The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family Planning Workers

"Joffe takes us from the most private aspects of sexuality into the arena of public policy and state regulation." --Carroll Smith-Rosenberg "The author convincingly argues that the Federal Government, the feminist movement and the New Right fail to adequately address the often wrenching conflicts faced daily by birth control and abortion workers. [These conflicts] have spurred many family planning workers to construct and implement a wholly unauthorized vision of family planning policy, one that melds pure ideology with the complicated truths of individuals' social and sexual lives.... [Joffe] makes a cogent and finely nuanced case for the wisdom-indeed, the necessity- of this vision." --Marian Sandmaier, New York Times Book Review "A psychosocial presentation at its best, the book probes and illuminates the workers' whole environment, documenting their need for status and engagement to offset meager pay and enervating routine and their need to balance sexual liberalism with concern for immature, vulnerable women. A valuable resource that clarifies human service programs as a whole." --Library Journal "A wonderfully alive and readable ethnographic study." --The Women's Review of Books