Table of Contents

Preface
1. Gender as politics in another form
2. Re-Sexing the wars of/on terror
3. Terrorized and privatized democracy
4. Diversifying and racializing decoys
5. Ungendering feminisms and the pluralisms of sex
Index

Promotional Information

Ranging from analyses of Condoleeza Rice and Bush's other 'Cowgirls' to the Iraq war, this book pushes the boundaries of contemporary theory. It charts the militarist and masculinist configurations through discussions of the Afghan and Iraq wars, violations at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the 2004 US Presidential election, and hurricane Katrina.

About the Author

Zillah Eisenstein is Professor of Politics at Ithaca College in New York. She has written feminist theory in North America for the past twenty-five years. Her writing is an integral part of her political activism. She writes in order to share and learn with, and from, others engaged in political struggles for social justice. She writes about her work building coalitions across women's differences: the black/white divide in the U.S.; the struggles of Serb and Muslim women in the war in Bosnia; the needs of women health workers in Cuba; the commitments of environmentalists in Ghana; the relationship between socialists and feminists in union organizing; the struggles against extremist fundamentalisms in Egypt and Afghanistan; the needs of women workers in India. Throughout her career her books have tracked the rise of neoliberalism both within the U.S. and across the globe. She has documented the demise of liberal democracy and scrutinized the growth of imperial and militarist globalization. She has also critically written about the attack on affirmative action in the U.S., the masculinist bias of law, the crisis of breast cancer and AIDS, the racism of patriarchy and the patriarchal structuring of race, the new nationalisms, and corporatist multiculturalism. Her previous books include - Against Empire: Feminisms, Racism and the West, Zed Books, 184277395X, 2004

Reviews

Zillah Eisenstein's latest feminist text is a provocative, insightful reading of the gendered and racialized complexities of the wars in Afganistan and Iraq and the ways in which the metaphor of "sexual and racial decoys" can be deployed to illuminate contemporary US government machinations here and around the globe.
*Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Spelman College*

In Sexual Decoys once again, Eisenstein brilliantly draws us into the profoundly complex gendered politics of war, mobilizing startling constructs like sexual decoys, patriarchal imperialism, neoliberal feminism, and racialized fascist democracy to sharpen our analytic feminist lenses and demystify war cultures. A smart, challenging book for everyone concerned with what it means to live ethically and accountably in the USA of the present.
*Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University*

Zillah Eisenstein's Sexual Decoys is an incisive critique of the right-wing mobilization of gender and race for imperial designs.
*Ella Shohat, New York University*

A vivid, comprehensive, and compelling account of the day-to-day efforts of women peace-builders and leaves the reader enlightened and enriched.
*Gender and Development*

In Sexual Decoys, Eisenstein has written a passionate and exhaustively detailed indictment of the anti-woman crimes of USA imperialist aggression.
*Minnie Bruce Pratt, Poet-activist*

Raises provocative questions ... Smart and witty, sobering yet uplifting, this book is essential reading for all of us committed to social justice.
*Ms Magazine*

...reveals a wonderful and passionate account of US imperialist exploitation of gender and race for its own political and military purposes at home and across the globe.
*Patricia d'Ardenne, Chartist*

Zillah Eisenstein has won deserved praise for her trenchant indictments of gender and political issues. Her latest book tackles both of these topics head-on.
*The New Statesman*