In Black Girl Autopoetics Ashleigh Greene Wade explores how Black girls create representations of themselves in digital culture with the speed and flexibility enabled by smartphones. She analyzes the double bind Black girls face when creating content online: on one hand, their online activity makes them hypervisible, putting them at risk for cyberbullying, harassment, and other forms of violence; on the other hand, Black girls are rarely given credit for their digital inventiveness, rendering them invisible. Wade maps Black girls’ everyday digital practices, showing what their digital content reveals about their everyday experiences and how their digital production contributes to a broader archive of Black life. She coins the term Black girl autopoetics to describe how Black girls’ self-making creatively reinvents cultural products, spaces, and discourse in digital space. Using ethnographic research into the digital cultural production of adolescent Black girls throughout the United States, Wade draws a complex picture of how Black girls navigate contemporary reality, urging us to listen to Black girls’ experience and learn from their techniques of survival.

In Unseen Flesh Nessette Falu explores how Black lesbians in Brazil define and sustain their well-being and self-worth against persistent racial, sexual, class, and gender-based prejudice. Focusing on the trauma caused by interactions with gynecologists, Falu draws on in-depth ethnographic work among the Black lesbian community to reveal their profoundly negative affective experiences within Brazil’s deeply biased medical system. In the face of such entrenched, intersectional intimate violence, Falu’s informants actively pursue well-being in ways that channel their struggle for self-worth toward broader goals of social change, self care, and communal action. Demonstrating how the racist and heteronormative underpinnings of gynecology erase Black lesbian subjecthood through mental, emotional, and physical traumas, Falu explores the daily resistance and abolitionist practices of worth-making that claim and sustain Black queer identity and living. Falu rethinks the medicalization of race, sex, and gender in Brazil and elsewhere while offering a new perspective on Black queer life through well-being grounded in relationships, socioeconomic struggles, the erotic, and freedom strivings.

Explores the reach of the law into our most personal and private romantic lives

The Architecture of Desire examines how the law influences our most personal and private choices—who we desire and choose as intimate partners—and explores the psychological, economic, and social effects of these choices. Romantic preferences, as shaped by law, perpetuate segregation and subordination by limiting, on the basis of race, individuals’ prospects for marriage and marriage-like commitments, as well as economic and social mobility.

The book begins by tracing the legacy of slavery, anti-miscegenation, segregation, and racially discriminatory immigration laws to show how this legal landscape facilitated the residential, economic, and social distance between racial and ethnic groups, which in turn continue to shape romantic preferences today. Solangel Maldonado argues that the law further influences intimate choices by structuring the spaces within which individuals meet and interact via practices such as redlining, gentrification, and zoning.

Maldonado includes studies of online and offline dating preferences to demonstrate that romantic predilections follow a gendered racial hierarchy in which Whites are at the top, African-Americans at the bottom, and—depending on skin tone—Asian-Americans and Latinos in the middle. These preferences may be explicit, implicit, or both, but they are usually the result of stereotypes reflected in social and cultural norms. Furthermore, since marriage confers substantial legal, economic, and social advantages, sexual racism further limits an individual’s opportunity to find a partner and reap these benefits. Finally, the book proposes ways to minimize the law’s influence over who we desire, love, and bring into our families, such as changes to dating platforms as well as to housing, education, and transportation policies.

Noted for its accessibility, this text--now revised and updated to reflect a decade of advances in the field--examines how attitudes and beliefs about gender profoundly shape all aspects of daily life. From the schoolyard to the workplace to dating, sex, and marriage, men and women alike are pressured to conform to gender roles that limit their choices and impede equality. The text uses real-world examples to explore such compelling questions as where masculine and feminine stereotypes come from, the often hidden ways in which male dominance is maintained, and how challenging conventional romantic ideals can strengthen heterosexual relationships.
 
New to This Edition
*Chapter on the sexualization of women's bodies, and resistance to it (including #MeToo).
*Chapter on the harmful effects of "real man" ideology.
*Numerous new examples drawn from current events.
*Updated throughout with the latest theories, research, and findings.
 

An inciteful analysis of the affective rhetoric surrounding Russian anti-LGBTQ violence.

Passed in 2013, Russia’s “gay propaganda” law cemented the nation’s anti-LGBTQ sentiment into legal rhetoric that has since emboldened countless instances of violence against queer people. Based on an analysis of over three hundred criminal cases of anti-queer violence in Russia before and after the introduction of the law, Violent Affections shows how violent acts are framed in emotional language by perpetrators during their criminal trials, thus uncovering the techniques of power that work to translate emotions into violence against queer people. Utilizing an original methodology of studying legal memes, this book argues that individual affective states are directly connected to the political and legislative violence aimed at policing queer lives. Alexander Sasha Kondakov expands upon two sets of interdisciplinary literature–queer theory and affect theory–in order to conceptualize what is referred to as neo-disciplinary power. The book traces how affections circulate from body to body as a kind of virus, eventually enabling the turn from a memetic response to violent action.

