Black Women, Cultural Images and Social Policy

by Julia Jordan-Zachery

Black Women, Cultural Images and Social Policy offers a critical analysis of the policy-making process. Jordan-Zachery demonstrates how social meanings surrounding the discourses on crime, welfare and family policies produce and reproduce discursive practices that maintain gender and racial hierarchies. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), she analyzes the values and ideologies ensconced in the various images of black womanhood and their impact on policy formation. This book provides exceptional insight into the racing-gendering process of policy making to show how relations of power and forms of inequality are discursively constructed and impact the lives of African American women.

230 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Theresa Leone Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Jordan-Zachery's book in a used bookstore in NY and bought it, intrigued by the title. It is an analytical view of government policies that largely impact black women, and the gender and race bias the author believes to be inherent in those policies. She has a lot of facts and statistics on her side and I thought it made for an interesting read. The writing is almost flawless, a lot of facts without being boring, and she never gets emotional over the subject. Highly recommend!!