"Childism : confronting prejudice against children" by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl : [book review]

Abstract

What is childism? Childism is, generally speaking, conceptualized within this book as set of prejudices against children, serving to legitimize and rationalize child’s mistreatment or neglect by the abuser. As the author herself predicted, the new concept arouses some confusion. Is that another popular term in the age of victimage, when social groups redefine themselves in terms of their sufferings? Is that an attempt to give name to the previously unspoken suffering? Is the child, to paraphrase Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak, the ultimate subaltern, subaltern who cannot speak? The book is, prior to everything, book about violence against children, i.e., different forms of violence, visibility of violence, representations, contestations, interpretations of violence; about rationalization and legitimization of violence. The author starts the book with the touching chapter, personal history of Anna, who suffered different forms of abuse—physical, sexual, emotional, etc.[...]