Synopses & Reviews
Violence against lesbians and gay men has increasingly captured media and scholarly attention. But these reports tend to focus on one segment of the LGBT communityandmdash;white, middle class menandmdash;and largely ignore that part of the community that arguably suffers a larger share of the violenceandmdash;racial minorities, the poor, and women. Inand#160;
Violence against Queer People, sociologist Doug Meyer offers the first investigation of anti-queer violence that focuses on the role played by race, class, and gender.
and#160;
Drawing on interviews with forty-seven victims of violence, Meyer shows that LGBT people encounter significantly different forms of violenceandmdash;and perceive that violence quite differentlyandmdash;based on their race, class, and gender.and#160; His research highlights the extent to which other forms of discriminationandmdash;including racism and sexismandmdash;shape LGBT peopleandrsquo;s experience of abuse.and#160;He reports, for instance, that lesbian and transgender women often described violent incidents in which a sexual or a misogynistic component was introduced, and that LGBT people of color sometimes werenandrsquo;t sure if anti-queer violence was based solely on their sexuality or whether racism or sexism had also played a role. Meyer observes that given the many differences in how anti-queer violence is experienced, the present media focus on white, middle-class victims greatly oversimplifies and distorts the nature of anti-queer violence. In fact, attempts to reduce anti-queer violence that ignore race, class, and gender run the risk of helping only the most privileged gay subjects.
Many feel that the struggle for gay rights has largely been accomplished and the tide of history has swung in favor of LGBT equality. Violence against Queer People, on the contrary, argues that the lives of many LGBT peopleandmdash;particularly the most vulnerableandmdash;have improved very little, if at all, over the past thirty years.
and#160;
Review
andldquo;With a distinctive, innovative, and powerful feminist voice, Mardorossian makes a fantastic contribution to the scholarship on sexual violence that will excite much interest and fuel many debates.
Framing the Rape Victim is simply brilliant.andrdquo;
Review
"Mardorossian powerfully illustrates how aversion to 'victim rhetoric' has valorized agency but ignored the ways political and cultural institutions shape experiences of choice, consent, autonomy, and vulnerability."
author of Rape: Sex, Violence, History
Review
andquot;Mardorossian powerfully illustrates how aversion to 'victimand#160;rhetoric' has valorized agency but ignored the waysand#160;political and culturaland#160;institutions shape experiences of choice, consent, autonomy, and vulnerability.andquot;
Review
"A powerful critique."
Rose Corrigan - author of Up Against a Wall: Rape Reform and the Failure of Success
Review
"From Seneca Falls to hip-hop, this striking collection pushes us to rethink the who, what, when, where, and why of U.S. feminist history. The wide-ranging essays toss out the overly tidy generational model and replace it with complex, rich, and inclusive accounts of our feminist past. Highly recommended."
Review
"An important contribution to the ongoing dialogue on the meaning of feminism and its application not just within the academy, but also to a larger and more general political, social, and intellectual forum. Recommended."
Review
"As an intellectual enterprise the book successfully established the overlapping and intertwined configurations of feminist movements from the 1840s to the present. Hewitt's book is a compelling guide to contemporary interpretations of American feminisms. Its thought-provoking essays will be especially useful in classroom distussions about historical practice."
Review
"
No Permanent Waves offers not only crucial information on the histories of feminism but also evidence for new historiographical claims about how feminism relates to itself across time, positionality, race, region, class, sexuality, occupation, and especially generation. Featuring a range of essays on manifestations of feminism and their relationships to time and generation,
No Permanent Waves demonstrated the strength of attending to difference."
Review
andquot;Aand#160;powerful critique.andquot;
Review
"Dubriwny clearly explains the connections between neoliberal and postfeminist ideologies and effectively illustrates the ways in which these ideologies work in specific healthcare contexts. Her work is an original contribution to an important and growing conversation."
Review
"This important critique convincingly problematizes the increased visibility of women's health in U.S. culture. A crucial text for scholars and activists committed to moving beyond postfeminist appropriations of women's lives."
Review
"This focused volume critiques three discourses on women's health issues situated in personal empowerment narratives. This will be valuable for advanced scholars both within biomedicalization-oriented research and outside it. Recommended."
Review
"The Vulnerable Empowered Woman is an obvious choice for gender and race courses, particularly dealing with health, but also neoliberalism. Beyond the obvious audience, this book is a good choice for an academic who wishes to better understand the 'language' of a colleague who studies postfeminism and related topics. The three contemporary topics covered in the case studies are highly accessible to the reader and Dubriwny’s careful attention to define terms that may be unfamiliar, often with examples, helps the reader move through each chapter."
Review
andquot;Doug Meyerandrsquo;s Violence against Queer People demonstrates the importance of studying violence against LGBT people who are also racial minorities, women, and/or working class. The book remainsand#160;extremely accessible as it tackles important theoretical frameworks of race, class, gender, and sexuality.andquot;
Review
andquot;Doug Meyer gives us intersectionalityandmdash;with a punch. Somewhere there are rainbow wedding cakes and happy new familiesandmdash;but all is not yet right in America. For people without race privilege, queer remains dangerous territory.andquot;
Synopsis
and#160;In recent years, members of legal, law enforcement, media and academic circles have portrayed rape as a special kind of crime distinct from other forms of violence. In
Framing the Rape Victim, Carine M. Mardorossian argues that this differential treatment of rape has exacerbated the ghettoizing of sexual violence along gendered lines. Both a critical analysis and a call to action,
Framing the Rape Victim shows that rape is not a special interest issue that pertains just to women but a pervasive one that affects our society as a whole.
