In The American Prospect, Sarah Posner reviews two new books that explore sexual inequality and religious fundamentalism—Michelle Goldberg’s The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World and Kathryn Joyce’s Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, previously excerpted at here & there. Of The Means of Reproduction, Posner writes:
Goldberg offers numerous examples of how religious belief structures—local and imported—have crushed the everyday lives and future well-being of women across the globe: the HIV-positive Ugandan widow with a bevy of HIV-positive children facing dismal economic prospects; the declining female population in India due to sex-selective abortion to avoid paying dowry; the terrorizing effects of female genital mutilation in Africa.
These practices, Goldberg argues, stem from the desire of religious fundamentalists, in America and abroad, to produce order out of what they perceive as the messy sinfulness of women’s bodies and sexuality. But the attempt to create order has only caused more disorder.
Think of Goldberg as the Al Gore of a sexual equality crisis. Reproductive freedom is not just a matter of justice, it’s a matter of survival.
Read her full review here.