Best of
Feminism

2014

Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It


Kate Harding - 2014
    Congressman Todd Akin’s “legitimate” gaffe. The alleged rape crew of Steubenville, Ohio. Sexual violence has been so prominent in recent years that the feminist term “rape culture” has finally entered the mainstream. But what, exactly, is it? And how do we change it? In Asking for It, Kate Harding answers those questions in the same blunt, bullshit-free voice that’s made her a powerhouse feminist blogger. Combining in-depth research with practical knowledge, Asking for It makes the case that twenty-first century America—where it’s estimated that out of every 100 rapes only 5 result in felony convictions—supports rapists more effectively than victims. Harding offers ideas and suggestions for addressing how we as a culture can take rape much more seriously without compromising the rights of the accused.

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More


Janet Mock - 2014
    Those 2300 words were life-altering for the People.com editor, turning her into an influential and outspoken public figure and a desperately needed voice for an often voiceless community. In these pages, she offers a bold and inspiring perspective on being young, multicultural, economically challenged, and transgender in America. Welcomed into the world as her parents’ firstborn son, Mock decided early on that she would be her own person—no matter what. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving yet ill-equipped family that lacked the money, education, and resources necessary to help her thrive. Mock navigated her way through her teen years without parental guidance, but luckily, with the support of a few close friends and mentors, she emerged much stronger, ready to take on—and maybe even change—the world. This powerful memoir follows Mock’s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself. Despite the hurdles, Mock received a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned a master’s degree, enjoyed the success of an enviable career, and told no one about her past. She remained deeply guarded until she fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams. Love fortified her with the strength to finally tell her story, enabling her to embody the undeniable power of testimony and become a fierce advocate for a marginalized and misunderstood community. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realness provides a whole new outlook on what it means to be a woman today, and shows as never before how to be authentic, unapologetic, and wholly yourself.

Everyday Sexism


Laura Bates - 2014
    Astounded by the response she received and the wide range of stories that came pouring in from all over the world, she quickly realised that the situation was far worse than she'd initially thought. Enough was enough. From being leered at and wolf-whistled on the street, to aggravation in the work place and serious sexual assault, it was clear that sexism had been normalised. Bates decided it was time for change. This bold, jaunty and ultimately intelligent book is the first to give a collective online voice to the protest against sexism. This game changing book is a juggernaut of stories, often shocking, sometimes amusing and always poignant - it is a must read for every inquisitive, no-nonsense modern woman.

Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights


Katha Pollitt - 2014
    Wade ruling, "abortion" is still a word that is said with outright hostility by many, despite the fact that one in three American women will have terminated at least one pregnancy by menopause. Even those who support a woman's right to an abortion often qualify their support by saying abortion is a "bad thing," an "agonizing decision," making the medical procedure so remote and radioactive that it takes it out of the world of the everyday, turning an act that is normal and necessary into something shameful and secretive. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the rights upheld by the Supreme Court are being systematically eroded by state laws designed to end abortion outright.In this urgent, controversial book, Katha Pollitt reframes abortion as a common part of a woman's reproductive life, one that should be accepted as a moral right with positive social implications. In Pro, Pollitt takes on the personhood argument, reaffirms the priority of a woman's life and health, and discusses why terminating a pregnancy can be a force for good for women, families, and society. It is time, Pollitt argues, that we reclaim the lives and the rights of women and mothers.

Bone


Yrsa Daley-Ward - 2014
     Bone. Visceral. Close to. Stark. The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection bone are exactly that: reflections on a particular life honed to their essence--so clear and pared-down, they become universal. From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's bone resonate to the core of what it means to be human. "You will come away bruised. You will come away bruisedbut this will give you poetry."

The Wife Drought


Annabel Crabb - 2014
    But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women.Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.But why is the work-and-family debate always about women? Why don’t men get the same flexibility that women do? In our fixation on the barriers that face women on the way into the workplace, do we forget about the barriers that – for men – still block the exits?The Wife Drought is about women, men, family and work. Written in Annabel Crabb’s inimitable style, it’s full of candid and funny stories from the author's work in and around politics and the media, historical nuggets about the role of ‘The Wife’ in Australia, and intriguing research about the attitudes that pulse beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.Crabb's call is for a ceasefire in the gender wars. Rather than a shout of rage, The Wife Drought is the thoughtful, engaging catalyst for a conversation that's long overdue.

