Hardcover, 320 pages
English language
Published by Seal Press.
Feminists have long challenged the ways in which men tend to sexualize women. But pioneering activist, biologist, and trans woman Julia Serano argues that sexualization is a far more pervasive problem, as it’s something that we all do to other people, often without being aware of it.
Why do we perceive men as sexual predators and women as sexual objects? Why are LGBTQ+ people stereotyped as being sexually indiscriminate and deceptive? Why are people of color still being hypersexualized? These stereotypes push minorities farther into the margins, and even the privileged are policed from transgressing, lest they also become targets. Many view sexualization as a mere component of sexism, racism, or queerphobia, but Serano argues that liberation from sexual violence comes through collectively confronting sexualization itself.
There are a lot of training wheels and an unnecessary, iterative spelling out of harmful stereotypes particularly in chapter 7, but also some solid analogies and models, especially about unwanted attention (being marked as a spectacle), derivatization (being flattened to a projected single dimension), stigma, and contagion.
