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Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2011)

by Laurie Penny(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1846947820 (ISBN13: 9781846947827)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

John Hunt Publishing

review 1: very short but i really liked this book. i am very much pleased to see a different, underrepresented brand of feminism get its due. this is a feminism that sees the role of capitalism, the intersections of class and the liberatory possibility of collectivity. it is a materialist or marxist type of dialectical feminism that is refreshing. while the theoretical underpinnings of that sort of feminism are not elaborated within this book (this was not the intention of the book), they are clear in the way penny tackles the issues she chooses to address. her chapter on the necessity of trans inclusion in the feminist movement was particularly refreshing. and an entirely necessary corrective to a lot of the wrong-headed views on what trans people 'mean' or 'represent' within socie... morety and what their role should (or usually shouldn't) be in the feminist movement. i was particularly pleased with her desire to revitalize the movement for paid housework. as she states, that demand went into a corner somewhere and died. but it is something that any serious feminist should take up again and none have (with the exception of some marxist feminists) in a very long time. for people that are entrenched in the feminist movement and are well read, there is nothing necessarily ground breaking here - and that is not to take anything at all away from this book. but what is great about it is that penny places herself squarely in the camp of a new anti-capitalist feminism that is taking root and that can be a force of true emancipation and perhaps better avoid the blind-alleys and pitfalls of earlier feminist movements.
review 2: An awesome book. Penny's critique is well argued and well positioned. By focusing her thesis on the female body, Penny is able to articulate several levels of critique. The body of women becomes a factory for the sex industry, is exploited in the labor force, and marginalized in the relationship/domestic arena. The chapter on trans rights was very exciting to me. I have always felt aligned with the idea of challenging and breaking the gender binary at every level, Penny locates that struggle right at the heart of trans rights and perspectives. Overall, Penny captures quite a few zingers and writes with a compelling finality. less

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