Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance

Description

In the fall of 2016 those promoting patriarchal ideals saw their champion Donald Trump elected president of the United States and showed us how powerful patriarchy still is in American society and culture. Darkness Now Visible: Patriarchy's Resurgence and Feminist Resistance explains how patriarchy and its embrace of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and violence are starkly visible and must be recognized and resisted. Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards offer a bold and original thesis: that gender is the linchpin that holds in place the structures of unjust oppression through the codes of masculinity and femininity that subvert the capacity to resist injustice. Feminism is not an issue of women only, or a battle of women versus men - it is the key ethical movement of our age.

Carol Gilligan is University Professor of Applied Psychology and the Humanities at New York University. She is the author of In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (1982), The Birth of Pleasure: A New Map of Love (2003), and Joining the Resistance (2011). She is co-author of Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (1992) with Lyn Mikel Brown, and The Deepening Darkness (Cambridge, 2008) with David A. J. Richards. In 1996 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans. She was the Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Gender Studies at Harvard University. David A. J. Richards is Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. He is the author of twenty books, including The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future (with Carol Gilligan, Cambridge, 2008), Fundamentalism in American Religion and Law (Cambridge 2010), The Rise of Gay Rights and the Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2013), and Why Love Leads to Justice: Love Across the Boundaries (Cambridge, 2016).

'It is the sleight-of-hand of every unjust system to become the rule, and to make everyone else the exception. In Darkness Now Visible, Carol Gilligan and David A. J. Richards end the idea that patriarchy represents everybody, and show that feminism turns patriarchy into democracy. Once published as prophecy, their new book becomes a prescription for tearing down Trumpian walls of gender and race, and seeing each other as unique and equal.' Gloria Steinem, author of My Life on the Road, Revolution from Within and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions and feminist organizer 'Gilligan and Richards have done it again. In their new book they provide a rich and compelling analysis of how patriarchy is a sinister force underlying the political and ethical crisis of our times. A must-read for anyone concerned with the undermining of our democracy.' Drucilla Cornell, Rutgers University, New Jersey 'Darkness Now Visible takes the reader on a thrilling intellectual journey into the heart of political darkness to set us on a path toward enlightenment. The complex analysis is unexpectedly comforting as it provides language and a framework for deeply desired change.' Terri Apter, author of Passing Judgment: Praise and Blame in Everyday Life