Objectify This

The formidable mind of my mentor Kristin Bumiller always deserves mention.

Luckily, the American Political Science Association agrees with me. Bumiller’s excellent book, In An Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriate the Feminist Movement against Sexual Violence, won the APSA’s 2009 Victoria Shuck Award for the best book published in the previous calendar year on women and politics.

In short, her book argues that the government has failed to effectively incorporate the spirit of the feminist movement into its sexual violence policies and practices. This is an essential book for any level-headed radical examining gender culture and politics, and we are indebted to Bumiller for the high quality of her scholarship. Check out my discussion of the fallacy of postfeminist politics here.

Some reviews:”Kristin Bumiller describes a sane, intelligent path through the cyclical race and gender passion plays that have spun out–and spun out of control–on the national media stage. From the Central Park Jogger case to O. J. Simpson, Bumiller is never polemical. This book provides much-needed perspective as she details the conscious and unconscious ingredients in how such polarization is choreographed, and how boundaries are subtly but intransigently marked.”–Patricia J. Williams, James L. Dohr Professor of Law, Columbia University, and columnist for The Nation

“In an Abusive State provides a needed and instructive retrospective of the violence against women movement. Kristin Bumiller brings into focus the uneasy alliance between feminists and the state by looking critically at the official conduct of rape trials and domestic assault cases, as well as the routine surveillance of women considered ‘dependent.’ Using extensive empirical analysis, she exposes the limitations of strategies that attempt to incorporate feminist practices within mainstream institutions. This important and timely book will set the agenda for a new era of feminist activism–one that begins with the realization that mounting fundamental challenges to systems of social control means working outside of the existing institutional structures of the state.”–Martha Albertson Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, Emory University

“Built on demanding scholarship, informed by collective feminist praxis, In an Abusive State engages the lives of women experiencing the personal trauma of and institutional responses to sexual violence. Committed, reflective, accessible, and challenging, Kristin Bumiller critically maps the structural relations of inequality and marginalization underpinning women’s relationships to the authoritarian state and its regulatory institutions. Internationally significant, her excellent analysis exposes the policy deficits of restraint and criminalization and of attempting to affirm rights without addressing women’s social, political, and economic exclusion.”–Phil Scraton, Queen’s University, Belfast, author of Power, Conflict, and Criminalisation.

“…this is one of the most invigorating and challenging books I have read for years. It is a “must-read”…she has convincingly identified a major dilemma in our responses to sexual violence…it is refreshing to read a book that so clearly demands that we clarify and rethink our positions.” Joanna Bourke, Times Higher Education, 3rd July 2008