In this unique and essential collection, Molly Ivins, Maureen Dowd, Maria Hinojosa, and a host of other frontline thinkers, journalists, and activists employ wit, outrage, and cold, hard facts to expose the “W Effect,”a comprehensive incursion into women’s rights. In recent years, women around the globe have come under attack—both literally, in the case of war and punitive repression, and more subtly, in the case of eroded rights and economic power. Yet this dangerous trend has not, to date, been comprehensively documented and deconstructed—in part because women are finding it harder to gain access to the mainstream media.
Both a harsh reality check and a hopeful starting point for new action, The W Effect brings together the premier feminist voices to provide cutting-edge reports; fresh, empowering analyses; and engaging, provocative ideas for the future—including a resource guide for information and activism. At this pivotal time, The W Effect is a necessary book for feminists of all ages and genders, for all progressive activists, for students, and for anyone interested in current politics and the future of women’s rights and women’s lives in America and around the world.
With reports on: affirmative action, the Patriot Act, welfare “reform,” sexual freedom, reproductive rights, the impact of the religious right, education funding and Title IX, public health policy, globalization, international HIV/AIDS policy, the International Court and the U.N., and more.
Journalist and broadcaster Laura Flanders was the founder of the Women’s Desk at FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), where, for 10 years, she hosted the syndicated radio program CounterSpin. Flanders currently hosts “Working Assets Radio” and is a contributor to The Nation, The Progressive, Ms. and In These Times. She is the author of Real Majority, Media Minority, The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting and Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species (April 2003).
| Introduction : feigning feminism, fueling backlash | ||
| A mean-spirited America : today, I fear my own government more than I do terrorists | 3 | |
| The power and the glory : who needs the Christian Coalition when you've got the White House? : the religious right's covert crusade | 5 | |
| TeamBush to abused women : fuhgedaboutit! | 11 | |
| Hardly sporting : don't gut Title IX until you know what it does | 15 | |
| Orphaned by the drug war | 19 | |
| Better safe ... ? | 24 | |
| Raising the voices of Afghan women : an interview with Masuda Sultan | 29 | |
| Call me American : a young man contemplates going to war | 36 | |
| Sneak attack : the militarization of U.S. culture | 38 | |
| Working-class women as war heroes | 39 | |
| Reading, tracing, and locating gender in 9/11 detentions | 41 | |
| Upstanding Native women | 45 | |
| Hidden casualties : an epidemic of domestic violence when troops return from war | 47 | |
| A cautionary tale from Kosovar women to women in post-war Iraq | 54 | |
| Baghdad burning : girl blog from Iraq | 56 | |
| Roe in rough waters | 65 | |
| Wedding bells and welfare bucks | 70 | |
| Altared states : women on welfare talk about marriage | 78 | |
| My late-term abortion | 81 | |
| Sex, lies, and abstinence | 85 | |
| Bush's war on the condom : U.N. report documents the failures to curb AIDS | 91 | |
| "Tell me everything" : teens talk back about abstinence education | 94 | |
| Why we need same-sex marriage | 96 | |
| Globalization and poverty : economic globalization has become a war against nature and the poor | 105 | |
| Kitchen table politics : an interview with Rhonda Perry | 111 | |
| Global sex rules : the price of silence | 114 | |
| Strange bedfellows : conservative Christians and the Bush administration are aggressively pushing a controversial "pro-family" agenda on the international stage - and they're teaming up with Islamic theocracies to do it | 121 | |
| The unequal AIDS burden | 128 | |
| ... and the poor get poorer | 133 | |
| Working women's lives and the "W effect" : an interview with Ellen Bravo | 138 | |
| Wal-Mart values | 145 | |
| Why privatizing government services would hurt women workers | 152 | |
| Social security is a women's issue | 156 | |
| Women's priorities would be sacrificed to pay for Bush tax cuts | 158 | |
| Latina girls' high school drop-out rate highest in U.S. | 165 | |
| Unconscionable care : is the religious right compromising your health care? | 167 | |
| Bush's basket : why the president had to show his balls | 175 | |
| Veiled intentions : the U.S. media's hug and run affair with Afghan women | 177 | |
| The thong vs. the veil | 180 | |
| On rescuing Private Lynch and forgetting Rachel Corrie | 182 | |
| Celebrating the many roles of women | 185 | |
| Unsung heroes | 187 | |
| The truth about women and the recession | 189 | |
| Queers without money : they are everywhere, but we refuse to see them | 193 | |
| Whatever happened to the gender gap? | 198 | |
| Four 9/11 moms battle Bush | 207 | |
| Against the war but married to it | 214 | |
| Arab women staying alive | 220 | |
| Women of the promised land | 223 | |
| Women are opening doors : Security Council Resolution 1325 in Afghanistan | 229 | |
| Shelf life, librarians : liberals with backbone | 235 | |
| Against Rosa's odds : on the road with a welfare warrior | 240 | |
| Mighty in pink | 244 | |
| Whose security? | 253 | |
| No place for a woman | 258 | |
| Transnational feminist practices against war | 263 | |
| A mystery of misogyny | 268 | |
| Gender smarts : will sex ever make us as smart as race when it comes time to vote? | 271 | |
| Building a movement for reproductive self-determination : an interview with Dorothy Roberts | 273 | |
| U.S. feminisim lite : claiming independence, asserting personal choice | 280 | |
| War on terror or war on women? : the view from Latin America | 285 |
Anonymous
Posted July 7, 2009
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
In this unique and essential collection, Molly Ivins, Maureen Dowd, Maria Hinojosa, and a host of other frontline thinkers, journalists, and activists employ wit, outrage, and cold, hard facts to expose the “W Effect,”a comprehensive incursion into women’s rights. In recent years, women around the globe have come under attack—both literally, in the case of war and punitive repression, and more subtly, in the case of eroded rights and economic power. Yet this dangerous trend has not, to date, been comprehensively ...