection, and earnest political analysis. This collection of twenty-six poems vary from love poems to political laments—all written with obvious skill for word choice, style, and performability (although I cannot attest to her performance, she recently won the first ever Women of the World Poetry Slam in March 2008).

The poem “See Through” was one of my favorites. Written about her thoughts in trying to explain whiteness to a five year old, the poem is incredibly self-reflective, and while explicit in naming the histories of white privilege and supremacy in this country, does not fall into the common activist trap of white guilt, but, rather, expresses the rage and motions towards action: “Don’t you think its time something changed?” Throughout the book she spaces a few very short, humorous poems that add wit, brevity, and humor to a collection that is, on the whole, heavy and longer.

Overall, the collection reads with cohesion and variety - although, after the first few, I grew tired of the love poems written about her girlfriends. Pole Dancing To Gospel Hymns is for readers who are looking for smart, enjoyable, political poetry on topics ranging from queerness, gender, love, war, whiteness, and United States Empire.

Written by: Katrina Forman, July 6th 2008