In Making Women Pay, Smitha Radhakrishnan explores India's microfinance industry, which in the last two decades has come to saturate the everyday lives of women in the name of state-led efforts to promote financial inclusion and women's empowerment. Despite this favorable language, she argues, microfinance in India does not provide a market-oriented development intervention, even though it may appear to help women borrowers. Rather, this commercial industry seeks to extract the maximum value from its customers through exploitative relationships that benefit especially class-privileged men. Through ethnography, interviews, and historical analysis, Radhakrishnan demonstrates how the unpaid and underpaid labor of marginalized women borrowers ensures both profitability and symbolic legitimacy for microfinance institutions, their employees, and their leaders. In doing so, she centralizes gender in the study of microfinance, reveals why most microfinance programs target women, and explores the exploitative implications of this targeting.

With Pathways of Desire, Héctor Carrillo brings us into the lives of Mexican gay men who have left their home country to pursue greater sexual autonomy and sexual freedom in the United States. The groundbreaking ethnographic study brings our attention to the full arc of these men’s migration experiences, from their upbringing in Mexican cities and towns, to their cross-border journeys, to their incorporation into urban gay communities in American cities, and their sexual and romantic relationships with American men. These men’s diverse and fascinating stories demonstrate the intertwining of sexual, economic, and familial motivations for migration.

Further, Carrillo shows that sexual globalization must be regarded as a bidirectional, albeit uneven, process of exchange between countries in the global north and the global south. With this approach, Carrillo challenges the view that gay men from countries like Mexico would logically want to migrate to a “more sexually enlightened” country like the United States—a partial and limited understanding, given the dynamic character of sexuality in countries such as Mexico, which are becoming more accepting of sexual diversity. Pathways of Desire also provides a helpful analytical framework for the simultaneous consideration of structural and cultural factors in social scientific studies of sexuality. Carrillo explains the patterns of cross-cultural interaction that sexual migration generates and—at the most practical level—shows how the intricacies of cross-cultural sexual and romantic relations may affect the sexual health and HIV risk of transnational immigrant populations.

'This insightful, thoughtful work needs to be read by all of us ... Fielder brings together the two concepts of labour - work and giving birth - and shows us how both are subsumed under capitalism' Barbara Katz Rothman, author of In Labor'Entirely original and a fascinating read' Robbie Davis-Floyd, cultural, medical and reproductive anthropologist 'Fielder's nuanced analysis demonstrates the contradictory features of obstetrics in capitalist society. A pivotal addition to Marxist understandings of pregnancy and childbirth' Kirstin Munro, Assistant Professor, The New School for Social Research Childbirth is often described as a natural process, and yet the choices we make around birth, the risks we face, and the care available to us, are tightly bound up in the dynamics of the capitalist system in which we live. Capitalist relations shape childbirth in largely unacknowledged ways but with intensely inequitable, often traumatic, effects. Going into Labour is a Marxist analysis of the labor of childbirth and of birth care. Through the chapters, former midwife Anna Fielder interrogates key features of contemporary childbearing, situating birth as a crucial site of struggle against capitalism. Fielder writes about productivity drives, insurance companies, risk formulations and calls for scientific evidence. She emphasizes the pay of birth workers, such as midwives and nurses, and their working conditions. She also signals the importance of political struggles in birthing arenas against forces including racism, colonialism, misogyny, and cisheteronormativity. As capitalism draws on these forces, shaping contemporary inequities and oppressions, activists work to gestate futures that aspire beyond the present constraints. Anna Fielder is a sociologist in the Midwifery Department, Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

'Phenomenal ... Offers us possibilities for rescuing the concept of democracy from its fatal entanglement with racial, heteropatriarchal capitalism' -- Angela Y. Davis 'Embraces the unruliness of collective struggle, and recognizes freedom not as a destination but practice--an abolitionist, feminist, anticapitalist, antiracist, radically inclusive practice' -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams 'A compelling and inspiring book that belongs in our movements and our classrooms' -- Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism Without Borders 'An elegantly written masterpiece' -- Barbara Ransby, author of Making All Black Lives Matter Become Ungovernable is a provocative new work of political thought setting out to reclaim "freedom", "justice", and "democracy", revolutionary ideas that are all too often warped in the interests of capital and the state. Revealing the mirage of mainstream democratic thought and the false promises of liberal political ideologies, H.L.T. Quan offers an alternative approach: an abolition feminism drawing on a kaleidoscope of refusal praxes, and on a deep engagement with the Black Radical Tradition and queer analytics. With each chapter anchored by episodes from the long history of resistance and rebellions against tyranny, Quan calls for us to take up a feminist ethic of living rooted in the principles of radical inclusion, mutuality and friendship as part of the larger toolkit for confronting fascism, white supremacy, and the neoliberal labor regime. H.L.T. Quan is a political theorist, award-winning filmmaker and Associate Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Quan is the author of Growth Against Democracy and editor of Cedric J. Robinson.

