Reconcilable Differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography, and the Future of Feminism

This volume examines controversial faultlines in contemporary feminism―pornography, the beauty myth, sadomasochism, prostitution, and the issue of rape―from an original and provocative perspective. Lynn Chancer focuses on how, among many feminists, the concepts of sex and sexism became fragmented and mutually exclusive. Exploring the dichotomy between sex and sexism as it has developed through five current feminist debates, Chancer seeks to forge positions that bridge oppositions between unnecessary (and sometimes unwitting) "either/or" binaries. Chancer's book attempts to incorporate both the need for sexual freedom and the depth of sexist subordination into feminist thought and politics.

"At last! A critical look at feminist schisms that doesn't trash either side. Chancer's analysis of the sexuality vs. sexism splits is excellent and also makes for wonderful reading. I particularly liked her ideas for a 'third wave' in feminism."―Judith Lorber, CUNY Graduate Center

"Reconcilable Differences brings crucial new perspectives to long-standing problems. Chancer's insights enrich our understandings of gender inequality and the policies necessary to address them."―Deborah Rhode, Stanford Law School

"In this postmodern world of fractured subjectivity and incommensurabilities, Lynn Chancer boldly argues for the possibility of feminist unity amidst and through our oft-noted differences. A book of rare intelligence and broad applicability, Chancer confronts the thorny debates that have kept feminists fighting each other and unable to reconcile around even the narrowest of agendas. She argues for the vitality of these debates (around sex, around the culture of beauty and, most tempestuously, around pornography) at the same time she pushes them to new places and draws out both new dilemmas and new resolutions for the late-twentieth century feminist. Clearly the work of a creative and complex mind, Chancer's book is destined to become a *must read* for feminists of all persuasions."―Suzanna Danuta Walters, author of Material Girls: making sense of feminist cultural theory