Abstract
Angela Campbell’s book offers a critical look at how some laws and policies respond to and conceptualize choices made by women who engage in polygamy, surrogacy and sex work. The book makes very interesting and illuminating arguments about how women’s choices in specific settings are often undermined, ignored, questioned, dis-believed or misunderstood because these women go against expected norms and values within certain societies. Women who make ‘bad’ choices are often seen as either victims of abuse, coercion and exploitation, and/or offenders and deviants who require intervention to encourage them to make better future choices or reprimand them for their deviancy.
In Chapter 1, ‘Complicating choices’, Campbell examines feminist debates around choice and rightly suggests a need to more fully consider the social, economic, political and cultural contexts in which women’s choices are made. The author recognizes that, although constraints are placed on certain women’s choices, it would be patronizing and ignorant of others to suggest that these women did not make an authentic choice to engage in polygamy, surrogacy or sex work, when evidence supports this perspective. Similarly, it would be mistaken to assume that choices are made without constraint or influence.
In the following three chapters, Campbell explores polygamy, surrogacy and sex work as case studies to consider notions of choice further in each setting. In each chapter, Campbell defines the practice under consideration, provides background information and considers previous research which demonstrates women’s agency and choice. This review of literature identifies some of the rationales women have provided for their engagement in each specific practice, as well as possible structural constraints to their participation. Each chapter then moves on to consider legal responses to these activities in Canada, Australia and the UK and provides a useful short summary of some of the legal standpoints in each country. The third part of each chapter then provides an evaluation of these responses in which the author considers how law may itself hinder, constrain and undermine women’s choices. By unpicking and challenging inferred assumptions evident in some laws and practice, the chapters show how these legal responses to women’s agency are often based on a narrow-minded perspective of some women’s decision making. Empirical research in each field, as suggested, casts doubt on the monolithic understandings evident in some law and practice.
Drawing on Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia, the book usefully demonstrates the similar approaches and responses to women who are perceived to make contentious choices in morally sensitive areas. The use of evidence, research and information from these three countries offers the reader useful examples of how different socio-cultural contexts mediate and influence these activities, as well as public responses to them. The book also draws on empirical research from each of the respective fields to demonstrate how choice and agency have been shown to be exercised by women, thus questioning the assumption that abuse, coercion or force are always involved in how women make these choices. However, it is a little unclear at the start of the book that the empirical research drawn upon was that of others, and not the author’s own empirical research. Although the author recognized the pitfalls of drawing on empirical research that cannot necessarily be generalized more broadly, drawing on the empirical research of others is equally troublesome. This is because the author is relying on the validity and quality of the empirical research presented by other researchers from a range of different countries, periods of time and research studies. It might therefore have been more useful to consider the merits and limitations of selective literature reviews in the introductory chapter to signpost to the reader that the book synthesizes existing research which, as a method of research, must also be put under scrutiny. Drawing on the research of others has its own limitations in that an in-depth understanding of methods employed, and the problems and limitations encountered in the original studies, is absent. Furthermore, secondary data analysis relies on the analysis and dissemination of others, which is often selective because of the constraints of time, publishers and more general epistemological standpoints. This is not to say that secondary research is without its benefits, as it can be a cost and time effective strategy and often allows researchers to draw on a greater breadth of data. The point is that the author could have made this clear earlier in the book.
An avenue for further research may be to utilize the analytical framework presented in Chapter 1, which attempts to make sense of choice and agency, to analyse the narratives of women in each of these contexts. In gaining a more in-depth and richer understanding of women’s choices and agency in the context of sex work, surrogacy and polygamy, as well as recognizing the importance of specific socio-cultural contexts, this would be a useful contribution to the existing literature. Women and also men’s decisions to engage in these activities continue to be questioned and giving them a voice, so that others can gain some understanding of their decision making, may help to alleviate some of the deeply entrenched stigma which surrounds these controversial activities.
Despite its limited depth in some areas, this book will be a useful introductory text for students, academics and practitioners alike. It furthermore raises crucial questions about how women’s choices are conceptualized, perceived and responded to – questions which continue to have relevance for women’s engagement in morally contentious activities. For those who are already familiar with each respective field of study, the book may be a reminder of some of the important debates in the discipline, as what is presented is a taste of the research in each of the fields. This is not to undermine the contribution of this book. It is a useful starting point for students who are seeking to gain an understanding of the debates around notions of choice in controversial fields.