Bitch Planet #1


Kelly Sue DeConnick - 2014
    Are you non-compliant?Do you fit into your box?Are you too fat, too thin, too loud, too shy, too religious, too secular, too prudish, too sexual, too queer, too black, too brown, too whatever-it-is-they'll-judge-you-for-today?You may just belong on...Bitch Planet"A comic book love letter to non-compliant women."-VOX

Black Girl Dangerous on Race, Queerness, Class and Gender


Mia McKenzie - 2014
    Her nuanced analysis of intersecting systems of oppression goes deep to reveal the complicated truths of a multiply-marginalized experience. McKenzie tackles the hardest questions of our time with clarity and courage, in language that is accessible to non-academics and academics alike. She is both fearless and vulnerable, demanding and accountable. Hers is a voice like no other. "One of the most provocative and insightful writers of our generation." -Aura Bogado, Colorlines "A fierce voice among a generation of queer and trans folk of color." -Janet Mock, New York Times Bestselling Author of "Redefining Realness" "Tough-love activism at its best-straightforward, challenging, whip-smart, and uncompromising." -Andi Zeisler, Bitch Magazine

The Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan


Jenny Nordberg - 2014
    A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom. The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults. At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.

Lean in for Graduates: With New Chapters by Experts, Including Find Your First Job, Negotiate Your Salary, and Own Who You Are


Sheryl Sandberg - 2014
    In 2013, Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In became a massive cultural phenomenon and its title became an instant catchphrase for empowering women. The book soared to the top of best-seller lists both nationally and internationally, igniting global conversations about women and ambition. Sandberg packed theaters, dominated op-ed pages, appeared on every major television show and on the cover of TIME magazine, and sparked ferocious debate about women and leadership. Now, this enhanced edition provides the entire text of the original book updated with more recent statistics and features a passionate letter from Sandberg encouraging graduates to find and commit to work they love. A combination of inspiration and practical advice, this new edition will speak directly to graduates and, like the original, will change lives. New Material for the Graduate Edition:- A Letter to Graduates from Sheryl Sandberg- Find Your First Job, by Mindy Levy (Levy has more than twenty years of experience in all phases of organizational management and holds degrees from Wharton and Penn) - Negotiate Your Salary, by Kim Keating (Keating is the founder and managing director of Keating Advisors)- Man Up: Millennial Men and Equality, by Kunal Modi (Modi is a consultant at McKinsey & Company and a recent graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School)- Leaning In Together, by Rachel Thomas (Thomas is the president of Lean In)- Own Who You Are, by Mellody Hobson (Hobson is the president of Ariel Investments)- Listen to Your Inner Voice, by Rachel Simmons (Simmons is cofounder of the Girls Leadership Institute)- 12 Lean In stories (500-word essays), by readers around the world who have been inspired by Sandberg

Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact


Neylan McBaine - 2014
    Looking at current administrative and cultural practices, the author explains why some women struggle with the gendered divisions of labor. She then examines ample real-life examples that are currently happening in local settings around the country that expand and reimagine gendered practices. Readers will understand how to evaluate possible pain points in current practices and propose solutions that continue to uphold all mandated church policies. Readers will be equipped with the tools they need to have respectful, empathetic and productive conversations about gendered practices in Church administration and culture.

An Untamed State


Roxane Gay - 2014
    The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a wilful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.

A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir


Daisy Hernández - 2014
    Her mother warns her about envidia and men who seduce you with pastries, while one tía bemoans that her niece is turning out to be “una india” instead of an American. Another auntie instructs that when two people are close, they are bound to become like uña y mugre, fingernails and dirt, and that no, Daisy’s father is not godless. He’s simply praying to a candy dish that can be traced back to Africa.  These lessons—rooted in women’s experiences of migration, colonization, y cariño—define in evocative detail what it means to grow up female in an immigrant home. In one story, Daisy sets out to defy the dictates of race and class that preoccupy her mother and tías, but dating women and transmen, and coming to identify as bisexual, leads her to unexpected questions. In another piece, NAFTA shuts local factories in her hometown on the outskirts of New York City, and she begins translating unemployment forms for her parents, moving between English and Spanish, as well as private and collective fears. In prose that is both memoir and commentary, Daisy reflects on reporting for the New York Times as the paper is rocked by the biggest plagiarism scandal in its history and plunged into debates about the role of race in the newsroom. A heartfelt exploration of family, identity, and language, A Cup of Water Under My Bed is ultimately a daughter’s story of finding herself and her community, and of creating a new, queer life.

