Sex and Secularism

Description

How secularism has been used to justify the subordination of women Joan Wallach Scott's acclaimed and controversial writings have been foundational for the field of gender history. With Sex and Secularism, Scott challenges one of the central claims of the "clash of civilizations" polemic--the false notion that secularism is a guarantee of gender e

Joan Wallach Scott is professor emerita in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and adjunct professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her many books include The Fantasy of Feminist History, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton), and Gender and the Politics of History.

"One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2017" "Sex and Secularism offers a series of bracing and illuminating reflections on a whole culture of oppression that ought to have been exposed much earlier."---Pankaj Mishra, The Guardian "Sex and Secularism must be praised for drawing attention to the history of secularism and gender inequality. Scott's message is no doubt timely in light of the powerful effect of the #MeToo campaign, which should give anyone pause before boasting about the superior treatment of women in the secular west."---Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, The Guardian "Scott's ardent and principled opposition to the prejudice and hostility expressed towards Islam - more specifically towards Islamic countries, societies and practices - by 'secularists' in Europe (principally France) and the United States is timely and necessary."---Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Times Literary Supplement "In Sex and Secularism, Scott broadens her scope geographically and temporally. Here the subject is women's relationship to secularism in modern western nation-states. This is a big and complex subject for a compact volume, but Scott is especially well-positioned to tackle it. . . . A challenging, timely, and important book. . . . Readers of Sex and Secularism will be forced to rethink their assumptions about the role of women and their bodies in contemporary political debates."---Susan B. Whitney, Literary Review of Canada "Sex and Secularism is a challenging, timely, and important book. . . . Her aim, she continues, was to 'open--not to definitively close--a conversation about the place of gender equality in the discourse of secularism.' That she has definitively done, as few other scholars could."---Susan Whitney, Literary Review of Canada "In her new book, the eminent feminist historian Joan Wallach Scott['s] . . . aim is to sketch a speculative history of the relationship between sex and secularism: to uncover how ideas about the proper place of religion and the proper place of women have influenced each other and to show how both have been placed in the service of Western imperialism. . . . Scott does not contend that religious societies are more egalitarian than secular ones, but she wants to draw attention to the long history of conflict whitewashed by the assertion that feminism and secularism are naturally aligned."---Namara Smith, Bookforum "Scott's theoretical, historical narrative in Sex and Secularism takes its place in a wider conversation in which critical thinkers working in many genres-including film, music, and fiction-ponder gender, race, religion, and sexual difference in a way that refuses essentialism while taking seriously the political effects of these categories on people living in worlds of ongoing inequality and violence. Secularism is not the savior, nor is it the demon in this narrative; it is, like all political ideals, including feminism, a promise that variably incites and excludes."---Pamela E. Klassen, Public Books "Wide-ranging, sophisticated and up-to-date. . . . Anyone from a good senior school student to an expert can expect to learn a great deal from Scott's narrative and notes."---Chris Forbes, Ancient History Resources for Teachers "Joan W. Scott has written an important and timely book."---Sarah B. Farris, H-Diplo Roundtable Review "In many ways, the true success of Sex and Secularism should be pointing out the obvious. A secular society does not mean an equal society. . . . By expertly countering this assertion with a carefully crafted argument throughout the pages of this work, Scott has successfully revealed the continued hypocrisy of Western democracies."---Meltem Ince-Yenilmez, Journal of Global Analysis "Joan Scott argues in this finely crafted, well-argued, wide-ranging, and timely book, secularism has never been a set of abstract truths, but has rather been a historically produced, discursive operation of power based on sexual difference."---Laura L. Frader, H-France Review "Some academic books are so rich and complex that they leave a lasting impression and feed the mind long after the reader has finished them. [Sex and Secularism] is one of those rare books."---Marta Trzebiatowska, Journal of Religion in Europe "Sex & Secularism is a passionate argument against Islamophobia and its rationalization in arguments that only secular societies foster gender equality and sexual liberalization."---Edward Andrew, European Legacy