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tiaelisabeth's review against another edition
2.0
While this book begins with a very important intervention, it quickly devolves into something that I can only describe as… egregious? Doyles’ “Campus Sex, Campus Security” asks its readers to consider the ways in which institutional and personal anxieties around campus sexual violence have given way to/are similar to the increasing militarisation of campus security. The equation of safety and nonviolence is a false equivalence, etc. This makes sense, I can agree with this critique of violence, her calling out of the reproduction of punitive, carceral systems at the university, the horrific ways in which police-figures terrorise students of colour and student activists. Her chapters on such incidents at UC schools and ASU are particularly strong.
Doyle’s turn toward “campus sex” however, reads as alarmist, defensive, ungrounded, and incredibly insensitive. Her anxiety about the campus becoming a fortress where students are constantly chastised, disciplined, and afraid to question authority or move or speak does not sound anything like my experience of the university, though I acknowledge that my own privileges of course factor into this. That said, her writing in these passages reads as solipsistic, melodramatic, and in a few instances, enraging (for example, when she compares the violent pepper-spraying and beating of students at UC Davis with the removal of a football coach’s name from the Penn State library; the ending in which she weaves between the suspicion levied at plagiaristic students and the murder of Mike Brown — her final line of “hands up, don’t shoot the students” made me want to hurl the book across the room). It’s also illogical and contradictory; whereas she first laments the ways in which victims and women in particular are erased from their own narratives of sexual violence, she later does the same thing by centering her accounts of the Sandusky case and the UCSB incel attack on the male perpetrators, even arguing that the UCSB killer was more motivated by his death-drive than a hatred of women (right after mentioning his 100,000 misogynistic manifesto??) This portion of the ‘essay’ is riddled with fantastic excursions and flights of fancy that lead to wild assumptions and claims that she fails to ground, as well as misunderstandings of basic terminology (Doyle claims that ‘rape culture’ pulls focus from the mundanity of sexual coercion, which is in fact the actual thing it is designed to — and I think, does — indicate??) Again, throughout all of this, women figure only as shadows, always unnamed and portrayed pejoratively by Doyle as overly sensitive and fearful of violence against them, which she seems to believe is more an anticipatory figment of the hyper vigilant imagination (and perhaps sometimes is, but I wonder WHY might that be??!!!) Instead of suggesting that we treat the cause, Doyle is fixated on the symptom — their inconvenient, mushy feelings. Women, here, are again thrown under the bus, and made responsible for a whole system of other violences. Never does she interrogate the synapses between violence against women and police/carceral brutality, of course, nor do I believe that she quotes/draws on any abolitionist feminist thinkers or Black feminists.
The idea that some university administrators, faculty, and leaders have championed this book is disconcerting to me, and signals that they would rather not participate in the work of finding nonviolent solutions for sexual violence prevention/restitution and police brutality, and would instead prefer to, I don’t know, do whatever twisted and self-aggrandising exercise this is??
Doyle’s turn toward “campus sex” however, reads as alarmist, defensive, ungrounded, and incredibly insensitive. Her anxiety about the campus becoming a fortress where students are constantly chastised, disciplined, and afraid to question authority or move or speak does not sound anything like my experience of the university, though I acknowledge that my own privileges of course factor into this. That said, her writing in these passages reads as solipsistic, melodramatic, and in a few instances, enraging (for example, when she compares the violent pepper-spraying and beating of students at UC Davis with the removal of a football coach’s name from the Penn State library; the ending in which she weaves between the suspicion levied at plagiaristic students and the murder of Mike Brown — her final line of “hands up, don’t shoot the students” made me want to hurl the book across the room). It’s also illogical and contradictory; whereas she first laments the ways in which victims and women in particular are erased from their own narratives of sexual violence, she later does the same thing by centering her accounts of the Sandusky case and the UCSB incel attack on the male perpetrators, even arguing that the UCSB killer was more motivated by his death-drive than a hatred of women (right after mentioning his 100,000 misogynistic manifesto??) This portion of the ‘essay’ is riddled with fantastic excursions and flights of fancy that lead to wild assumptions and claims that she fails to ground, as well as misunderstandings of basic terminology (Doyle claims that ‘rape culture’ pulls focus from the mundanity of sexual coercion, which is in fact the actual thing it is designed to — and I think, does — indicate??) Again, throughout all of this, women figure only as shadows, always unnamed and portrayed pejoratively by Doyle as overly sensitive and fearful of violence against them, which she seems to believe is more an anticipatory figment of the hyper vigilant imagination (and perhaps sometimes is, but I wonder WHY might that be??!!!) Instead of suggesting that we treat the cause, Doyle is fixated on the symptom — their inconvenient, mushy feelings. Women, here, are again thrown under the bus, and made responsible for a whole system of other violences. Never does she interrogate the synapses between violence against women and police/carceral brutality, of course, nor do I believe that she quotes/draws on any abolitionist feminist thinkers or Black feminists.
