Book Notes

Women and Children First: Feminism, Rhetoric, and Public Policy. Edited by Sharon M. Meagher and Patrice DiQuinzio. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005.

This collection of essays examines the rhetoric of a wide range of public policies in the United States and Canada that claim to "put women and children first." In analyzing topics as diverse as homeland security, school violence, gun control, and medical intervention of intersex infants, the authors "uncover a logic of paternalistic treatment of women and children that purports to protect them but almost always disempowers them and sometimes harms them" (1). The book is divided into five sections. Part 1, "(Mis)representations of the Domestic Sphere: State Interventions," shows how the state often uses the language of protection in cases where women need the least protection as a way of hiding that the state fails to really protect when necessary. It includes contributions by Elizabeth F. Randol, Kirsten Isgro, and Jennifer A. Reich. In part 2, "Medical Discourses and Social Ills," Ellen K. Feder and Kelly Oliver discuss how medical discourses that uphold rigid gender demarcations harm women. Part 3, "Subjects of Violence," which consists of essays by Sharon M. Meagher and Sally J. Scholz, reveals that even in cases where violence against women is acknowledged and addressed, the methods used for dealing with this violence are frequently harmful to women. The papers in part 4, "Mothers, Good and Bad: Marginalizing Mothers and Idealizing Children" by Norma L. Buydens and a co-authored piece by Tricha Shivas and Sonya Charles "demonstrate how medical discourse, when combined with legal or state intervention, can marginalize some mothers and children" (10). In the last section, part 5, "Protesting Mothers: Politics under the Sign of Motherhood" Tina Managhan and Patrice DiQuinzio claim that women's active protests, particularly those having to do with motherhood, are often interpreted differently than the women intended.

The Contradictions of Freedom: Philosophical Essays on Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins. Edited by Sally J. Scholz and Shannon Mussett. Albany: SUNY Press, 2005.

Bringing together scholars in the fields of existentionalism, phenomenology, and feminism, this collection addresses philosophical topics in Simone de Beauvior's novel The Mandarins, including "politics, political life, relationships, responsibility, choice and various contradictions that result when these areas of human experience come into conflict" (23). Although there has been some analysis of The Mandarins, especially from a literary perspective, "the philosophical content remains a largely untapped treasure. This edited volume aims to remedy that oversight" (1). The contributors are Peg Brand, Thomas W. Busch, Eleanore Holveck, Sonia Kruks, William L. McBride, Jen McWeeny, Shannon M. Mussett, Sally J. Scholz, Ursula Tidd, Karen Vintges, and Gail Weiss.

Feminist Interpretations of Theodor Adorno. Edited by Renée Heberle. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.

This edited collection, which is part of the "Re-reading the Canon" series edited by Nancy Tuana, is useful both for feminists and Adorno scholars, as "the contributors to this volume look at issues in feminism using insights from Theodor Adorno and reread Adorno using insights from feminism" (1). In exploring and critiquing the many facets of Adorno's work, the essays in this collection cover a wide range of issues in feminist theory, including feminist aesthetic theory, politics of suffering and democracy, and postmodern ideas about identity and self. Contributors are Paul Apostolidis, Mary Caputi, Rebecca Comay, Jennifer L. Eagan, Mary Ann Franks, Eva Geulen, Sora Y. Han, Renée Heberle, Andrew Hewitt, Gillian Howie, Lisa Yun Lee, D. Bruce Martin, and Lambert Zuidervaart.

The Historical Dictionary of Feminist Philosophy. By Catherine Villanueva Gardner. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2006.

This dictionary provides an overview of feminist philosophy with entries on both ideas—issues, concepts, and arguments, such as epistemology, pornography, and dualism—and on central figures, such as Luce Irigaray and Simone de Beauvoir. Covering material from ancient Greece onward, the ideas and figures included are those both from the historical traditional of philosophy and from contemporary feminist philosophy. As Gardner acknowledges in the preface, this dictionary has more entries on western philosophy and analytic philosophy, and not as many entries on non-western philosophy and continental philosophy, because more feminist philosophy work has...