Antifeminism and Family Terrorism: A Critical Feminist Perspective / Edition 256

by Rhonda Hammer

Overview

Rhonda Hammer's Antifeminism and Family Terrorism presents provocative critical feminist perspectives on violence against women and children. Hammer provides insightful analyses of the current rhetoric produced by antifeminists who would deny the seriousness of the problem and thus undercut important feminist concerns. Responding to the ongoing backlash against feminism and feminist impersonators like Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers, Hammer documents the tragic dimensions of the brutalization of women and children in the family, and the larger problem of the increasing poverty and oppression of women and children in the global economy. It is within this context that Hammer also critiques those mainstream feminist approaches that personalize, psychologize, and/or depoliticize what she calls "family terrorism." This concept articulates the familial, societal, political, economic, and now global dimensions of violence against women and children. The book demonstrates the need for a critical and dialectical approach that draws upon colonization theory and Borderland feminism to help develop a transformative feminist theory and practice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742510500
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/17/2001
Series:	Culture and Politics Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Rhonda Hammer is a research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women and teaches in women's studies and communication at UCLA. She is co-author of Rethinking Media Literacy: A Critical Pedagogy of Representation.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Antifeminism, Postfeminism, and the Backlash Chapter 3 Culture Wars over Feminism: Paglia, Wolf, and Hoff Sommers Chapter 4 The F-Word and the Victimization Debate Chapter 5 Family Terrorism Chapter 6 Colonization, Dialectics, and Borderland Feminism Chapter 7 Bibliography Chapter 8 Index

Editorial Reviews

By shedding light on the links between local and global violence against women and children as part of a colonizing system of family terrorism, Hammer prepares the ground for a transformative feminism in an era of globalization.

Lee Quinby

In this serious and engaging work, Rhonda Hammer offers sharp analysis and progressive politics to provide an important contribution to antiterror critiques and initiatives.

Joy James

In this explosive book, Rhonda Hammer exposes what she calls 'antifeminist pseudofeminists' and 'feminist impersonators' like Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Katie Roiphe, and Naomi Wolf as collaborators with the colonialization of women worldwide. She powerfully argues that 'power feminism' and 'life-style feminism' are part and parcel of the very global consumer culture through which so many women are oppressed. When girl-power becomes nothing more than an excuse to shop and indulge one's urgesby exploiting others, Hammer rightfully claims that it is out of line with a feminist activism that aims to redress exploitation on a global scale. Hammer also interrogates the notion of domestic violence and fake-feminist responses to it. She develops the notion of 'family terrorism' in order to insist on, rather than diminish, the severity of violence against women and children. She argues that calling it domestic violence makes it a special kind of violence that is not taken quite as seriously or considered quite as violent as other kinds of violence. Indeed, in the last chapter of her book, Hammer persuasively makes the connection between colonization, global capitalism and poverty, and the prevalence of family violence. Hammer's book is the first

Kelly Oliver

Hammer has done feminists an important service by providing this sustained analysis of antifeminism.

American Journal of Sociology