Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

Camming is a thorough examination of the online sex-work industry and a theoretical treatise about pleasure, a topic long neglected in sociology. Employing a myriad of methodological techniques, including an analysis of web content, in-depth interviews, surveys, and autoethnography, Jones (Farmingdale State College, SUNY) provides a detailed overview of "camming"--the erotic webcam industry--and its impacts on sex workers. She also considers the role of pleasure in this line of work and work more generally under advanced capitalism, treating both the empowering and pleasurable aspects of online sex work and the potential for trolling, discrimination, and harassment. Central to this work is the notion of intersectionality, as the author reveals that the hierarchies at work under capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacy are very much present in the online sex-work industry. Jones also advocates for the decriminalization of sex work and considers how the recent Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) threatens the rights of voluntary online sex work. As quarantines resulting from the recent coronavirus pandemic have temporarily shut down most physical sex-work venues, Jones's analysis of online sex work is an even more timely contribution to the field.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

Sociologist Roschelle (SUNY, New Paltz) here examines the rise of familial homelessness in San Francisco during the 1990s. While this case study of the causes and consequences of homelessness focuses on one location, its social policy lessons can be applied nationwide. By illuminating the intersections of race, gender, and class, Roschelle unpacks economic restructuring and urban renewal efforts since the 1960s, in addition to 1990s welfare and public housing reform programs that deeply impacted employment and housing opportunities for low-income families. At the family level, she shows the devastation that domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse play in contributing to ever-increasing rates of homelessness among poor women of color. Her ethnographic portrayals of families also give readers a ground-level view outlining the violence (physical and emotional), stressors, and continued erosion of extended kinship networks associated with the effort to find and maintain safe and affordable housing. The consequences of familial homelessness feed into a cycle of cumulative disadvantage and erect barricades to stable housing. Through her detailed descriptions, the author provides powerful insight into the link between experiences of homelessness and broader structural factors that shape the lives of families.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels.

An independent historian, Solinger has consistently produced groundbreaking books on abortion, adoption, and reproductive politics for over two decades. In this updated 25th-anniversary edition of her classic work The Abortionist (1994), she recounts the biography of abortion provider Ruth Barnett as a means to present a broader history of abortion in the pre-Roe v. Wade years. In the first half of the 20th century, Solinger argues, abortionists like Barnett were able to provide safe abortions in sanitary environments in part because their practices, albeit illegal, were tolerated as a necessary service. When politicians, legal authorities, and journalists began to expose and crack down on abortion during the prosperous postwar years, the women who sought out abortions and the largely female abortionists who provided them became subject to scrutiny, scorn, and prosecution, putting their lives and livelihoods at risk. This updated edition includes a new final chapter that contextualizes the current state of abortion rights, reproductive politics, and new efforts to undermine and overturn Roe v. Wade. This is essential reading for students of American history and women's, sexuality, and gender studies.Summing Up: Essential. All readership levels.

Countless articles and books have been written about the Baby Boomer and Millennial cohorts, but Generation X, the small cohort of now-midlife adults born between 1965 and 1980, has generated far less ink. In this meticulously researched and vividly written book, Calhoun digs deep into the inner lives of Gen X women, exploring why today's midlife women, raised with unbounded hopes fueled by the feminist movement, are so exhausted and disappointed. Weaving together insightful interviews with Gen X women, observations from popular culture, and rigorous empirical studies, Calhoun offers insights into women's worries about finances, work-family balance, caregiving, health, and menopause and aging--concerns that cannot be adequately addressed by quick-fix and shallow recommendations like life hacks and "me time." Calhoun rightfully argues that solutions require structural, political, and economic changes. Most important, a new cultural narrative is needed, one that quashes the myth of "having it all" and "doing it all" and instead involves adapting expectations to realities facing women today. Why We Can't Sleep is required reading for all women who fear that they are not doing enough and for the friends, family, and colleagues who rely on them.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.