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Verso Reports
Where Freedom Starts: Sex, Power, Violence, #MeToo
The powerful wave of rage fueling #MeToo has finally refocused public attention on sexual harassment and sexual violence and starkly posed questions of power, of feminism, and of politics. How do we define violence? How do we discuss and experience sex? Who gets to tell stories of sexual assault, and who gets to be heard? How impoverished is our language for describing the intersection of power, desire, and violence? What is the relationship between individual struggles and collective protest? What do we do with the abusers? In short, this moment has recalled a much older question: how do we get free?
In this collection of new and previously published writings, leading activists, feminists, scholars, and writers describe the shape of the problem, chart the forms refusal has taken, and outline possible solutions. Importantly, they also describe the longer histories of organizing against sexual violence that the #MeToo moment obscures—among working women, women of color, undocumented women, imprisoned women, poor women, among those who don’t conform to traditional gender roles—and discern from these practices a freedom that is more than notional, but embodied and uncompromising.
Contributors include Tarana Burke and Elizabeth Adetiba, Lauren Berlant, Tithi Bhattacharya, Stephanie Coontz and Hope Reese, Estelle Freedman, Melissa Gira Grant, Linda Gordon, Jessie Kindig, Laura Kipnis, Victoria Law, Maricruz Ladino and Gabriel Thompson, Magally A. Miranda Alcázar, Liz Mason-Deese, Danielle McGuire, Larissa Pham, Alex N. Press, Jane Ward, and Terrion L. Williamson.
In this collection of new and previously published writings, leading activists, feminists, scholars, and writers describe the shape of the problem, chart the forms refusal has taken, and outline possible solutions. Importantly, they also describe the longer histories of organizing against sexual violence that the #MeToo moment obscures—among working women, women of color, undocumented women, imprisoned women, poor women, among those who don’t conform to traditional gender roles—and discern from these practices a freedom that is more than notional, but embodied and uncompromising.
Contributors include Tarana Burke and Elizabeth Adetiba, Lauren Berlant, Tithi Bhattacharya, Stephanie Coontz and Hope Reese, Estelle Freedman, Melissa Gira Grant, Linda Gordon, Jessie Kindig, Laura Kipnis, Victoria Law, Maricruz Ladino and Gabriel Thompson, Magally A. Miranda Alcázar, Liz Mason-Deese, Danielle McGuire, Larissa Pham, Alex N. Press, Jane Ward, and Terrion L. Williamson.
115 pages, ebook
First published February 25, 2018
11 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 1, 2019
A powerful and thought-provoking collection of essays on - as you might expect from the title – sex, power, violence and the #MeToo movement. The book distinguishes itself by consciously refusing to fall into the trap of treating the #MeToo movement as the sole domain of wealthy white women. Instead, chapters discuss migrant workers in the American southwest, textile workers in Bangladesh, the role of race in historical allegations of sexual assault, the double bind placed on African American women historically and today, and the sexual demonization of queer women. And over it all – again, as you'd expect, given the publisher – an indictment of the capitalist system that creates the conditions of precariousness allowing violence against women to thrive in all eras and contexts.
Overall, this is a really well done, comprehensive overview of the struggles often faced by individual women – and how overcoming those struggles requires collective action.
Overall, this is a really well done, comprehensive overview of the struggles often faced by individual women – and how overcoming those struggles requires collective action.
March 20, 2018
So firstly, this ebook is free, so you might as well read it. Yes all of these essays can be found online as well, so technically there's nothing new here, but it's all collated for you into a pretty handy ebook so why not.
This is a timely collection of essays that critically interrogates the #MeToo movement, starting with Tarana Burke, the woman who originally started #MeToo, and progressing through a range of different feminist writers, including the opening speech of a forum on sexual harassment in 1981, after laws against sexual harassment were passed. The illuminating and infuriating thing is the realisation that you could almost read the essay with no introduction, and think it was written today.
The series of essays was really interesting, and covered a wider range of topics than I expected, which really helped to contextualise the #MeToo movement in a wider feminist context. Especially in the context of feminist movements that do grassroots work and create real change for latina workers, black women, victims of murder, incarcerated women, and those in domestic and/or undervalued fields of work.