Oh Joy Sex Toy, Vol. 1


Erika Moen - 2014
    Volume One collects the first year's worth of content from the weekly comic Oh Joy Sex Toy. Combining helpful facts with terrible puns and the occasional Star Trek joke, Volume One is an indispensable resource for fans of sex, fans of comics, and nerds of all stripes. In addition to Erika’s work, Volume One also features the comics of nearly a dozen other cartoonists including Lucy Knisley, R. Stevens, and Amanda Lafrenais. Plus there’s a bunch of bonus stuff too, if you’ve already been keeping up-to-date with OJST’s weekly update online. Erika shares some brand new comics made exclusively for Volume one, as well as shares some behind-the-scenes information on OJST.If you hate funhappy depictions of sex and gut-punchingly bad jokes, DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. You will 100% hate it.

Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space


Lynn Sherr - 2014
    A member of the first astronaut class to include women, she broke through a quarter-century of white male fighter jocks when NASA chose her for the seventh shuttle mission, cracking the celestial ceiling and inspiring several generations of women.After a second flight, Ride served on the panels investigating the Challenger explosion and the Columbia disintegration that killed all aboard. In both instances she faulted NASA's rush to meet mission deadlines and its organizational failures. She cofounded a company promoting science and education for children, especially girls.Sherr also writes about Ride's scrupulously guarded personal life-she kept her sexual orientation private-with exclusive access to Ride's partner, her former husband, her family, and countless friends and colleagues. Sherr draws from Ride's diaries, files, and letters. This is a rich biography of a fascinating woman whose life intersected with revolutionary social and scientific changes in America. Sherr's revealing portrait is warm and admiring but unsparing. It makes this extraordinarily talented and bold woman, an inspiration to millions, come alive.

The Husband Stitch


Carmen Maria Machado - 2014
    

The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World


Adrienne Mayor - 2014
    Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons—Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

Fat Girl Finishing School


Rachel Wiley - 2014
    “Fat girls of the world will find their voice through Wiley’s brilliance, and we all owe her for that.”-Jes Baker, TheMilitantBaker.com, Blogger, Baker, Advocate

Milk and Honey


Rupi Kaur - 2014
    About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. It is split into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. 'milk and honey' takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Eleanor Marx: A Life


Rachel Holmes - 2014
    Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society.Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was.

Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human


Alexander G. Weheliye - 2014
    Alexander G. Weheliye develops a theory of "racializing assemblages," taking race as a set of sociopolitical processes that discipline humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans. This disciplining, while not biological per se, frequently depends on anchoring political hierarchies in human flesh. The work of the black feminist scholars Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter is vital to Weheliye's argument. Particularly significant are their contributions to the intellectual project of black studies vis-à-vis racialization and the category of the human in western modernity. Wynter and Spillers configure black studies as an endeavor to disrupt the governing conception of humanity as synonymous with white, western Man. Weheliye posits black feminist theories of modern humanity as useful correctives to the "bare life and biopolitics discourse" exemplified by the works of Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, which, Weheliye contends, vastly underestimate the conceptual and political significance of race in constructions of the human. Habeas Viscus reveals the pressing need to make the insights of black studies and black feminism foundational to the study of modern humanity.

The Courage to Be Me: A Story of Courage, Self-Compassion and Hope After Sexual Abuse


Nina Burrowes - 2014
    Find out how coming together and learning about recovery helped them on their journey. Using a combination of illustration, storytelling and research data The courage to be me has been written to send a message of hope to the millions of people who are living with the impact of rape or sexual abuse.

The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness


Rebecca Solnit - 2014
    As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit’s concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit’s collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Like the women who've pioneered before her—Sontag, Didion, and Dillard—her essays are a beacon.

