"The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse offers a significant contribution to understanding the ongoing public issue of sexual abuse that will be of interest to a wide readership, and particularly to scholars of political culture, gender and sexuality, and social movement theory." --American Journal of Sociology"In a single book, Nancy Whittier overturns all conventional wisdom about why sexual abuse became such a contentious public issue. Battles over incest, repressed memory, and clergy abuse are not moral panics, she shows, but a collective therapeutic activism that challenges existing forms of knowledge and control. The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse sets out a bold, new direction that is essential reading for all scholars of political culture and social movements." --Kathleen Blee, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh"Relying on interviews with a range of activists, along with documentary evidence of various types, Nancy Whittier provides a convincing explanation for the transformation of child sexual abuse in America since 1970. An engaging and balanced examination of this highly charged topic, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse skillfully negotiates treacherous terrain in a fashion that respects all sides. This book is a highly original work and one of the best studies of child sexual abuse in the last twenty-five years." --Ross E. Cheit, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, Brown University"The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse is an ambitious book that demonstrates the payoff of theoretical synthesis and careful empirical research. Whittier integrates the latest advances in thinking about social movements, the state, and gender politics in order to develop a comprehensive and compelling account of activism around child sexual abuse. This book will challenge analysts to rethink the intersection of politics, culture, and activism, as well as the relationship between social movements and their impacts."--Debra Minkoff, Professor of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University"Nancy Whittier has given us a powerful account of how the movement against child sexual abuse has unfolded over the past 40 years. Knowing our history--recording and preserving it--is essential if we are to learn from it. The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse is the story of how activists have changed their own lives and the larger world. At a time when public discourse often simplifies or dismisses this movement, Whittier tells our history in a way that advances deep understanding of the issue."--Ellen Bass, co-author of The Courage to HealAbout the AuthorNancy Whittier is Professor of Sociology at Smith College. She is the author of Feminist Generations and co-editor of Feminist Frontiers and Social Movements: Identity, Culture, and the State. what is a best selling book The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse: Emotion, Social Movements, and the State
9 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Wounded Identities, the Money Trail and Making Political HayBy books4parentsThis book is a fair and honest history of how the very old and mystical theory of childhood sexual trauma was transformed into the woe-is-me strategy for feminist revolution. The book details how early feminists found some sympathy by focusing on sexual violence against women, but got even more attention (and funding) when they focused on child sexual abuse, then believed to be exclusively men against little girls.I don't mean to belittle the suffering of anyone who was the victim of insensitive, exploitative and/or violent sexual experiences, but I find it hard to sympathize with the current level of hysteria in which even a woman who was the recipient of a single, uninvited kiss on the lips is convinced that she was permanently traumatized and can trace all of her life's problems to that moment.The feminist conspiracy theory was that men molest little girls to "prepare" females for their future subordinate role, hence child sexual abuse isn't an individual pathology but a political crime. It isn't clear whether it is a conscious conspiracy, i.e. men educate little boys along the lines of: "When you get older you have to fondle little girls so they'll know their place." Or perhaps it is an instinctive behavior; at some age males just know what their gender duty is: it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it???That kind of nonsense-logic dovetailed with religious groups whose traditional ideology is that we should mentally castrate children so they'll reject the pleasures of the body in favor of a life of spiritual contemplation and prepare ourselves for the afterlife. Conversely, sex education is the work of the devil. Finally, psychotherapists realized there is money to be made if as many people as possible think they're crazy and need therapy.The author is rightly proud of the lesbian feminist contribution to publicizing the very real problem of insensitivity to children (sexual or otherwise), and her analyses are valuable because she admits there has always been a human element beneath the surface idealism, as not only feminists but conservatives and libertarians eventually exploited the issue for the benefit of their own agendas, and still grapple with the contradictions - e.g. that even sex play between different age groups is both a pathology and a crime, or one or the other, depending on your ulterior motives at the moment.Special interests (not only psychotherapists, but publishers, social workers and politicians running for election or re-election) cashed in and still do. The real victims in this are, of course, the nation's children, who are now so thoroughly terrorized against "stranger danger," if not satanic ritual abuse and alien abductions for sexual purposes, that when asked anything about sex they will often remain silent, unsure of how adults want them to answer and fearful of what storm they might unleash by giving the interrogator the "wrong" answer.The story isn't over yet, but some people are beginning to notice that the vast majority of deaths and serious injuries that children suffer are due to physical abuse and neglect, i.e. the 10,000+ deaths every year covered up as "accidents" (See the new book "Child Safety: A Heroic Challenge"), and that the perpetrators of those "accidents" aren't strangers.The subject of child development is now viewed religiously: every belief must be either absolutely true or absolutely false. There are no grey areas, and intellectual humility is considered a sign of weakness. Politicians and psychologists (professional and amateur) have parents so confused that we are considered good parents if we keep a sharp lookout for inappropriate touchers, while ignoring the most serious and most frequent dangers children face: parents smoking while pregnant, feeding infant formula instead of breastfeeding, driving while sleep-deprived, allowing children to ride in vehicles without proper restraint, etc.Hopefully, young activists will read this important book and learn its lessons: the government's money can be used to achieve social change, but the direction of that change should be guided by what children really need to survive, stay healthy and become happy adults, not the financial interests of the mental health industry, the mass media's eagerness to sell news, and the public's pathetic penchant for scandals involving sex and violence.There is a scene in the old film "The Last Picture Show" in which a parent finally notices her child is missing. After some searching the other distracted adults in the area remark that the village idiot was recently playing with the child. When a now-concerned mob finds the culprit and marches him to justice, the little girl follows behind them dragging her doll, as alone and neglected as she was before. That realistic portrayal of adult priorities should not be the final epitaph of the movement against sexual abuse.