The common arguments through the essays were interrogating the capitalist and celebrity structure of #MeToo, the ways in which an individualistic approach to the issue of sexual harassment will never effect real change like a collective understanding of it will, and the ways we should define sexual harassment altogether. The latter is the biggest point of contention through the essays, which suggestions that through collective understanding we can throw of the capitalist structure of victim hood, or alternatively defining harassment on an individual basis somehow without losing the protection of legal structures.
Issues of incarceration and the faults of legal justice were interesting aspects of the essays too. Ways of seeking justice which don't involve structures of legal justice and resulting mass incarceration was a big theme in False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton as well, and is one of the most convincing arguments I've read in both collections because of the well-documented effects on minority groups, particularly black minorities. Also, the analysis of how queer minorities have been affected by punitive justice is well-documented and makes it clear how authoritarian structures are simply bent to the will of the present authority. However, I feel like neither collections really offered a constructive way forward out of mass incarceration and into an era when we can dismantle these structures (besides slow socialist revolution of course).
Overall this is a really good collection of essays that provide a good groundwork on interrogating the #MeToo movement, and providing some ways in which it needs to evolve quickly to effect real change.
This is a timely collection of essays that critically interrogates the #MeToo movement, starting with Tarana Burke, the woman who originally started #MeToo, and progressing through a range of different feminist writers, including the opening speech of a forum on sexual harassment in 1981, after laws against sexual harassment were passed. The illuminating and infuriating thing is the realisation that you could almost read the essay with no introduction, and think it was written today.
The series of essays was really interesting, and covered a wider range of topics than I expected, which really helped to contextualise the #MeToo movement in a wider feminist context. Especially in the context of feminist movements that do grassroots work and create real change for latina workers, black women, victims of murder, incarcerated women, and those in domestic and/or undervalued fields of work.
The common arguments through the essays were interrogating the capitalist and celebrity structure of #MeToo, the ways in which an individualistic approach to the issue of sexual harassment will never effect real change like a collective understanding of it will, and the ways we should define sexual harassment altogether. The latter is the biggest point of contention through the essays, which suggestions that through collective understanding we can throw of the capitalist structure of victim hood, or alternatively defining harassment on an individual basis somehow without losing the protection of legal structures.
Issues of incarceration and the faults of legal justice were interesting aspects of the essays too. Ways of seeking justice which don't involve structures of legal justice and resulting mass incarceration was a big theme in False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton as well, and is one of the most convincing arguments I've read in both collections because of the well-documented effects on minority groups, particularly black minorities. Also, the analysis of how queer minorities have been affected by punitive justice is well-documented and makes it clear how authoritarian structures are simply bent to the will of the present authority. However, I feel like neither collections really offered a constructive way forward out of mass incarceration and into an era when we can dismantle these structures (besides slow socialist revolution of course).
Overall this is a really good collection of essays that provide a good groundwork on interrogating the #MeToo movement, and providing some ways in which it needs to evolve quickly to effect real change.
April 18, 2018
A great book. I had been unwiling to read it due to MeToo revolving around liberal celebrity feminism. The book is a collection of articles written by renowned scholars and activists. I guess one chapter has been made out of extracts from a book about sex violence. The book challenges the idea that sexual harassment is about sex - it's presented mainly as a power and violence issue. Thus fighting sexism is not anti-sexual, on the contrary, many clamor for sexual freedom and joy, but that can only be achieved, if relations don't involve violence. It also rejects the idea that we should focus on victimhood - as this is often a legally and socially constructed notion that excludes many, if they don't meet some criteria (usually gender, class, race and chastity criteria). Emphasis on legal action is shown as missing the point - there should be more. Although, as one of the contributors claims, #MeToo has destatistiziced violence agains women, which was an important thing, we should move beyond the individual traumatic experience and particular offenders, already caught, and head for #WeStrike and thus gain a collective subjectivity. About violence, informative, yet, paradoxically as it might seem, optimistic. Induces this good feminist rage that is able to be transformed into action. A must read!
April 1, 2018
I'll type up a review tomorrow, but the short version is: lots of essays from various different views highlighting the array of issues, causes, and potential solutions for sexual harassment and assault
E: I guess I don't have a ton more to add than the above. The collection is quite good at highlighting all the disparate elements of power and society that contribute to and are affected by sexual harassment. These are important. There are many more sides to the issue than the news might show.
