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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > General
Continually Working tells the stories of Black working women who
resisted employment inequality in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from the
1940s to the 1970s. The book explores the job-related activism of
Black Midwestern working women and uncovers the political and
intellectual strategies they used to critique and resist employment
discrimination, dismantle unjust structures, and transform their
lives and the lives of those in their community. Moten emphasizes
the ways in which Black women transformed the urban landscape by
simultaneously occupying spaces from which they had been
historically excluded and creating their own spaces. Black women
refused to be marginalized within the historically white and
middle-class Milwaukee Young Women's Christian Association (MYWCA),
an association whose mission centered on supporting women in urban
areas. Black women forged interracial relationships within this
organization and made it, not without much conflict and struggle,
one of the most socially progressive organizations in the city.
When Black women could not integrate historically white
institutions, they created their own. They established financial
and educational institutions, such as Pressley School of Beauty
Culture, which beautician Mattie Pressley Dewese opened in 1946 as
a result of segregation in the beauty training industry. This
school served economic, educational and community development
purposes as well as created economic opportunities for Black women.
Historically and contemporarily, Milwaukee has been and is still
known as one of the most segregated cities in the nation. Black
women have always contested urban segregation, by making space for
themselves and others on the margins. In so doing, they have
transformed both the urban landscape and urban history.
Much has been written in Canada and South Africa about sexual
violence in the context of colonial legacies, particularly for
Indigenous girls and young women. While both countries have
attempted to deal with the past through Truth and Reconciliation
Commissions and Canada has embarked upon its National Inquiry on
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, there remains a
great deal left to do. Across the two countries, history,
legislation and the lived experiences of young people, and
especially girls and young women point to a deeply rooted situation
of marginalization. Violence on girls' and women's bodies also
reflects violence on the land and especially issues of
dispossession. What approaches and methods would make it possible
for girls and young women, as knowers and actors, especially those
who are the most marginalized, to influence social policy and
social change in the context of sexual violence? Taken as a whole,
the chapters in Disrupting Shameful Legacies: Girls and Young Women
Speaking Back through the Arts to Address Sexual Violence which
come out of a transnational study on sexual violence suggest a new
legacy, one that is based on methodologies that seek to disrupt
colonial legacies, by privileging speaking up and speaking back
through the arts and visual practice to challenge the situation of
sexual violence. At the same time, the fact that so many of the
authors of the various chapters are themselves Indigenous young
people from either Canada or South Africa also suggests a new
legacy of leadership for change.
Although US history is marred by institutionalized racism and
sexism, postracial and postfeminist attitudes drive our polarized
politics. Violence against people of color, transgendered and gay
people, and women soar upon the backdrop of Donald Trump, Tea Party
affiliates, alt-right members like Richard Spencer, and right-wing
political commentators like Milo Yiannopoulos who defend their
racist and sexist commentary through legalistic claims of freedom
of speech. While more institutions recognize the volatility of
these white men's speech, few notice or have thoughtfully
considered the role of white nationalist, alt-right, and
conservative white women's messages that organizationally preserve
white supremacy. In Rebirthing a Nation: White Women, Identity
Politics, and the Internet, author Wendy K. Z. Anderson details how
white nationalist and alt-right women refine racist rhetoric and
web design as a means of protection and simultaneous instantiation
of white supremacy, which conservative political actors including
Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, and Ivanka Trump have amplified through transnational
politics. By validating racial fears and political divisiveness
through coded white identity politics, postfeminist and motherhood
discourse functions as a colorblind, gilded cage. Rebirthing a
Nation reveals how white nationalist women utilize colorblind
racism within digital space, exposing how a postfeminist framework
becomes fodder for conservative white women's political speech to
preserve institutional white supremacy.
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