Diane L. Shoos – författare

This collection advances vigilance as a critical feminist concept and strategy for addressing contemporary challenges. The assembled chapters develop feminist vigilance by elaborating concrete examples that emphasize action, ethics, and hope. Chapter authors expand on current feminist discussions about such issues as Black women’s self-care and anticipatory vigilance; media portrayals of race, gender, and violence; religion and social justice; technofeminist activism; postcolonial feminist critique; research ethics; and collective civic action. The contributions engage with larger discussions of social precarity, public anxiety, post-feminist appeals, and future feminist trajectories. Particular benefits of the collection include relatable content based in contemporary experiences, insightful and pragmatic conceptions of vigilance from feminist perspectives, and critical engagement with issues of intersectionality, agency, embodiment, and care ethics. The collection aims to addressthe need for productive academic responses to contemporary challenges to gendered identities, feminism, and intersectional relations that avoid abstractions or overwhelmingly negative analyses. Instead, this collection invites readers to engage in feminist vigilance as a fresh perspective, commitment, and strategy.

This is the first book to critically examine Hollywood films that focus on male partner violence against women. These films include Gaslight, Sleeping with the Enemy, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Dolores Claiborne, Enough, and Safe Haven. Shaped by the contexts of postfeminism, domestic abuse post-awareness, and familiar genre conventions, these films engage in ideological “gaslighting” that reaffirms our preconceived ideas about men as abusers, women as victims, and the racial and class politics of domestic violence. While the films purport to condemn abuse and empower abused women, this study proposes that they tacitly reinforce the very attitudes that we believe we no longer tolerate. Shoos argues that films like these limit not only popular understanding but also social and institutional interventions.