It's (or at least it was) free on Verso and a very quick read. Granted, most of the articles could probably be found elsewhere online. But the edits and annotations made specifically for this collection added a lot, I thought.
E: I guess I don't have a ton more to add than the above. The collection is quite good at highlighting all the disparate elements of power and society that contribute to and are affected by sexual harassment. These are important. There are many more sides to the issue than the news might show.
It's (or at least it was) free on Verso and a very quick read. Granted, most of the articles could probably be found elsewhere online. But the edits and annotations made specifically for this collection added a lot, I thought.
April 17, 2018
Excellent collection of articles, interviews, etc. on #MeToo. There were some perspectives that I hadn't considered regarding the topic. Rating is more of a 3.5 rather than a 3.
September 18, 2019
90% of the essays in this collection were great: poignant and moving - educational and inspiring. Recommended for everyone - NOW.
July 10, 2018
That was an awesome read. Provocative. Interesting. Engaging and almost revolutionary. I enjoyed every bit of it.
July 8, 2019
This collection of essays by Verso discuss what to make the #MeToo movement and the long fight against patriarchal violence that a global intersectional feminist movement has to make. I thought it was impactful, even though it was short, but I will say I expected more original pieces for it. Many of the essays were famous viral pieces from the last 3 years that I had already read. Nevertheless, I found it to be informative and engaging. A good primer on how leftists can imagine and contextualize #MeToo in the broader socialist feminist fight against hetero-patriarchal capitalism.
March 10, 2018
A powerful collection of articles and essays that parses through the ambiguities and nuances of sexual assault and gender-related violence. Ranging from more research based journalism to personal essays, this report provides critical emotional and intellectual heft to the #MeToo movement which is so often simplified and flattened. Highly recommended for people who are tired of mud-slinging debates and one-sided views of how feminism should be embodied on a personal and political level.
November 17, 2020
free ebook - articles & essays on the #metoo movement
“The reactions to #MeToo—what has become shorthand for a mass reckoning with sexual harassment—have taken almost the opposite emphasis. Sex has overshadowed harassment. The stories women have related under the #MeToo banner are getting edited down to something else, a vaguer behavior: “sexual misconduct.” This is a mistake. Misconduct can sound like a purely interpersonal problem, a disagreement that causes “offense” but is no one’s fault in particular. Harassment, however, is enabled by a system: the boss, the human resources department (if there is one), a workplace culture of disregard. Harassment is at its most effective in such an enabling environment. It can also create one, even if that environment is just what it’s like at night in your inbox.
In rewriting these accusations as instances of “sexual misconduct,” and not workplace harassment, women are returned to the unwanted role of sexual gatekeepers, which reduces women’s power to their sexual availability (including, even, its absence). Calling out behavior that aims at or results in women’s exclusion at work has already given way to debates about the meaning of hugs and kisses, and arguments about an allegedly brewing hysteria over sex. But women are not asking to be insulated from sex. Collectively naming sexual harassment is one way to combat male dominance as it is expressed at work, but that is not a collective panic about or refusal of sex.
“Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman,” reported Phyllis Schlafly to the United States Senate Labor Committee in 1981, “except in the rarest of cases.” Innocence is the criteria women are judged by when we report abuses of power: either we weren’t harassed because we don’t really know the difference between harassment and desire, or we were harassed because we were not innocent to begin with. Once, women were to remain ignorant of sex; and still, women are not supposed to let on that we know how power works. Consciously or not, we know how rote male dominance is, and that it often feels like nothing. It is the weather, and it is a form of discipline.
Sexual harassment is often understood, like other forms of gender-based violence, as a violation of consent. It is more than that. In the United States, sexual harassment is legally defined as a form of sex discrimination, a violation of civil rights.” - Melissa Gira Grant
“The reactions to #MeToo—what has become shorthand for a mass reckoning with sexual harassment—have taken almost the opposite emphasis. Sex has overshadowed harassment. The stories women have related under the #MeToo banner are getting edited down to something else, a vaguer behavior: “sexual misconduct.” This is a mistake. Misconduct can sound like a purely interpersonal problem, a disagreement that causes “offense” but is no one’s fault in particular. Harassment, however, is enabled by a system: the boss, the human resources department (if there is one), a workplace culture of disregard. Harassment is at its most effective in such an enabling environment. It can also create one, even if that environment is just what it’s like at night in your inbox.
