My overarchng reacton to Janet Halley's recent book, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism, can be summarzed wth a one sentence clché: The perfect s the enemy of the good.1 She holds femnsm to a standard of perfecton no human endeavour could possbly meet, and then heartly crtczes t for fallng short. Though Halley's myrad observatons about femnsm occasonally resonated wth my own vews and experences, ultmately I reman unconvnced that takng a break from femnsm would, for me, be ether justfied or productve. But I dd (mostly) enjoy readng t. Halley s well read, cleverly provocatve, and a gfted wrter. Below I gve a somewhat glb and superfical overvew of the book, and my reactons to t. I explan why I thnk Halley s too hard on femnsts generally, and on Catharne MacKnnon specfically. And I take her to task for beng harshly crtcal of femnsm wthout offerng realstc, pragmatc, or lawyerly alternatves. You can't theorze your way nto an aborton, or out of a rape. You can have to rely on a legal system that may fal you, n whch case you can work to mprove t so that others don't suffer as you dd. Ths s part of the very essence of femnsm, whch Halley gves short shrft.
Glynn Lunney’s recent book Copyright’s Excess: Money and Music in the Recording Industry provides many important, even stunning insights about copyright law and policy, primarily from the standpoint of economic analysis. To highlight just one example of many, Lunney does an outstanding job assembling data to support a core assertion— more money does not mean more music.
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