A critique of modern feminism that advocates for a more intersectional, systems-based approach.
A political philosopher reimagines contemporary feminism.
When Khader becomes pregnant, her friends shower her with “all the cliché bookish Brooklyn mom swag,” including a series of feminist children’s books with titles like Dream Big. These gifts purportedly celebrated radical feminism, but Khader realizes she’d seen their messages before: an amicus brief supporting the Supreme Court decision to repeal the constitutional right to abortion contained language embracing women’s “total freedom from burdens of unwanted children.” The call for freedom for American women is something Khader associates with her own progressive views and not those of conservatives who backed policies that restricted reproductive rights. Khader asks, “Since when were conservatives saying that women were free? And since when did they seem to be conceding that we should be?” The co-optation of these ideas inspires Khader to investigate the state of current feminism and to engage in a robust critique of which types of feminism are effective tools for achieving equity. Khader writes, “This book is about how to recognize feminist visions that harm and exclude, and how to stop ourselves from falling into them.” In the end, Khader encourages feminists to take stances that work toward systemic equality rather than personal freedom, and to be wary of feminists who conflate the two. Her book is well researched, compellingly written, and passionately argued. At times, the terms Khader uses are confusing or redundant, since they often feel like a rewording of a facet of white feminism that other scholars have already critiqued. That being said, the depth of her analysis and the breadth of her research make this a fascinating and informative read.
A critique of modern feminism that advocates for a more intersectional, systems-based approach.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9780807008270
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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