Title
Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue and Vice in Backlash Politics
Files
Document Type
Book
Description/Summary
What drives the cycle of backlashes against women's ongoing struggle for equality, freedom, and inclusion in American politics? In her innovative and provocative book, Suspect Citizens, Jocelyn Boryczka presents a feminist conceptual history that shows how American politics have largely defined women in terms of their reproductive and socializing functions. This framework not only denies women full citizenship, but also devalues the active political engagement of all citizens who place each other and their government under suspicion.
Developing the gendered dynamics of virtue and vice, Boryczka exposes the paradox of how women are perceived as both virtuous moral guardians and vice-ridden suspect citizens capable of jeopardizing the entire nation's exceptional future. She uses wide-ranging examples from the Puritans and contemporary debates over sex education to S&M lesbian feminists and the ethics of care to show how to move beyond virtue and vice to a democratic feminist ethics.
Suspect Citizens advances a politics of collective responsibility and belonging.
ISBN
9781439908938
Publication Date
2012
Publication Information
Boryczka, Jocelyn M. Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue and Vice in Backlash Politics Temple University Press 2012.
Recommended Citation
Boryczka, Jocelyn M., "Suspect Citizens: Women, Virtue and Vice in Backlash Politics" (2012). Politics Faculty Book and Media Gallery. 24.
https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/politics-books/24