{"product_id":"subject-to-debate-isbn-9780679783435","title":"Subject to Debate","description":"Subject to Debate, Katha Pollitt's column in \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e, has offered readers clear-eyed yet provocative observations on women, politics, and culture for more than seven years. Bringing together eighty-eight of her most astute essays on hot-button topics like abortion, affirmative action, and school vouchers, this selection displays the full range of her indefatigable wit and brilliance. Her stirring new Introduction offers a seasoned critique of feminism at the millennium and is a clarion call for renewed activism against social injustice.\u003cb\u003eKatha Pollitt\u003c\/b\u003e writes the bimonthly column, \"Subject to Debate\" for \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e.   She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Whiting Foundations, a grant from the NEA, a National Magazine Award in Essays and Criticism and a National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in New York City.Clara Zetkin Avenue\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScurrying around Manhattan on a blustery morning a few weeks ago, I\u003cbr\u003ehappened to glance up while waiting for the light to change in front of the\u003cbr\u003epublic library. Beneath the green and white sign reading Fifth Avenue was\u003cbr\u003eanother, also green and white, and printed in exactly the same lettering:\u003cbr\u003eClara Zetkin Avenue. Gee, I thought for a split second, if Rudy Giuliani is\u003cbr\u003enaming a street for the grande dame of German socialism, he can't be as bad\u003cbr\u003eas I thought. But will New Yorkers really start telling taxi drivers to\u003cbr\u003emake a right on Zetkin? Then I saw the bent wires fastening the sign to the\u003cbr\u003epost, and realized what was going on: Some lefty prankster was reminding us\u003cbr\u003ethat the next day, March 8, was International Women's Day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, the great day came and went with barely a ripple of attention here in\u003cbr\u003ethe United States?although I understand that, over at the United Nations,\u003cbr\u003eSecretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali gave a speech about the need to do\u003cbr\u003emore for women, which in the case of the United Nations shouldn't be too\u003cbr\u003edifficult. Maybe the local indifference is why I find myself filled with\u003cbr\u003egloomy thoughts about the worldwide situation of women. Here we are, at the\u003cbr\u003eend of the twentieth century, and not only have hundreds of millions of\u003cbr\u003ewomen around the globe yet to obtain even the barest minimum of human\u003cbr\u003erights, but the notion that they are even entitled to such rights is\u003cbr\u003ebitterly contested.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConsider, for example, the horrors documented in the State Department's\u003cbr\u003eannual human rights report, which focused on women this year for the first\u003cbr\u003etime: genital mutilation in Africa and the Middle East, bride burning in\u003cbr\u003eIndia, sexual slavery in Thailand, forced abortion and sterilization in\u003cbr\u003eChina. Imagine the firestorm of international protest if any of these\u003cbr\u003epractices were imposed by men on men through racism or colonialism or\u003cbr\u003eCommunism! Well, you don't need to imagine: Just compare the decades of\u003cbr\u003eglobal outrage visited, justly, on South Africa's apartheid regime for\u003cbr\u003edenying political, civil and property rights to blacks, and the\u003cbr\u003ecultural-relativist defense advanced on behalf of Saudi Arabia and other\u003cbr\u003eultra-Islamic regimes for their denial of same to women. Nobody's calling\u003cbr\u003eon American universities and city governments to disinvest in those\u003cbr\u003eeconomies. In Iraq and a number of other Middle Eastern countries that are\u003cbr\u003enot theocracies, a man can with impunity kill any female relative he feels\u003cbr\u003eis \"dishonoring\" him by unchaste behavior; in Pakistan, the jails are full\u003cbr\u003eof women and girls, some only nine years old, whose crime was to be the\u003cbr\u003evictims of rape. I suppose Benazir Bhutto will get around to them after she\u003cbr\u003efinishes persuading the world that her mother is trying to undermine her\u003cbr\u003egovernment because of a sexist wish to see a son, rather than a daughter,\u003cbr\u003ein power.Introduction by the author","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300542075109,"sku":"NP9780679783435","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780679783435.jpg?v=1767737474","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/subject-to-debate-isbn-9780679783435","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}