The idea that some university administrators, faculty, and leaders have championed this book is disconcerting to me, and signals that they would rather not participate in the work of finding nonviolent solutions for sexual violence prevention/restitution and police brutality, and would instead prefer to, I don’t know, do whatever twisted and self-aggrandising exercise this is??
indielitttttt's review against another edition
4.0
So this is going to be a complicated review haha. This is a book length (119 page) essay that addresses the way college campuses, and more specifically, university bureaucracy, perpetuate harm on the campus and beyond. Doyle asserts that Title IX makes it mandatory for university’s to report crime data, but makes universities view crimes (most commonly sexual violence) as violations of the university rather than violations of the victim. She also uses examples of police brutality on campuses and school shootings to convey her point. Basically, it boils down to the university as an entity is only concerned with the well being of itself, and will do anything to protect its image, while the university sees students and faculty as expendable sources of money.
If this review was hard to read and comprehend, I get it. That’s what this book was like. It’s very VERY theoretical, and includes so many analogies and metaphors that it’s hard to keep up with. So while the info i was able to pull from it was good overall, it was far too hard to get at it. This is not an accessible text, which is unfortunate.
3.5/5⭐️
ahc's review
1.0
this book is so bad that i don’t even know where to start. at the beginning of the book, the author calls this work an “essay.” it is certainly not that. the ultimate takeaway from this book is that this author has an astounding ability to say absolutely nothing across 120 pages of overwritten, rambling text.
first, the book is misrepresented in its description on MIT’s website. i bought it bc it seemed to be detailing the process of title ix reports on college campuses. i also bought it because i recently finished carceral capitalism by jackie wang and that was an absolutely fantastic, well-researched book. however, this book is actually NOT about campus sexual violence. it is an incoherent collection of half-formed thoughts. i didn’t even need to look at the bibliography to know that it was not well-researched.
i am not being dramatic when i say that ZERO points were made. no argument whatsoever. i literally just finished this book and i could not tell you the point the author was trying to make.
also features problematic attitudes towards survivors of sexual violence. which really is bamboozling given that the book was written to allegedly show the inadequacies of campus responses to sexual assault.
the author attempts to engage issues of police brutality but falls short yet again. it’s clear that she made no attempt to MEANINGFULLY look into these issues. she literally just glanced over some headlines on police brutality (and campus sexual assault) and cobbled together some random words in what i assume was an attempt to make a point.
my final metric for books on topics like this is “how much would this help someone who is in a situation that the book addresses?” would a survivor be able to pick up this book and feel better informed on the reporting process? would they feel comforted knowing that they’re not alone in feeling like the system failed them? the answers to these questions is no. this book is a CLASSIC example of an academic writing solely to impress other academics, without contributing anything that is actually meaningful. and that, in my opinion, is the absolute worst reason to write a book.
there were other things wrong with this but i’ve already said enough. i don’t need to give any more reasons for you not to read this.
first, the book is misrepresented in its description on MIT’s website. i bought it bc it seemed to be detailing the process of title ix reports on college campuses. i also bought it because i recently finished carceral capitalism by jackie wang and that was an absolutely fantastic, well-researched book. however, this book is actually NOT about campus sexual violence. it is an incoherent collection of half-formed thoughts. i didn’t even need to look at the bibliography to know that it was not well-researched.
i am not being dramatic when i say that ZERO points were made. no argument whatsoever. i literally just finished this book and i could not tell you the point the author was trying to make.
also features problematic attitudes towards survivors of sexual violence. which really is bamboozling given that the book was written to allegedly show the inadequacies of campus responses to sexual assault.
the author attempts to engage issues of police brutality but falls short yet again. it’s clear that she made no attempt to MEANINGFULLY look into these issues. she literally just glanced over some headlines on police brutality (and campus sexual assault) and cobbled together some random words in what i assume was an attempt to make a point.
my final metric for books on topics like this is “how much would this help someone who is in a situation that the book addresses?” would a survivor be able to pick up this book and feel better informed on the reporting process? would they feel comforted knowing that they’re not alone in feeling like the system failed them? the answers to these questions is no. this book is a CLASSIC example of an academic writing solely to impress other academics, without contributing anything that is actually meaningful. and that, in my opinion, is the absolute worst reason to write a book.
there were other things wrong with this but i’ve already said enough. i don’t need to give any more reasons for you not to read this.
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