Synopsis
Winner of the 2016 Nonfiction Category from The Authors' Zone
In recent years, members of legal, law enforcement, media and academic circles have portrayed rape as a special kind of crime distinct from other forms of violence. In Framing the Rape Victim, Carine M. Mardorossian argues that this differential treatment of rape has exacerbated the ghettoizing of sexual violence along gendered lines and has repeatedly led to women's being accused of triggering, if not causing, rape through immodest behavior, comportment, passivity, or weakness.
Contesting the notion that rape is the result of deviant behaviors of victims or perpetrators, Mardorossian argues that rape saturates our culture and defines masculinity's relation to femininity, both of which are structural positions rather than biologically derived ones. Using diverse examples throughout, Mardorossian draws from Hollywood film and popular culture to contemporary women's fiction and hospitalized birth emphasizing that the position of dominant masculinity can be occupied by men, women, or institutions, while structural femininity is a position that may define and subordinate men, minorities, and other marginalized groups just as effectively as it does women. Highlighting the legacies of the politically correct debates of the 1990s and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the book illustrates how the framing of the term "victim" has played a fundamental role in constructing notions of agency that valorize autonomy and support exclusionary, especially masculine, models of American selfhood.
The gendering of rape, including by well-meaning, sometimes feminist, voices that claim to have victims' best interests at heart, ultimately obscures its true role in our culture. Both a critical analysis and a call to action, Framing the Rape Victim shows that rape is not a special interest issue that pertains just to women but a pervasive one that affects our society as a whole.
Synopsis
In recent years, members of legal, law enforcement, media and academic circles have portrayed rape as a special kind of crime distinct from other forms of violence. In
Framing the Rape Victim, Carine M. Mardorossian argues that this differential treatment of rape has exacerbated the ghettoizing of sexual violence along gendered lines and has repeatedly led to womenandrsquo;s being accused of triggering, if not causing, rape through immodest behavior, comportment, passivity, or weakness.
Contesting the notion that rape is the result of deviant behaviors of victims or perpetrators, Mardorossian argues that rape saturates our culture and defines masculinityandrsquo;s relation to femininity, both of which are structural positions rather than biologically derived ones. Using diverse examples throughout, Mardorossian draws from Hollywood film and popular culture to contemporary womenandrsquo;s fiction and hospitalized birth emphasizing that the position of dominant masculinity can be occupied by men, women, or institutions, while structural femininity is a position that may define and subordinate men, minorities, and other marginalized groups just as effectively as it does women.and#160; Highlighting the legacies of the politically correct debates of the 1990s and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the book illustrates how the framing of the term andldquo;victimandrdquo; has played a fundamental role in constructing notions of agency that valorize autonomy and support exclusionary, especially masculine, models of American selfhood.
The gendering of rape, including by well-meaning, sometimes feminist, voices that claim to have victimsandrsquo; best interests at heart, ultimately obscures its true role in our culture. Both a critical analysis and a call to action, Framing the Rape Victim shows that rape is not a special interest issue that pertains just to women but a pervasive one that affects our society as a whole.
Synopsis
No Permanent Waves boldly enters the ongoing debates over the utility of the "wave" metaphor for capturing the complex history of women's rights by offering fresh perspectives on the diverse movements that comprise U.S. feminism, past and present. Seventeen essays--both original and reprinted--address continuities, conflicts, and transformations among women's movements in the United States from the early nineteenth century through today.
Synopsis
The Vulnerable Empowered Woman assesses the state of women’s healthcare today by analyzing popular media representations—television, print newspapers, websites, advertisements, blogs, and memoirs—in order to understand the ways in which breast cancer, postpartum depression, and cervical cancer are discussed in American public life. Tasha N. Dubriwny’s analysis concludes with a call to re-politicize women’s health through narratives that can help us imagine women, and their relationship to medicine, differently.
Synopsis
Sociologist Doug Meyer offers the first investigation of anti-queer violence that highlights the role played by race, class, and gender. Drawing on interviews with forty-seven victims of violence, Meyer shows that LGBT people encounter significantly different forms of violenceandmdash;and perceive that violence quite differentlyandmdash;based on their race, class, and gender. Attempts to reduce anti-queer violence that ignore these three factors run the risk of helping only the most privileged gay subjects. and#160;
About the Author
NANCY A. HEWITT is a professor of history and women's and gender studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her books include Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822–1872; Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880–1920s; and A Companion to American Women's History.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Reframing Narratives/Reclaiming Histories
Chapter 1. From Seneca Falls to Suffrage?
Chapter 2. Multiracial Feminism
Chapter 3. Black Feminisms and Human Agency
“We Have a Long, Beautiful History”
Chapter 5. Unsettling “Third Wave Feminism”
Part II: Coming Together/Pulling Apart
Chapter 6. Overthrowing the “Monopoly of the Pulpit”
Chapter 7. Labor Feminists and President Kennedy’s Commission on Women
Chapter 8. Expanding the Boundaries of the Women’s Movement
Chapter 9. Rethinking Global Sisterhood
Chapter 10. Living a Feminist Lifestyle
Chapter 11. Strange Bedfellows
Chapter 12. From Sisterhood to Girlie Culture
Part III: Rethinking Agendas/Relocating Activism
Chapter 13. Staking Claims to Independence
Chapter 14. “I Had Not Seen Women Like That Before”
Chapter 15. The Hidden History of Affirmative Action
Chapter 16. U.S. Feminism—Grrrl Style!
Chapter 17. “Under Construction”