Reviews for Geometry of reflecting rays and inverse spectral problems

The average rating for Geometry of reflecting rays and inverse spectral problems based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-12-31 00:00:00 Debra Churchill If you're coming to this book hoping (or fearing) that it's going to be all about "pwning teh SJWs" then don't. This is not what that book is. Rosalind Coward's "Sacred Cows" is a bit of an oldie (having been written in 1999 to address the oncoming 2000s) but it is still extremely relevant today, perhaps moreso now than when it was published. Even though much of it focuses on the timeline of the feminist movement in Britain, the parallels between it and the current movement in the United States are striking and it cannot be discounted as an equally useful guide for what's going on over here. The obscurity of this book is unfortunate, because rather than what critics of the feminist movement have been widely known for ' which is just bluntly declaring "PSYCHO!" at the obvious warning signs and occasionally attempting to deliver understandable but rather unsophisticated responses to those signs ' Coward instead does what desperately needed to be done in order to properly address this growing issue: meticulously explaining why feminism is behaving this way, what specific negative effects this is having, and what both feminists and its critics need to understand if they have any interest in actually fixing anything. Coward approaches this touchy subject not with the haphazard mockery common of critics of the feminist movement (or "anti-SJWs" as they often identify themselves), but moreso with the grace of holding an intervention: coming from a place of love, displaying an intimate understanding of what the focus has been through, communicating that she wants them to ultimately succeed, but standing firm that things have to change and she isn't going to be enabling their self-destructive behavior any longer. The book opens first and foremost with an indepth description of the history of feminism and why it was (and in some ways still is) necessary, highlighting not only why material structures of discrimination needed addressing (legal pay discrimination, unfair tax codes, unfair marriage/divorce laws, etc.) but how underlying cultural attitudes (the traditional patriarchal family structure and how it infantalized and brutalized women under the guise of honoring and protecting them) lead to these structures emerging in the first place, and how it was necessary to tear down those as well if any meaningful progress was going to be made. This is a smart move on her part because not only does Coward confirm that she is not at all interested in what many of her fellow critics suggest (a return to more traditional structures and understanding of the sexes) but also puts a heavy hindrance on those feminists who are eager to dismiss any criticism lobbed at them by asserting that the critic just doesn't understand what feminism is about (as I have often had the displeasure of dealing with.) This foundation is an important one because from here Coward carefully connects the dots from this history into the current state of feminism and why it carries some of the weaknesses that it does. Namely: A) Largescale societal change is a slow and subtle process that is often difficult for individuals to recognize, especially when they're in the minute thick of pushing that change wherein they are often met with hostile resistance and rarely with immediate benefit. Like chipping away at a rock or some other tedious task, it's easy to feel like you've made virtually no progress when in the moment of that task, and so feminists are often burdened with the understandable frustrating sense that nothing around them has really changed. B) As new individuals grow up in a post-feminism society they often take feminism's accomplishments for granted, not understanding the magnitude of the newer, more egalitarian cultural assumptions and laws that they're accustomed to or just how difficult it was for previous generations to secure them. Without the full context of what many original feminists had to deal with, they tend to be unintentionally dismissive of the movement, mischaracterizing historical feminist reactions as overblown or their continued loyalty to the movement that gave them so much as unnecessary. (I can personally attest to this one with an anecdote from high school where a girl in my history class ' a scholarship-hunting athlete ' called the suffragettes "whiny," apparently unconcerned that without those whiny suffragettes she wouldn't even have been allowed to continue schooling at her age let alone make college career plans or compete in sports.) C) Because of the aforementioned frustrations ' the fatigue from longtime resistance and anger at the ingratitude of some members of the youth ' as well as continuous attempts by various branches of conservatism to revialize many of the legal and cultural structures that once oppressed women, feminism has become suspicious of and embittered towards criticism. In this way, Coward puts the critic in the shoes of feminists in a way that many feminists will probably appreciate, explaining how it's easy to understand/empathize with why feminism has the uncompromising attitude