What is socialist feminism and why is it needed to fight the global rise of authoritarianism and fascism? Frieda Afary brings the insights gained through her study of feminist philosophy, her international activism and her work in community education as a public librarian in Los Angeles, offering a bold new vision of an alternative to capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism and alienation.
Socialist Feminism: A New Approach reclaims theories of women's oppression through a return to humanism, enriched by social reproduction theories, Black feminist intersectionality, abolitionism, queer theories, Marxist-Humanism and the author's own experiences as an Iranian American feminist, scholar and activist.
She looks at global developments in gender relations since the 1980s, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the distinct features of twenty-first century authoritarianism and current struggles against it, drawing out lessons for revolutionary theorising, organising and international solidarity including the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements.
This book also contains a study guide which transforms it into a useful pedagogical tool for teachers and activists.

'A clarion voice from a new generation of British feminists' Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family'A powerful, utterly engaging read and a vital call to action' Meg-John Barker, author of Rewriting the Rules'Made me reconsider so many of the cultural scripts I've been fed my whole life. Unsparing, important and hopeful' Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak In a world where money rules, what does it mean to have good relationships? Radical Intimacy explores how the capitalist system shapes our intimate lives, and what we can do about it. Through the topics of self-care, romance and sex, family, home, death and friendship, the book looks at the histories and modern realities of these forms of intimacy, and considers what it might mean for things to be otherwise. From political sex scandals to climate justice, from Britney Spears to communes, from Black Lives Matter to alternatives to the nuclear family, Sophie K. Rosa interrogates common sense ideas about 'the good life'. What might our desires look like in a better world? And how can care, connection and community support our struggles for liberation? Sophie K. Rosa is a writer and journalist. She has written for many publications including Novara Media, the Independent, the Guardian, Buzzfeed, VICE, Al Jazeera, Aeon and CNN.

"Through ethnographic cases and activists' narratives, Contesting Publics analyses the challenges feminists face as they seek to engage with new spaces of participatory democracy in Latin America. Lynne Phillips and Sally Cole analyse how new silences, exclusions and re-inscriptions of inequalities have emerged alongside these new spaces of participation. The book re-examines the relationship between public and private and speaks to a larger theoretical question: what is the meaning of 'the public' within democracy projects? Contesting Publics considers current debates among feminists from different generations on the merits of a variety of strategies, goals and issues, drawing out vital lessons for students, researchers and activists in anthropology, gender studies and Latin American studies."--Publisher's website.

This volume explores how different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted and diverged from the Soviet gender roles and values. It synthesizes results from multiple empirical studies that attend to increasingly conservative features of political governance in the region, particularly the authoritarian regime in Russia. The authors consider diverse enactments of ideologies, policies and practices of gender equality and women’s rights in crucial areas, such as legislative institutions, media, and social activism. The volume contributes to understanding post-Soviet societal dynamics relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which emphasizes gender equality as part of fundamental human rights.

This powerfully written and co-authored book creatively engages with the topics of Black and Latinx femininity, motherhood, sexuality, racial and ethnic identity, and political engagement through the life and artistic work of Hip Hop artist Cardi B. The authors highlight examples from Cardi's lived experiences and artistry using a trap feminist framework as a starting point for sociological conversations about Black women and the trap.The authors weave foundational histories of Black sociology, Black feminism, and institutional inequalities along the lines of race, class, and gender. Drawing from moments in Cardi B's public life--her rap lyrics, her behavior at New York Fashion Week, questions about her racial and ethnic identity, the unveiling of her pregnancy, her engagement with politicians, and her responses to social media comments and critics--this book argues for the merits of addressing Black feminist theory from the bottom up--that is, to take seriously the knowledge production of Black women by attending to and creating space for hood chicks, ghetto girls, and ratchet women.By centering the lived experiences and social positions of the Black women Cardi represents, the authors expand Black feminist discourse and entrust Black women to define themselves for themselves. This book is an important contribution to scholarship for students, scholars, and readers interested in sociology, Hip Hop, pop culture, and women's studies.