Abstract
Reproductive oppression is a complicated problem that has catalyzed innumerable draconian judgments, ones that continue to infiltrate contemporary theory, research, policies, practices, and behaviors of our micro-, mezzo-, and macro-systems. This coercive reality is especially marked in the American South. The term, reproductive oppression, refers to “the controlling and exploiting of women, girls, and individuals through our bodies, sexuality, labor, and reproduction (both biological and social) by families, communities, institutions, and society” (Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, 2005; Manes, 2017, para. 2; Ross, 2006).
Campaigning to redress these repressive realities through critique and activism can be a daunting task. Why is fighting reproductive oppression so demanding? Many contextual forces in the past, present, and future reinforce misogyny, patriarchy, white supremacy, religious bigotry, as well as class and caste hierarchies across time. Stallings engages the reader by amplifying a solution—sexual resistance—with which to combat reproductive oppression. Stallings takes a multidisciplinary and intersectional approach to discussing the issues of reproductive freedom, the criminalization of sexual practices, HIV/AIDS partners’ rights, marriage equality, transgender rights, and specific issues around sexuality. She provides policy analyses related to education, immigration, human rights, land rights, housing, reproductive rights, wage labor, economy, and poverty. Stallings incorporates a black feminist perspective and a reproductive justice framework throughout her book, and both are exemplified in her particular response to the tactics of white supremacy, sexual and cultural violence, and dehumanization. She provides an assessment of the strategic and visionary missions of several southern-based movements and organizations in the United States, including SONG (Southerners on New Ground), SisterSong, Women With a Vision, BreakOut!, Black Lives Matter Chapters, Moral Mondays, and Sanctuary movements. Her evaluation of these movements also includes identification of practices and challenges they have faced and continue to face as courageous social justice advocates in the U.S. South.
Stallings begins by using a “manifesto method” that involves amplifying the deep roots of reproductive oppression in history and articulating a forceful set of assumptions and principles. Her message is clear, and the reader is carefully grounded in her analytic, intentional, and perceptional lens through which to read this book. She argues against following a single narrative of the U.S. South and urges the reader to appreciate the multiple Souths in history and the present of the United States. When a single narrative about the American South has been promoted, Stallings argues, it is usually rooted in a systemic conditioning in which large numbers of residents are “othered,” and their mere existence is deemed violative of the normal, moral, Christian, straight, deserving, worthy, and respectable southerner trope.
Stallings, a “Bull City” (Durham, NC) native, shares her unique methods of analysis by defining the past and present “selves” of the South around sexual resilience, the importance of lesbian imagination, and the salience of settler colonialism in shaping southern politics. She continues to address gender and sexuality, the systematic intention to control the body, and the exploitive nature of labor, especially concerning black and brown people, immigrants, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and questioning individuals. In conclusion, she exhorts the reader to imagine a future of righteous sexuality and the deepening of sexual resistance as a movement in the American South.
This book is an excellent addition to the existing literature on reproductive rights and sexual freedom. A Dirty South Manifesto can be used to sharpen the analysis of social workers who are working within and across micro-, mezzo-, macro-settings using black feminist and intersectional frameworks. Their intentional interventions can truly impact clients across systems in more integral and culturally responsive ways compared with more traditional and often outdated interventions. This book would be helpful as a guiding text for social work classes in diversity, community organizing, social welfare policy and advocacy, and advanced practice courses with individuals and families. The deepening of our collective analyses around the issues that plague our society is important to the future growth of the social work profession, which is collectively tasked with the dismantling of the systems of oppression through praxis.
