Shira Tarrant

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About Shira Tarrant
Shira Tarrant, PhD is a nationally recognized expert on sexual politics. Her books include The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford), Gender, Sex, and Politics, Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power; When Sex Became Gender (Routledge), Men and Feminism (Seal Press), Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style (SUNY), and New Views on Pornography (Praeger).
Shira Tarrant's writing also appears with AlterNet, In These Times, Jezebel, the Ms. Magazine Blog, Bitch, BUST Magazine, Huffington Post, and other publications. Her commentary on gender issues, masculinity, pop culture, and sexual politics have been featured on global media including the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, NBC, Forbes, KCAL 9 News, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post, Sydney Morning Herald, and on radio stations in Los Angeles, New York, Berkeley, and Houston.
Dr. Tarrant received her PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a professor in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. Read more at http://shiratarrant.com and follow her on twitter @shiratarrant.
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Books By Shira Tarrant
While debates and emotions around porn can run high, there is a crucial need for reliable information and rational conversation. In this book, Shira Tarrant parses the wide range of statistics that we have on the pornography industry, sorting myth from reality in an objective, fascinating and knowledgeable fashion. She looks at ongoing political controversies around the industry, the feminist porn wars, the views of the religious right, the history of pornography, landmark legal cases, and the latest in medical research. The Pornography Industry also explains the industry basics -who works in porn, why people become performers, how much they earn, and what happens on a porn set. It further delves into important questions such as: how many teenagers watch porn and should we worry about it? What is porn piracy and can it be stopped? What can the industry do about sexist and racist pornography? Does porn cause violence against women? Can people become addicted to porn? Is watching porn the same as infidelity? By presenting competing perspectives in an even-handed way, The Pornography Industry will enable readers to explore these provocative issues and make their own best decisions about the debates.
Gender, Sex, and Politics: In the Streets and Between the Sheets in the 21st Century includes twenty-seven chapters organized into five sections: Gender, Sexuality and Social Control; Pornography; Sex and Social Media; Dating, Desire, and the Politics of Hooking Up; and Issues in Sexual Pleasure and Safety. This anthology presents these topics using a point-counterpoint-different point framework. Its arguments and perspectives do not pit writers against each other in a binary pro/con debate format. Instead, a variety of views are juxtaposed to encourage critical thinking and robust conversation. This framework enables readers to assess the strengths and shortcomings of conflicting ideas. The chapters are organized in a way that will challenge cherished beliefs and hone both academic and personal insight. Gender, Sex, and Politics is ideal for sparking debates in intro to women’s and gender studies, sexuality, and gender courses.
Why do people use pornography? Is porn addiction a fact or myth? What is revenge porn and is it illegal? Can pornography be more diverse? This interdisciplinary collection presents well-researched facts and up-to-date data that encourage informed discussion about controversial and relevant issues in contemporary society. Chapters address topics such as the history and cultural trends of pornography, labor and production practices in creating porn, the effects of technology, current issues in obscenity law, and myths and facts about the effects of pornography.
New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law challenges assumptions about this popular yet controversial industry. Contributors include top scholars from media studies, sociology, psychology, gender studies, criminology, politics, and the law. This book provides a comprehensive overview of pornography that will help students, educators, and general readers deepen their understanding of this provocative subject.
When Sex Became Gender is a study of post-World War II feminist theory from the viewpoint of intellectual history. The key theme is that ideas about the social construction of gender have its origins in the feminist theorists of the postwar period, and that these early ideas about gender became a key foundational paradigm for both second and third wave feminist thought. These conceptual foundations were created by a cohort of extraordinarily imaginative and bold academic women. While discussing the famous feminist scholars—Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Mead—the book also hinges on the work of scholars who are lesser known to American audiences—Mirra Komarovsky, Viola Klein, and Ruth Herschberger, The postwar years have been an overlooked period in the development of feminist theory and philosophy and Tarrant makes a compelling case for this era being the turning point in the study of gender.
Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power, Second Edition highlights new essays on pornography, pop culture, queer identity, Muslim masculinity, and the war on women. With personal candor and political insight, this collection of diverse authors explores sex work, digital activism, incarceration, domestic violence, surviving incest, and standing firmly as male allies facing the backlash against women’s reproductive rights.
Featuring eleven new essays and six revised thematic sections, this second edition of a favorite anthology continues to encourage robust discussion and vibrant debate about masculinity and the possibilities for progressive change. The contemporary, compelling essays in Men Speak Out appeal to students, scholars, activists, and everyday readers.
There's no denying that men's involvement and interest in feminism is key to its continuing relevance and importance. Addressing the question of why men should care about feminism in the first place, Men and Feminism lays the foundation for a larger discussion about feminism as a human issue, not simply a women's issue. Men are crucial to the movement—as fathers, brothers, husbands, boyfriends, and friends.
From "why" to "how" to "what can men do", Men and Feminism answers all the questions men have about how and why they should get behind feminism.