Abstract
In a political climate when civil liberties in the United States and elsewhere are “being renegotiated” (p. ix), Elizabeth Currans’s provocatively titled book is a refreshing and captivating examination of how women are taking up public spaces in political protest. Currans’s overall argument, that gender matters in how “women-dominated groups claim and transform public spaces in service of diverse political goals” (p. 2), is well supported throughout her book. In the case of Dyke Marches, for example, social actors transform public space by rebuffing normative expectations of gender and sexual propriety while unsettling hegemonic gender and sexuality. Conversely, the women of the Million Mom March evoke traditional narratives of womanhood, specifically regarding care for children, in an effort to communicate their protest goals to target audiences. In other words, while women-dominated groups engage with gender differently, gender is central to how women protest and how they are received by audiences.
In commendable interdisciplinary fashion, Currans weaves together theoretical insights from diverse disciplinary roots including geography, sociology, political theory, and performance studies to delineate her own articulation of the theoretical framework that guides the book, one she calls, “holding space.” For Currans, holding space requires social actors to be emotionally, intellectually, and physically present in claiming public spaces, spaces that are by no means politically neutral. With this in mind, Currans invites readers to consider the role of silence, disruption, celebration, and communal care as tools women-dominated groups use to hold space for each other while simultaneously upsetting normative spatial politics. Furthermore, the holding space framework serves as a valuable tool to understand both the existence of “collective effervescence” found in protest cultures, while also attending to the distinct ways groups experience protest and public spaces.
Drawing on insights garnered from a range of data sources, Currans incorporates a combination of her own protest experiences, interviews with organizers and participants, archival texts, and “ephemera” (promotional materials, signage, etc.) to shape her analysis throughout. The book is clearly organized into three distinct, yet overlapping, sections that thematically organize chapters around sexuality, war resistance, and citizenship. Situating the first section firmly within the ongoing feminist debates dubbed the “sex wars,” Currans demonstrates how protests such as Take Back the Night, Dyke Marches, and Slut Walks illuminate the “fecundity of sexuality a site of public, gendered engagement, as well as a diversity of ways that an emotionally fraught issue can inspire fierce public gatherings” (p. 19). In the second section, Currans shifts the focus toward how women deploy femininities to unsettle and disrupt public spaces while urging target audiences to engage in meaningful discussions about war and violence as in the case of the Women in Black and CODEPINK action groups. The third section examines the role of affect in how women transform public space through the “blurring of emotional attachments with political reasoning” (p. 133) in the case of the Million Mom March. The conclusion revisits the holding space framework and demonstrates the possibilities found in the affective purposes of claiming and transforming space in protest cultures.
Currans’s work is clearly informed by a deep understanding that gender does not exist alone. As Currans notes, many of the women-dominated groups were disproportionately filled with able-bodied, white, women, a fact that did not escape Currans’s critical analysis. That said, with the notable exception of “Sistahs Steppin’ in Pride: An East Bay Dyke March and Celebration,” discussed in chapter two, readers hoping to gain insight into the creation of collective protest spaces by women of color, women with disabilities, and other marginalized peoples, may be left wanting. Additionally, Currans’s characterization of CODEPINK’s antiwar protest as “feminine drag” may be read as an odd fit in relation to the framing of the rest of the chapters. Despite drawing on renowned drag scholars, the application of drag is decontextualized from queer culture; in fact, Currans identifies CODEPINK’s actors as not only feminine within the confines of normative heterogender but “also white, middle-class, and normative” (p. 119). The decontextualization of drag from its roots in queer communities, protest, and spaces invites critique.
Overall, Currans’s cogent prose, combined with the integration of multidisciplinary academic work and on-the-ground accounts, appeals to broad audiences of scholars and activists alike. The analysis of how women-dominated groups hold space while embodying gender in diverse and complex ways is particularly appealing to gender scholars who are interested in the interrelation of emotion, embodiment, spatial politics, and political protest. Currans’s book is an accessible and thought-provoking take on the profundity of women-dominated space-claiming to subvert the political status quo and incite important political dialogue.