by Jaclyn Friedman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 14, 2017
A potent, convincing manifesto on how female sexual equality marches onward despite cultural roadblocks.
A feminist perspective on sexual power and its uses and abuses in America.
Women’s sexuality expert Friedman (What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety, 2011) believes women are in the midst of an era of “fauxpowerment” whereby “bright, candy-colored” notions of female sexual liberation, equality, and sexual power cloak the real reality of the “still mostly retrograde and misogynist status quo.” In clear, concise language, she argues that the current state of American culture suffers from a sexual revolution that remains unfinished and is in dire need of an overhaul while economic, governmental, and technological forces falsely promote the advancements in the sexual empowerment and equalization of women. Supporting this claim are numerous profiles of change-makers who, through their individual and collective efforts, have fostered a culture of assistance and acceptance. They include a host of grass-roots pioneers who have dedicated their lives to defusing misogyny and sexual oppression and to reshaping public perception. Friedman chronicles her discussions with reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross, her volunteer work with a sexual research study at a Toronto university, and her questioning of Facebook’s little-known policy on adult products and services. She also examines the arduous fight over abortion rights and profiles award-winning female-empowerment filmmakers. With a seasoned eye, Friedman scrutinizes the complex historical legacy of sexual dehumanization and the contemporary proliferation of the teenage hookup culture. All of these interviews and anecdotal material inform readers on the slowly changing attitudes toward American sexual culture for women, from a toxic environment built on humiliation, shame, and violence to one of equality and liberation. However, notes the author, there is a long road ahead. The text is lively, emboldening, and nonjudgmental, and Friedman provides tools and processes whereby readers can become involved in an equality movement aimed at “seizing your power from a system that doesn’t want you to have it.”
A potent, convincing manifesto on how female sexual equality marches onward despite cultural roadblocks.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58005-641-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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