The Real State of America Atlas
Author: Cynthia
Enloe và Joni Seager
Reviewed by
Doan Thi Ngoc
The Gender and Society Research Center
(GAS) at Hoa Sen University was given permission by the authors, Cynthia Enloe
and Joni Seager, to reproduce readings from their bewitching book entitled “The
Real State of America Atlas: Mapping the Myths and Truths of the United States”
to be used for non-profit and educational purposes.
GAS subsequently chose five short essays that vividly reveal the truth about
a promising land to which many people from all over the world are willing to
immigrate in order to work hard and achieve the “American Dream”, and play by
the rules. Readers may be very surprised to learn how hard it is to live in
America where the poor seem to become poorer and the rich become richer and how
myths distort the views and perspectives not only of Americans but also those
of non-Americans. The following statistics cited in the authors’ book puts into
perspective the disparity between those earning a high and those earning a low
income. America is home to 413 billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.4
trillion. They are the top of the pyramid of 7.8 million households with a net
worth of $1 million or more. At the same time, millions of Americans live in
deprivation and hardship. Almost a fifth of American households have an annual
income of less than $20,000.00 and 15% of Americans live at or below the
official poverty level.
The five compelling snapshots provide information on America’s
unequal distribution of wealth resulting in a high level of poverty, a high
proportion of violence against women, a rising rate of divorce, and the wide
gap in wages between men and women, and the shrinking of services for abortion
in America. The authors’ successfully demolished several American myths and
cause people to awaken and see reality through fact and figures, as well as
fascinating tales and valuable global perspectives on poverty existing around
the world. Have we forgotten our poor?
It is worth becoming acquainted with the authors.
Cynthia Enloe is a Professor of Research in the International
Development and Women's Studies Department at Clark University in
Massachusetts, USA. She grew up in New York City and received her PhD from the
University of California, Berkeley. She has been interested in Vietnamese
social dynamics for over thirty years and first visited Vietnam in 1993 to talk
with Vietnamese Women's Studies and Gender scholars. Ms Enloe has taught and
written about women's roles in history, cultures and economies, especially the
barriers faced, how people justified them and how women sought to overcome
them. This led her to explore women as factory and plantation workers, as
political participants, as soldiers, and as victims and survivors of many wars
[1].
She served on the editorial boards of seven academic journals
and in 2009 received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the School of Oriental
and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Her twelfth book,
"Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War"
was recently published. In 2010 Cynthia became a member of the advisory board
of the Gender and Society Research Center at Hoa Sen University in Vietnam and
was invited to attend a conference sponsored by GAS at the University in 2011
as a special speaker.
Joni Seager is a geographer, global policy
expert, professor, and chair of Global Studies at Bentley University in Boston
and has written many books, including four editions of Atlas
of Women in the World [2] .
Given the authors’ impressive credentials, we highly encourage
you to read the entire book. The revelations will lead you to ups and downs in
your emotions such as surprising, startling, frightening, encouraging,
predicting, amusing, and maddening. More importantly, you will gain significant
knowledge of the 50 America States because geography does matter.
Last but not least, we are thankful to Professor Cynthia Enloe for giving
us permission to reproduce the five following readings to be used for
non-profit and educational purposes: extract on p. 52-3 Wage Gap; p. 54-5
Poverty and Wealth; p. 64-5 Marriage and Divorce; p. 69 Abortion; and p. 72-3
Violence Against Women from the bewitching book entitled “The Real State of
America Atlas: Mapping the Myths and Truths of the United States”.
Glossary of Gender Terms and
Terminology
[1] & [2] Source: Reproduced from The Real State of America
Atlas by Cynthia Enloe and
Joni Seager, Penguin and University of California Press, 2011 ©
Copyright www.myriadeditions.com
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