Emma's Pick: Sex and World Peace

[Pam]

Hello OSS!

In Emma's post at the beginning of the year she wrote "Keep your eyes peeled as I announce other books later this year." Today on Women's International Day, she has announced a new book!

She wrote on Instagram, "Happy International Women's day! Here's to all the women that put themselves on the line and have broken silence around rape culture and violence against women. I am so grateful for your strong voices.

In my continuing search for answers, I feel very grateful to have encountered Sex & World Peace by Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli and Chad F. Emmett and I'm excited to share it with you on International Women's Day.

The book reveals that so much in the state of our world: security, prosperity, development, democracy, justice, and world peace is clearly dependent on and stems from how hard we treat women and girls. With this highly readable and extensively researched textbook, the authors encourage a holistic view when it comes to national and international relations - the whole tree, not just the branches, but the roots.

With practical chapters on achieving positive change, the book also offers us personal and societal calls to action while emphasizing that states who have the most power to make change must centralize the concerns of women where security, legal reform and justice is at stake and this includes equality in the decision-making process. Sex & World Peace shows us how gender inequality is a form of violence that impacts everything from population growth to economics to regime type. For me, this book illuminates how we got where we are today, and along with it, a way forward."

We will read this together now through May 31, 2020.

[Florian]

Thanks for forwarding the message. The book looks quite political, I'm curious about it but I'll finish first the set of SciFi-Fantasy/Ecofeminism books we were suggested 😉

[Peter]

And for anyone who has already read Sex & World Peace, Hudson and her colleagues just came out with a follow-up book, The First Political Order: How Sex Shapes Governance and National Security Worldwide. Like Sex & World Peace, it doesn't just analyze what's wrong with the world but also offers a healthier way forward. I think Hudson and her colleagues are brilliant and represent a bright shining star of hope in these troubled times:

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-firs...

[Pam]

Thanks for the addition Peter!

[Kristina]

I’ll add this to my reading for April/May.

[Dagny Moland]

Florian wrote: "Thanks for forwarding the message. The book looks quite political, I'm curious about it but I'll finish first the set of SciFi-Fantasy/Ecofeminism books we were suggested 😉"

Great! Will definitely pick it up!