book reviews
Tomorrow I return home from my 2 week roadtrip. On this trip I have finished reading two books. Both excellent reads.
The first one was called "Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian Genocide"
This was maybe one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is written by Andrea Smith, (who is a phenomenal speaker by the way - go see her speak if you ever get the chance) and she looks at colonization in the past and as a continuing process through the lens of sexual violence. She includes intersectional perspectives (class, race, gender) on topics including colonization, environmental injustices, the woman's "choice" debate, cultural appropriation, imperialism and to top it off, she ends the book with "anticolonial responses to gender violence". She includes ideas and real life examples on how to eradicate sexual violence and how to organize in ways that put marginalized people in the forefront of the struggle. Fantastic read.
The second book I read was Elizabeth Comack's "Out There/In Here: Masculinity, violence and Prisoning".
Comack uses the feminist process of standpoint analysis to center the stories of 19 men imprisoned in Headingley Correctional Centre in trying to understand the ways hegemonic masculinity shapes the lives of men both inside and outside of prison. This was my first time ever writing in a book! I used pencil because I'm still new to the process and am not ready to be as bold as a pen. I highlighted sections that I thought would be good for people at my work to read and am going to lend the book to my bosses. I found the section on the care/custody mangle to be especially interesting. She talks about the racist/classist mentalities that lead to aboriginal peoples over representation in the child welfare system and makes compelling similarities between CFS and the residential school systems. Interesting/upsetting quote from that chapter: "Cindy Blackstock (2003) estimates that there may now be as many as three times more aboriginal children in the care of child welfare authorities as were placed in residential schools at the height of those operations in the 1940s."
Comack talks about masculinity performances being informed by local, regional and global level discourses. It was pretty timely that while reading this book I kept hearing stories on the radio about the controversies over Obama hugging the departing chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (http://biggovernment.com/lkudlow/2010/10/03/a-hug-too-far-obama-emanuel-embrace-is-the-tip-of-the-weakness-iceburg/). They kept using language like hugs are a sign of "weakness" and how a male participating in public "emotionalism" sends the wrong sign. It isn't masculine enough, it isn't "powerful" or "forceful" enough to show the world that this president, no, this country is "manly".
Anyway, I've got a bit of a line forming, but if anyone wants to read either of these books let me know and I can lend it to you.
The first one was called "Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian Genocide"
This was maybe one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is written by Andrea Smith, (who is a phenomenal speaker by the way - go see her speak if you ever get the chance) and she looks at colonization in the past and as a continuing process through the lens of sexual violence. She includes intersectional perspectives (class, race, gender) on topics including colonization, environmental injustices, the woman's "choice" debate, cultural appropriation, imperialism and to top it off, she ends the book with "anticolonial responses to gender violence". She includes ideas and real life examples on how to eradicate sexual violence and how to organize in ways that put marginalized people in the forefront of the struggle. Fantastic read.
The second book I read was Elizabeth Comack's "Out There/In Here: Masculinity, violence and Prisoning".
Comack uses the feminist process of standpoint analysis to center the stories of 19 men imprisoned in Headingley Correctional Centre in trying to understand the ways hegemonic masculinity shapes the lives of men both inside and outside of prison. This was my first time ever writing in a book! I used pencil because I'm still new to the process and am not ready to be as bold as a pen. I highlighted sections that I thought would be good for people at my work to read and am going to lend the book to my bosses. I found the section on the care/custody mangle to be especially interesting. She talks about the racist/classist mentalities that lead to aboriginal peoples over representation in the child welfare system and makes compelling similarities between CFS and the residential school systems. Interesting/upsetting quote from that chapter: "Cindy Blackstock (2003) estimates that there may now be as many as three times more aboriginal children in the care of child welfare authorities as were placed in residential schools at the height of those operations in the 1940s."
Comack talks about masculinity performances being informed by local, regional and global level discourses. It was pretty timely that while reading this book I kept hearing stories on the radio about the controversies over Obama hugging the departing chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (http://biggovernment.com/lkudlow/2010/10/03/a-hug-too-far-obama-emanuel-embrace-is-the-tip-of-the-weakness-iceburg/). They kept using language like hugs are a sign of "weakness" and how a male participating in public "emotionalism" sends the wrong sign. It isn't masculine enough, it isn't "powerful" or "forceful" enough to show the world that this president, no, this country is "manly".
Anyway, I've got a bit of a line forming, but if anyone wants to read either of these books let me know and I can lend it to you.