that it currently does, but still going on to establish that there is a strong difference between understanding and excusing/condoning. Feminism may have legitimate reasons for why it feels the way it does, but that does not erase the negative impact this attitude is having both on itself and the world it's trying to affect. Because despite what individuals may feel, the world has significantly changed, and it's not hard to prove this when zooming out into a broader perspective. Feminism is losing wider support because it's working with outdated models that no longer accurately explain how society or individuals treat the sexes, and its overt hostility to criticism or anything less than unconditional support ' though sympathetic when viewed in context ' is preventing it from practicing the self-reflection, re-evaluation, and self-update that it will need if it wants to avoid devolving into a problematic and divisive ideology doing more harm than good. To give a full summary of the arguments Coward makes in favor of this would be difficult as despite the relatively short length of the book, her points are numerous and her presentation persuasive in such a specified fashion that it's hard to find better ways of putting it outside of just clipping in quote after quote here. A few of the general highlights likely to interest readers, among others, are: ' The way our society is radically different from the one described by original feminist ideology, how it got that way (both in thanks to feminism as well as factors outside of feminism), and why continuing to operate with an outdated look on society is causing feminism to essentially shoot blindly. ' The way extremist conservatism created a liberal paranoia that allowed the unproductive absurdism we see in feminism today to emerge (including its infamous transformation of oppression into a form of unearned in-group privilege) unopposed. ' The way the aforementioned absurdism created a conservative paranoia which drove those who felt like feminism and liberalism weren't addressing their needs (at best, and actively preventing them from addressing those needs at worst) into the arms of traditionalism and all of its own absurdist elements. ' The way activists often misapply knowledge about large group dynamics to interactions between individuals and the way this creates unnecessary hostility and prejudice. ' The way extraneous circumstances in addition to activism lead to many of feminism's biggest triumphs, as opposed to activism solely. ' The way feminism's success, while enormously beneficial and necessary in many ways, has also had unintended negative side effects for many men that need acknowledgment and addressing, and that doing so does not in any way hurt or negate the good feminism has done. I would recommend this book to any feminist or feminist ally who would like to understand the qualms people have the movement in a way that does not insult them or downplay the issues they're concerned with. That's not to say there aren't hard things to swallow in the book, but it's obvious that Coward is someone with extensive experience in the world of feminism whom feminist readers can relate to and trust to know what she's talking about. Critics of the feminist movement will also benefit from the way it puts some of their nebulous frustrations into a clearer picture and gives an idea of where they come from, and what to actually do about it. Once again, despite its age, this book is still incredibly relevant today and we could benefit from dusting it off and discussing it in light of recent politics.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-11-20 00:00:00 Alex Petrov Sacred Cows looks critically at feminism's achievements and asks that most un-PC of questions - do we need feminism any more or is it damaging relations between men and women, demonizing men and denying them the right to understanding and equality in a society that is harsher for them than ever before? The whole concept behind this book could be the subject of a satire as well as a serious essay, and it piqued my interest many years ago when I first bought this book. I wanted to re-read it for ages, and this time I felt that I got more out of it. The book starts with a "potted history" of the feminist movement, with several references to Margaret Thatcher and the feminist Germaine Greer, examining traditional expectations of how both men and women should behave. It also touched on subjects including sexual harassment and rape, that feel more relevant with some of today's current news stories, particularly those involving Harvey Weinstein. The book was written in 1999, so reading it nowadadys, some of the comments feel a bit dated - there are a lot of references to 1990s pop culture, and comments about what Tony Blair's New Labour hoped to achieve, set in the future tense; I'd be interested to see what changes would be made in an updated version of the book. The concept sounds provocative, but Rosalind Coward's arguments seemed reasonably balanced, and very comprehensive, with the conclusion that feminism is definitely okay, but neither men or women should feel like they are "losing out" as a result. While this is a slightly dated book, it nevertheless proved fascinating reading and I found it hard to put this down.