Women and children first : feminism, rhetoric, and public policy / edited by Sharon M. Meagher and Patrice DiQuinzio.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

DiQuinzio, Patrice, 1955-

Meagher, Sharon M.

Series:

SUNY series in gender theory.

SUNY series in gender theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Feminist theory.

Canada--Social policy.

Canada.

United States--Social policy--1993-.

United States.

Physical Description:

vii, 263 p.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This diverse collection explores the rhetoric of a wide range of public policies that propose "to put women and children first," including homeland security, school violence, gun control, medical intervention of intersex infants, and policies that aim to distinguish "good" from "bad" mothers. Using various feminist philosophical analyses, the contributors uncover a logic of paternalistic treatment of women and children that purports to protect them but almost always also disempowers them and sometimes harms them. This logic is widespread in contemporary popular policy discourse and affects the way that people understand and respond to social and political issues. Contributors rethink basic philosophical assumptions concerning subjectivity, difference, and dualistic logic in order to read the rhetoric of contemporary public policy discourse and develop new ways of talking and acting in the policy domain.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Women and Children First

(Mis)representations of the Domestic Sphere: State Interventions

Homeland Security and the Co-optation of Feminist Discourse

Unsanctioned (Bedroom) Commitments: The 2000 U.S. Census Discourse around Cohabitation and Single-Motherhood

Enemies of the State: Poor White Mothers and the Discourse of Universal Human Rights

Medical Discourses and Social Ills

Fixing Sex: Medical Discourse and the Management of Intersex

Social Melancholy, Shame, and Sublimation

Subjects of Violence

Predators and Protectors: The Rhetoric of School Violence

Battered Woman Syndrome: Locating the Subject Amidst the Advocacy

Mothers, Good and Bad: Marginalizing Mothers and Idealizing Children

Bad Mothers as “Brown” Mothers in Western Canadian Policy Discourse: Substance-Abusing Mothers and Sexually Exploited Girls

Behind Bars or Up on a Pedestal: Motherhood and Fetal Harm

Protesting Mothers: Politics under the Sign of Motherhood

(M)others, Biopolitics, and the Gulf War

Love and Reason in the Public Sphere: Maternalist Civic Engagement and the Dilemma of Difference

Contributors

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780791482858

0791482855

9781423747635

1423747631

OCLC:

63148266