Politics Of Sexuality

A sensation upon its publication in 1970, Sexual Politics documents the subjugation of women in great literature and art. Kate Millett's analysis targets four revered authors—D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, and Jean Genet—and builds a damning profile of literature's patriarchal myths and their extension into psychology, philosophy, and politics. Her eloquence and popular examples taught a generation to recognize inequities masquerading as nature and proved the value of feminist critique in all facets of life. This new edition features the scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon and the New Yorker correspondent Rebecca Mead on the importance of Millett's work to challenging the complacency that sidelines feminism.

This book recognises sexuality as a mainstream concept in political analysis and explores issues in the politics of sexuality that are highly salient and controversial today. These include conceptions of citizenship and nationality linked to gender and sexuality, the legislation about the age of consent, prostitution and 'trafficing in women', the international politics of population control, abortion, sexual harrassment, and sexuality in the military. The international team of contributors provide a wide range of perspectives in a variety of contexts. On a national level they offer illustrative case studies from the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Israel among others, and on an international plane they cover the European Union, the UN Conference on Population and Development and the role of the Vatican as international arbiter. Moreover, the volume addresses the interaction between political discourse and the work of major theorists such as Weber, Freud, Foucault, Irigaray and Butler.

In globalizing Asia, sexual mores and gender roles are in constant flux. How have economic shifts and social changes altered and reconfigured the cultural meanings of gender and sexuality in the region? How have the changing political economy and social milieu influenced and shaped the inner workings and micro-politics of family structure, gender relationships, intimate romance, transactional sex, and sexual behaviors? This volume offers up-to-date, grounded, critical analysis of the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, and political economy across a diverse array of Asian societies: China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan. Based on intense ethnographic fieldwork, the chapters disentangle the ways in which gendered and sexual experiences are impinged upon by state policies, economic realities, cultural ideologies, and social hierarchies. Whether highlighting intimate relationships between elite businessmen and their mistresses in China; nightclub performances by Thai men in Bangkok; single women’s views of romance, motherhood, and marriage in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo; or male same-sex relationships in Pakistan—each chapter centers around the stories of the gendered subjects themselves and how they are shaped by outside forces. Taken together they provide a provocative entrée into the cultural politics of gender and sexuality in Asia. By foregrounding cross-cultural ethnographic research, this volume sheds light on how configurations of gender and sexuality are constituted, negotiated, contested, transformed, and at times, perpetuated and reproduced in private, intimate experiences. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, political science, and women’s and LGBTQ studies.

This provocative anthology brings together a diverse group of well-known feminist and gay writers, historians, and activists. They are concerned not only with current sexual issues-abortion, pornography, reproductive and gay rights-but they also raise a host of new issues and questions: How, and in what ways, is sexuality political? Is the struggle for sexual freedom a complement to other struggles for liberation, or will it detract from them? Has the sexual revolution diminished or enriched the lives of women?

Starting with the feminist insight that “the personal is political,” this engaging text underscores the centrality of gender and sexuality to the discipline of political science and encourages inquiry into the gendered dynamics at work in contemporary politics. Politics and Sex problematizes the public-private distinction, arguing that the way power is exercised over female sexuality and reproduction results in the restriction of women’s public roles, allowing gender inequality to persist in many areas. With topics as diverse as body politics, the veiling of women, female genital mutilation, rape and sexual violence, pornography, and prostitution and trafficking, the text explores significant cases in the contemporary context and ultimately repositions the private as a site of power. Edna Keeble takes a much-needed feminist liberal perspective through which readers can engage with questions of gender, culture, public policy, and human rights. Each chapter is rich with pedagogical features, including lists of recommended films, video clips, websites, and additional readings. Interdisciplinary in nature, this text is a welcome resource for students and scholars interested in exploring topics in gender and sexuality not commonly covered in political science courses.

Explores the complex relationship between sexuality and socialist politics in Britain, arguing that sexuality has been a key, though often neglected aspect of party politics in the last century and a half. It also explores the relationship between the personal and the political in a wide-ranging study of British society.

A pioneering study which has become an established classic in its field, Sex, Politics and Society provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of the transformations of British sexual life from 1800 to the present. These changes are firmly located in the wider context of social change, from industrialization and the experience of Empire through the establishment of the welfare state to the rise of new social movements, such as feminism and gay liberation, and new forms of social conservatism. Now fully revised and updated, and with a new chapter bringing the story right up to date, this new edition considers: the transformation of the sexual world through globalization and the internet the changing impact of the AIDS pandemic over the last thirty years the influence of new currents in social and cultural theory on the study of sexuality the gradual depoliticization and mainstreaming of sexuality within historical study Combining rich empirical detail with innovative theoretical insights, Sex, Politics and Society remains at the cutting edge of the subject and this third edition will inspire and provoke a whole new generation of readers in history, sociology, social policy, and the study of sexuality.

One of a small group of feminist pioneers in the historical profession, Estelle B. Freedman teaches and writes about women's history with a passion informed by her feminist values. Over the past thirty years, she has produced a body of work in which scholarship and politics have never been mutually exclusive. This collection brings together eleven essays--eight previously published and three new--that document the evolving relationship between academic feminism and political feminism as Freedman has studied and lived it. Following an introduction that presents a map of the personal and intellectual trajectory of Freedman's work, the first section of essays, on the origins and strategies of women's activism in U.S. history, reiterates the importance of valuing women in a society that has long devalued their contributions. The second section, on the maintenance of sexual boundaries, explores the malleability of both sexual identities and sexual politics. Underlying the collection is an inquiry into the changing meanings of gender, sexuality, and politics during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along with a concern for applying the insights of women's history broadly, from the classroom to the courthouse.