Review by Choice Review
Oakley is a prolific writer and, given the contents of this book, clearly an indefatigable lecturer. She has written several useful and even important books on the sociology of gender and medical sociology, and has produced a captivating autobiography. But as far as this reviewer is concerned, both she and her publisher overestimate the significance of her work. With this latest publication, she has emptied her filing drawer-hopefully she will not need to do so again. Poems, lectures, descriptions of travel arrangements, pronouncements, and half-formed thoughts, unified only by the fact that Oakley has written them, constitute the text. Although the sophisticated reading public (not to speak of the scholarly community) might welcome a glimpse into the minds of women such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Pym, or Ruth Benedict (gobbling up a collection of their hitherto unpublished work), it is unlikely that Oakley's meanderings will be greeted with great enthusiasm.-N.B. Rosenthal, SUNY College at Old Westbury
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Readers who've grown impatient with useless theorizing about the condition of women will welcome this uncompromising depiction of life as a female. For Oakley, a British Betty Friedan who shoots straight from the hip, it's still ``us against them,'' and telling the truth about Jerusalem (used in its utopian sense to represent the ``sparkling promise'' of the feminist revolution) means articulating both dream and reality. Combining fact and fantasy, as she did in Taking It Like a Woman (Booklist 80:1087 Ap 1 84), the author blends essays based on her work as a medical researcher and social scientist with poetry that expresses her personal and social concerns. The essays on subjects such as the questionable use of ultrasound in obstetrics, housework as a research topic, and women as providers and receivers of health care are likely to jolt readers out of at least one of their comfortable assumptions. Almost all of the poems are without literary merit, but many are effective emotional expressions and some including those on mother-daughter relationships and the ritual aspects of conferences are powerful. This investigative view of English-style feminism is recommended for women's studies collections. Notes; to be indexed. PMS. 828'.91409 Feminism Literary collections [OCLC] 86-11764
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
The prolific British sociologist presents a collection of her poetry and other short pieces (many of them originally lectures) drawn from a six-year period during which she served as consultant to the World Health Organization, gave birth to a child, was diagnosed as having cancer, and continued the research and publication on feminist issues for which she is famous. The subjects addressed will be familiar to her many readers: women's work; mothering; the medicalization of health care; the women's movement; and the feminist in relation to her profession. Throughout, her writing is informed by a sense of the future, of what the next generation must learn, if the ``Jerusalem'' to which feminists aspire is to be achieved. Recommended for academic collections and large public libraries. Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A British feminist delivers a feisty, ""put-up-your-dukes"" attack on sexism and classism in today's medical profession, the social sciences and the world in general. Drawn in large part from speeches delivered to various international conferences and from articles published in several feminist and scientific journals, Oakley's essays grapple with such issues as what the author perceives as doctors' widespread insensitivity to women's needs and the common male evaluation of women as emotionally unstable and intellectually inferior. Oakley views the world from her position as polemicist, parent, poet, sociologist and cancer survivor. In each of these roles she is appalled and infuriated by how little say women have in controlling their own destinies. Discussing motherhood, for example, she writes, ""When a woman does not feel that she in some sense directed the course of her own childbirth and is able to direct the course of her own motherhood, she is more liable to come out of it with damaged self-esteem, and with a perception of her baby and herself as strangers produced by strangers."" Despite a certain awkwardness in the prose, the argument hits home. Oakley is equally incensed by how little information she was given while undergoing iridium wire implant treatment for cancer. ""Most doctors seem unable to confront their own feelings about cancer,"" she comments. The statement will strike a responsive chord with many readers who have battled not only the disease but their physician's ""professional objectivity""--Oakley would probably say ""indifference""--as well. Oakley is less successful when she turns her attention to poetry, however, and the inclusion of these rather flat and predictable verses vitiates the impact of the book. Too, her decision to introduce the sets of poems with brief descriptions of how and why they were written seems ill-advised. If poetry must be ""explained"" in prose, it's just not doing its job. The essays, however, more than make up for the weaknesses. Read this for its provocative ideas--and don't be put off by the somewhat slapdash writing. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