In rewriting these accusations as instances of “sexual misconduct,” and not workplace harassment, women are returned to the unwanted role of sexual gatekeepers, which reduces women’s power to their sexual availability (including, even, its absence). Calling out behavior that aims at or results in women’s exclusion at work has already given way to debates about the meaning of hugs and kisses, and arguments about an allegedly brewing hysteria over sex. But women are not asking to be insulated from sex. Collectively naming sexual harassment is one way to combat male dominance as it is expressed at work, but that is not a collective panic about or refusal of sex.
“Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for the virtuous woman,” reported Phyllis Schlafly to the United States Senate Labor Committee in 1981, “except in the rarest of cases.” Innocence is the criteria women are judged by when we report abuses of power: either we weren’t harassed because we don’t really know the difference between harassment and desire, or we were harassed because we were not innocent to begin with. Once, women were to remain ignorant of sex; and still, women are not supposed to let on that we know how power works. Consciously or not, we know how rote male dominance is, and that it often feels like nothing. It is the weather, and it is a form of discipline.
Sexual harassment is often understood, like other forms of gender-based violence, as a violation of consent. It is more than that. In the United States, sexual harassment is legally defined as a form of sex discrimination, a violation of civil rights.” - Melissa Gira Grant
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 16, 2018
This a collection of powerful essays written by women about sexism, sexual assault, and the #MeToo movement. This had some old articles that I had never read before, as well as some recent ones, and some of them had been edited and annotated to reflect on more recent events. One of the entries from the 80s still rings true today, and that's one of the saddest and anger-inducing things about this whole collection.
The reason I'm not rating this higher is that, although this collection did well in including viewpoints from many different backgrounds, especially ones I don't hear from in the mainstream media much, there was nothing really new. They're all articles that were published elsewhere or extracts from speeches and the like. That's fine, but it would have been nice to see some new perspectives and new essays.
Either way I still think this is worth a read and worth having a copy of - especially as this ebook is free from Verso Books. Overall this is a good collection of important essays.
The reason I'm not rating this higher is that, although this collection did well in including viewpoints from many different backgrounds, especially ones I don't hear from in the mainstream media much, there was nothing really new. They're all articles that were published elsewhere or extracts from speeches and the like. That's fine, but it would have been nice to see some new perspectives and new essays.
Either way I still think this is worth a read and worth having a copy of - especially as this ebook is free from Verso Books. Overall this is a good collection of important essays.
April 23, 2020
A collection of essays on the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment. I particularly liked the essay "The Politics of Sexual Harassment" by Linda Gordon. It deals with the various nuances of defining sexual harassment. The author writes that the definition of what women count as unacceptable sexual behaviour has evolved historically, as they have gained more power. Also, what feels harassing to a woman may also be subjective. Yet we define sexual harassment particularly to create a legal weapon against it. However, legal weapons are "fragile", as they can be taken away from us through any kinds of political changes. Therefore, the author suggests that only "constant vigilance and militance" can help us protect these. Also, while the law deals with sexual harassment, we cannot separate it from the rampant sexism in our society. Therefore the only sure-shot solution is to patiently create a society, through discussions and explanations, with a new norm- "a new pattern of male-female public relations that allows women more space to define and initiate the sexual content of encounters."
March 13, 2018
This report from Verso Books features a number of essays which give the #MeToo movement both a context and history outside of Hollywood, where most of the current media coverage has been focused. The founding of the modern movement is rightly attributed to Tarana Burke who, in 2006, starting using the phrase "Me Too" to help support a community (largely women of colour) of survivors of sexual abuse. There are, to name but a few, essays which focus on the intersection of feminist and racial politics in the context of abuse and accusation, the need for trade unions to adopt proper procedure to help victims of abuse find justice without risking their job, and personal stories which attempt to examine the line between sexual harassment and abuse.
You can dip in and out of these essays as you like, but what the report serves to do as a whole is provide a broader context to the #MeToo movement which will hopefully see it effect real change rather than winding up as just another media frenzy.
It doesn't take long to read and is available for free on the Verso website, I would recommend to anyone who was been interested in and moved by the #MeToo stories they have heard, and who would like to know what more there is to do to ensure justice to victims of sexual abuse across the board.
