A Complex Diagnosis For Contemporary Feminism

This quintuple (!) book review by Jacqueline Rose is both personal mediation and historical exposition of a vast array of aspects of gender and society. She delves into her own history and beliefs, converses with the authors whose books she reviews—Vanessa Grigoriadis, Laura Kipnis, Sara Ahmed, and Roxane Gay—and ends up at our contemporary #metoo moment, which she diagnoses with extreme care.

One of the central questions Rose addresses is whether the cycle of revelation mirrors the situation that produced the abuse that demands revealing. The books' topics allow her to link this circular aspect of rape culture to what happens on college campuses and in court rooms, such as how fact and desire co-invent each other. She tackles the monumental issue of how evidence is culturally constructed, each piece of which we only ascribe as much importance to as we collectively believe it should have. As far as synthesis and scope, Rose's essay on these various yet complexly interlinked topics is one of the most impressive I've read.

“Sexual harassment, we might then say, is the great male performative, the act through which a man aims to convince his target, not only that he is the one with the power – which is true – but also that his power and his sexuality are one and the same thing.”