Book Review: Confronting Equality: Gender, Knowledge and Global Change and Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts

Abstract

Confronting Equality: Gender, Knowledge and Global Change, by Raewyn W. Connell. Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2011,200 pages, $35.00 AUD Paper. ISBN: 978-0745653518.Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts, by Esther Ngan-Ling Chow, Marcia Textler Segal, and Lin Tan. Bingley, England: Emerald Group Publishing, 2011, 334 pages, $144.95 Hardcover. ISBN: 978-0857247438.Two new volumes on gender and intersectionality in a global context provide careful empirical research, as well as thorough theoretical advancements for study of complex inequalities in a globalizing environment: Raewyn Connell's Confronting Equality: Gender, Knowledge and Global Change, and Analyzing Gender, Intersectionality, and Multiple Inequalities: Global, Transnational and Local Contexts, edited by Chow et al. These works complement each other and advance global gender research by applying an intersectional lens to shifting dynamics of inequality shaped by neoliberalism, and simultaneously highlighting theoretical analyses beyond Northern paradigms. Both volumes offer a perspective on intersecting spheres of patriarchy, advanced global capitalism (i.e. neoliberalism), and role of state actors that play out in social institutions, organizations, and in women's and men's lives. It becomes clear that globalization must be analyzed in plural, as globalizations play out differently in different regions and for different groups of people.These books advance field not only through empirical evidence from different countries, but also through integrating what Connell calls Theory. Connell makes point that much scholarship is quasi-globalized (98f), as generally means to have or make theoretical and collaborative connections within global North and not with global society generally. She calls for moving beyond Northern theoretical concepts and for inclusion of scholars and theories from periphery to inform current mainstream sociology. Connell addresses this need by introducing various Southern thinkers in her essays. Chow et al. derive their contributions from international conference Gender and Social Transformation: Global, Transnational, and Local Realities and Perspectives, held in Beijing from July 17-19, 2009, and bring together 13 authors from eight countries of four regions. Both books are contributions to a truly global research agenda crossing theoretical, empirical, and collaborative boundaries.Through 10 essays assembled in her latest book, Connell courageously scrutinizes effects of neoliberalism, by which she means the project of transformation under sign of free market that has dominated politics in last quarter-century, both in global metropolis (Western Europe, and North America) and in most others parts of world (2011:41). Connell acts as public sociologist, particularly in first and last chapters of book. She served as an expert for global gender equality policy development in United Nations in 2003-2004 on topic of men's and boys' roles for gender equality. Her experiences are backdrop against which she identifies grounds for optimism in men's interest in gender equality, and also warns of indirect gender politics of churches, ethnic organizations, conservative parties, nationalist movements, media, and neoliberalism. The last chapter is an open letter to Left in Australia in literary magazine Overland, substantiated by an examination of Antonio Negri's theory of Empire in chapter nine. Connell's kaleidoscopic research agenda in rest of book is accompanied by policy recommendations, and demonstrates her dialogical work with a broader public that stands in a feminist research tradition.Connell is concerned with neoliberal project that creates new patriarchal institutions at heart of international economy, including transnational management and high technology industries, which preserve and exploit ideological gender divisions. …