You can dip in and out of these essays as you like, but what the report serves to do as a whole is provide a broader context to the #MeToo movement which will hopefully see it effect real change rather than winding up as just another media frenzy.
It doesn't take long to read and is available for free on the Verso website, I would recommend to anyone who was been interested in and moved by the #MeToo stories they have heard, and who would like to know what more there is to do to ensure justice to victims of sexual abuse across the board.
August 25, 2018
This book is a series of articles and essays that have previously been published, combined in a free ebook by Verso Books (an awesome publisher by the way).
I found most of the articles very interesting to read, many of them shining a new light on the #metoo movement. There's a large focus on marginalized communities and how women of color and with working class background are usually a lot more affected by sexual harrassment. The authors also try to go further in their analyses, trying to find ideas on how to sustain a powerful womens' movement.
Larissa Pham's very personal essay on her on experience of rape, was a very moving account that also shows how complicated and ambigous situations of sexual assault can be.
I personally also found Jane Ward's essay "Bad girls - On being the accused" very enlightening.
Overall a great collection of personal accounts, interviews, political analyses and essays that deliver ideas to think about further.
I found most of the articles very interesting to read, many of them shining a new light on the #metoo movement. There's a large focus on marginalized communities and how women of color and with working class background are usually a lot more affected by sexual harrassment. The authors also try to go further in their analyses, trying to find ideas on how to sustain a powerful womens' movement.
Larissa Pham's very personal essay on her on experience of rape, was a very moving account that also shows how complicated and ambigous situations of sexual assault can be.
I personally also found Jane Ward's essay "Bad girls - On being the accused" very enlightening.
Overall a great collection of personal accounts, interviews, political analyses and essays that deliver ideas to think about further.
July 24, 2021
This free ebook from Verso compiles a collection of previously published articles and essays, ranging from the historical to the contemporary, which taken together form an interrogation and critique of the #MeToo movement, particularly by marginalized women - non-white, working class, incarcerated, queer etc. It examines the way capitalist economic systems uphold violence against women, and advocates for a move from #MeToo to #WeStrike, following the model of the 2016 Argentinian women’s strike. It forms a thought provoking anthology which asks some pertinent questions & highlights perspectives often overlooked in the #MeToo movement, which thanks to media coverage has tended to focus mainly on wealthy white women with prestigious careers.
August 12, 2022
I love how international this anthology was.
It collected news articles, written mostly in Western newspapers yes, but covering feminism from different angles and interviewing many different people.
Important read for anyone who saw #MeToo gain traction and is now thinking, "Now what happens?" Online campaigns and hashtags are "where freedom starts," definitely not where it ends.
It collected news articles, written mostly in Western newspapers yes, but covering feminism from different angles and interviewing many different people.
Important read for anyone who saw #MeToo gain traction and is now thinking, "Now what happens?" Online campaigns and hashtags are "where freedom starts," definitely not where it ends.
August 18, 2021
Strangely good. Several accessible articles with innovative perspectives within the scope of MeToo. I recommend it both to those who don't really know their opinion and also to those who criticise the movement (whichever side they take).
March 21, 2018
Verso’s free collections are always great reads, and this one is no exception. Varied, searing, thought-provoking writing.
July 7, 2018
there’s like three or four essays in here i really liked and one i was pretty soured by
the rest were fine
there are eighteen total
3.5 or smth like that i guess
the rest were fine
there are eighteen total
3.5 or smth like that i guess
May 29, 2020
Vivid and powerful. A must read
June 27, 2020
This is a really interesting collection of essays looking at the issued addressed by the #MeToo movement from a number of different perspectives.
December 9, 2018
Only for historic essays. Some of the contemporary ones truly terrible.
Read
March 7, 2018this was good, and tended to get better - more complex and interesting and novel - as it went on. something to read while you're striking tomorrow. what does your strike look like?
Read
March 14, 2018I would have liked this book to be proofread at least one more time. This is the first time I've seen a double sentence and 3 mispelled words in a single book in print.
However, the typographical errors don't take away from the thoughts and the great care put into the messages.
However, the typographical errors don't take away from the thoughts and the great care put into the messages.
Read
December 15, 2018The essays were provoking, moving, and inspiring.
HIGHLY recommended.
HIGHLY recommended.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews