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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism Book Club - The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard - 14 April 2010 9pm

102 replies

Molesworth · 08/04/2010 16:12

Thought I'd set the thread up ready for next week

Link to book on Amazon

Synopsis

Today it is widely believed that feminism has achieved its aims, and that women and men have achieved equality. This, quite simply, is an illusion.

Women working full time in the UK are paid on average seventeen per cent less than men. Domestic violence causes more death and disability among women aged sixteen to forty-four than cancer or traffic accidents. Of parliamentary seats across the globe, only fifteen per cent are held by women and fewer than twenty per cent of UK MPs are women. The number of men paying for sex acts doubled during the 1990s in the UK. From body image to work to education to violence to sex, women in the twenty-first century are still on an unequal footing with men.

In The Equality Illusion, campaigner Kat Banyard has written an alarm call, arguing passionately that feminism is one of the most urgent and relevant social justice campaigns today.

Structuring the book around a normal day, Banyard sets out the major issues for twenty-first-century feminism and explores how they are woven into our everyday lives. She also challenges how we think about choice and empowerment - ideas that have been so successfully co-opted by both the beauty industry and the sex industry - and argues against the notion that biology is at the heart of most gender inequality.

Banyard draws on her own campaigning experience as well as academic research and dozens of her own interviews and case studies. The book also includes information on how to get involved in grassroots action and a list of resources.

(www.faber.co.uk/work/equality-illusion/9780571246267/)

Author Website

OP posts:
Molesworth · 15/04/2010 12:23

Agreed, I personally find it tough breaking out of this neoliberal discourse I've grown up with (I was 11 in 1979). Do you think though that the current crisis of the neoliberal 'project' is providing a space for the message/language/strategies of 2nd wave feminism to re-emerge?

OP posts:
StewieGriffinsMom · 15/04/2010 15:58

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