Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 -

Part of the "Themes in Social Theory" series, which explores the significance of social theory in different thematic fields in social science research, this book covers theoretical foundations and applications of gender and gender inequality in different areas of work--unpaid/paid work for organizations, homework, unpaid family care work, paid care and service work. Applying a feminist and Bourdieusian perspective, Huppatz (Univ. of Western Sydney, Australia) explores how classical social theories and contemporary theories of the cultural turn have been applied in empirical research on gender and work. She first describes the classical social theories before describing the theories of the cultural turn that have influenced scholarship in this area. She then details significant research areas in the different subfields of gender and work. For each subfield, such as organizations or homework, the author identifies what is distinct about each area, how theories are utilized, and where new research and more theorizing is needed. This book is a great resource for scholars in the field of gender and work. It provides great ideas for future research, delineates gaps in research, and inspires theoretically driven interdisciplinary research in a field that remains highly gendered.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Motherhood is a must-read volume for scholars and parents navigating their own transitions into parenthood. It provides an update to Miller's earlier study Making Sense of Motherhood (CH, Apr'06, 43-4980). Utilizing the same methods and posing the same research questions, Miller (Oxford Brookes Univ.) documents the myriad ways in which transitions to motherhood have changed, or not. She highlights three important issues: methodological approaches, the persistence of gendered constructions of motherhood and parenthood, and the impact of COVID-19. The impacts of COVID-19 were profound, with families navigating parenting during lockdowns without childcare, and Miller's documentation of this alone makes her research a critical contribution to the literature. One of the book's underlying themes across all three domains is technology's impact, and the most important scholarly contribution is Miller's finding that technology often exacerbates rather than lessens hegemonic ideologies of motherhood. For example, social media platforms bombard pregnant women and new mothers with supposed advice through carefully curated posts that often cause feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Rather than disrupting or providing counter-narratives, social media reinforces constructs of intensive mothering 24/7. This book will transform the study of motherhood and advance feminist theoretical understandings of what remains one of the most persistent sources of gender inequality.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

In Relinquished, Sisson (Univ. of California, San Francisco) interrogates the system of relinquishment and adoption through an intersectional feminist lens. Based on interviews with 100 women who relinquished their babies through the formal system of adoption, Sisson's analysis illuminates the role that private adoption processes play in the system of family regulation, which transfers children in ways that reinforce the power inherent in systems of white supremacy, heteropatriachy, and neocapitalism. Further, she positions private adoption as a market that does not contribute to reproductive justice, as it claims to, but in fact actually serves to restrict pregnant people's control over their own reproductive bodies. Though deeply grounded in sound sociological research methods, Sisson's book will be accessible to readers with little background or training in the field. Relinquished is a must-read volume for scholars, students, and everyone interested in the politics of motherhood and reproductive justice in the post-Dobbs era.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.