Citadels of Pride: Sexual Abuse, Accountability, and Reconciliation
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- 13,99 €
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- 13,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2022 Silver Gavel Award
A groundbreaking exploration of sexual violence by one of our most celebrated experts in law and philosophy.
In this essential philosophical and practical reckoning, Martha C. Nussbaum, renowned for her eloquence and clarity of moral vision, shows how sexual abuse and harassment derive from using people as things to one’s own benefit—like other forms of exploitation, they are rooted in the ugly emotion of pride. She exposes three “Citadels of Pride” and the men who hoard power at the apex of each. In the judiciary, the arts, and sports, Nussbaum analyzes how pride perpetuates systemic sexual abuse, narcissism, and toxic masculinity. The courage of many has brought about some reforms, but justice is still elusive—warped sometimes by money, power, or inertia; sometimes by a collective desire for revenge.
By analyzing the effects of law and public policy on our ever-evolving definitions of sexual violence, Nussbaum clarifies how gaps in U.S. law allow this violence to proliferate; why criminal laws dealing with sexual assault and Title VII, the federal law that is the basis for sexual harassment doctrine, need to be complemented by an understanding of the distorted emotions that breed abuse; and why anger and vengeance rarely achieve lasting change.
Citadels of Pride offers a damning indictment of the culture of male power that insulates high-profile abusers from accountability. Yet Nussbaum offers a hopeful way forward, envisioning a future in which, as survivors mobilize to tell their stories and institutions pursue fair and nuanced reform, we might fully recognize the equal dignity of all people.
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Nussbaum (The Cosmopolitan Tradition), a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago, examines in this scholarly yet impassioned account the "culture of sexual violence and sexual harassment" in America and the "institutional and structural solutions" necessary to reform it. She explores the concept of objectification and the harms it causes, and how male pride fuels the denial of a woman's autonomy and subjectivity. Nussbaum also digs into changing standards of consent and accountability as she tracks the history of legal efforts to combat sexual harassment from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which defined sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination) to the #MeToo movement. Probing systemic failures that cause sexual misconduct to go unaddressed, Nussbaum discusses cases from the federal judiciary, where clerks are held to strict standards of confidentiality; the performing arts, where "certain people with great power and wealth can influence everyone's chances"; and Division I college sports, where the system is so structurally corrupt, Nussbaum argues, that it should be done away with altogether. Though some sections may be too dense for lay readers, Nussbaum persuasively argues that the law, when applied correctly, can provide justice "that seeks reconciliation and a shared future" for men and women. This carefully reasoned account convinces.