Everything Your Coach Never Told You Because You're a Girl: (and other truths about winning!)


Dan Blank - 2014
    It’s an inspiring and straightforward look at the qualities that define the most competitive females, and what separates the ones who get it from the ones who don't.

Parenting Beyond Pink & Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes


Christia Spears Brown - 2014
    Without meaning to, we constantly color-code children, segregating them by gender based on their presumed interests. Our social dependence on these norms has far-reaching effects, such as leading girls to dislike math or increasing aggression in boys. In this practical guide, developmental psychologist (and mother of two) Christia Spears Brown uses science-based research to show how over-dependence on gender can limit kids, making it harder for them to develop into unique individuals. With a humorous, fresh, and accessible perspective, Parenting Beyond Pink & Blue addresses all the issues that contemporary parents should consider—from gender-segregated birthday parties and schools to sports, sexualization, and emotional intelligence. This guide empowers parents to help kids break out of pink and blue boxes to become their authentic selves.

A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power


Jimmy Carter - 2014
    His urgent report is current. It covers the plight of women and girls–strangled at birth, forced to suffer servitude, child marriage, genital cutting, deprived of equal opportunity in wealthier nations and "owned" by men in others. And the most vulnerable, along with their children, are trapped in war and violence.He addresses the adverse impact of distorted religious texts on women, by Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. Special verses are often omitted or quoted out of context to exalt the status of men and exclude women. In a remark that is certain to get attention, Carter points out that women are treated more equally in some countries that are atheistic or where governments are strictly separated from religion.Carter describes his personal observations of the conditions and hardships of women around the world. He describes a trip in Africa with Bill Gates, Sr. and his wife, where they are appalled by visits to enormous brothels. He tells how he joined Nelson Mandela to plead for an end to South Africa's practice of outlawing treatments to protect babies from AIDS-infected mothers.Throughout, Carter reports on observations of women activists and workers of The Carter Center. This is an informed and passionate charge about human rights abuses against half the world's population. It comes from one of the world's most renowned human rights advocates.

Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength


Chanequa Walker-Barnes - 2014
    At least that's what everyone says and how they are constantly depicted. But what, exactly, does this strength entail? And what price do Black women pay for it? In this book, the author, a psychologist and pastoral theologian, examines the burdensome yoke that the ideology of the Strong Black Woman places upon African American women. She demonstrates how the three core features of the ideology--emotional strength, caregiving, and independence--constrain the lives of African American women and predispose them to physical and emotional health problems, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and anxiety. She traces the historical, social, and theological influences that resulted in the evolution and maintenance of the Strong Black Woman, including the Christian church, R & B and hip-hop artists, and popular television and film. Drawing upon womanist pastoral theology and twelve-step philosophy, she calls upon pastoral caregivers to aid in the healing of African American women's identities and crafts a twelve-step program for Strong Black Women in recovery. "Too Heavy a Yoke is a much-needed, thoughtful, and nuanced examination of the 'Strong Black Woman' stereotype--a significant new contribution to multiple disciplines of pastoral care and counseling, psychology, sociology, African American and womanist-feminist studies, and constructive theology. Walker Barnes draws on both womanist and Trinitarian theologies to examine how the church can play a part in healing and liberating black women from 'the burden of strength.' Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this book belongs on the shelf of every minister and pastoral counselor, and indeed every woman who knows in her soul the burdens of being a 'StrongBlackWoman.'" --Pamela Cooper-White, Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling, Columbia Theological Seminary Well done! This book is a much-needed gift to the field of pastoral theology. It is a well nuanced and explicated research volume and a practical guide for caregivers, pastors, those who love women struggling with the ideology of the 'StrongBlackWoman,' as well as those in recovery." --Marsha Foster Boyd, President Emerita, Ecumenical Theological Seminary "A prayerful, prophetic, poetic, pastoral, powerful womanist analysis of the StrongBlackWoman, from an interdisciplinary, experiential perspective names the context, content, complexities, and pathology of many Black women's embodied archetypal, systemic oppression and posits hopeful options for a paradigmatic shift of recovery. Woven with artistry and passion, Too Heavy a Yoke is a must-read for clergy, therapists, caregivers, and any persons or groups committed to the liberation of black women, ultimately the liberation of all society." --Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Professor of Religion, Shaw University Divinity School Chanequa Walker-Barnes is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia. She is a licensed psychologist and a candidate for ordination in the United Methodist Church. Her articles have been published in a wide range of scholarly journals, including Journal of Pastoral Theology, Child Development, and American Journal of Community Psychology.

Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution


Laurie Penny - 2014
    Unspeakable Things is a book that is eye-opening not only in the critique it provides, but also in the revolutionary alternatives it imagines.

Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis


Katherine McKittrick - 2014
    Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis is a critical genealogy of Wynter’s work, highlighting her insights on how race, location, and time together inform what it means to be human. The contributors explore Wynter’s stunning reconceptualization of the human in relation to concepts of blackness, modernity, urban space, the Caribbean, science studies, migratory politics, and the interconnectedness of creative and theoretical resistances. The collection includes an extensive conversation between Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick that delineates Wynter’s engagement with writers such as Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. DuBois, and Aimé Césaire, among others; the interview also reveals the ever-extending range and power of Wynter’s intellectual project,  and elucidates her attempts to rehistoricize humanness as praxis.

We Have Always Fought


Kameron Hurley - 2014
    “We Have Always Fought” is the title of the first blog post to be nominated for a Hugo Award, and is included in this collection.

The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader


Ida B. Wells-Barnett - 2014
    Wells off a train for refusing to give up her seat. The experience shaped Wells’s career, and—when hate crimes touched her life personally—she mounted what was to become her life’s work: an anti-lynching crusade that captured international attention.This volume covers the entire scope of Wells’s remarkable career, collecting her early writings, articles exposing the horrors of lynching, essays from her travels abroad, and her later journalism. The Light of Truth is both an invaluable resource for study and a testament to Wells’s long career as a civil rights activist.

The Essential Ellen Willis


Ellen Willis - 2014
    In the years that followed, Willis’s daring insights went beyond popular music, taking on such issues as pornography, religion, feminism, war, and drugs.The Essential Ellen Willis gathers writings that span forty years and are both deeply engaged with the times in which they were first published and yet remain fresh and relevant amid today’s seemingly intractable political and cultural battles. Whether addressing the women’s movement, sex and abortion, race and class, or war and terrorism, Willis brought to each a distinctive attitude—passionate yet ironic, clear-sighted yet hopeful.Offering a compelling and cohesive narrative of Willis’s liberationist “transcendence politics,” the essays—among them previously unpublished and uncollected pieces—are organized by decade from the 1960s to the 2000s, with each section introduced by young writers who share Willis’s intellectual bravery, curiosity, and lucidity: Irin Carmon, Spencer Ackerman, Cord Jefferson, Ann Friedman, and Sara Marcus. The Essential Ellen Willis concludes with excerpts from Willis’s unfinished book about politics and the cultural unconscious, introduced by her longtime partner, Stanley Aronowitz. An invaluable reckoning of American society since the 1960s, this volume is a testament to an iconoclastic and fiercely original voice.

Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion


Tansy E. Hoskins - 2014
    Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, the book explores consumerism, class and advertising to reveal the interests which benefit from exploitation.

Willful Subjects


Sara Ahmed - 2014
    One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will and willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination.

Yoni Shakti: A Woman's Guide to Power and Freedom Through Yoga and Tantra


Uma Dinsmore-Tuli - 2014
    Yoni Shakti combines real life stories with radical feminism, poetic meditations with guided yoga practices, and historical explorations with philosophical debates. Literally translated as "Source Power," Yoni Shakti unearths the freedom and power that women can experience through a feminine approach to yoga that nourishes their health, self-esteem, sexuality and spirituality.

The Kicks Collection: Saving the Team; Sabotage Season; Win or Lose


Alex Morgan - 2014
    But the players are fun and friendly, and with the help of a little guidance and leadership, Devin and her teammates just might have a shot at success.This boxed set of the Kicks series includes Saving the Team, Sabotage Season, and Win or Lose.

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution


Jonathan Eig - 2014
    Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid.Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.

Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions


Lisa Wade - 2014
    Probing questions, the same ones that students often bring to the course, frame readable chapters that are packed with the most up-to-date scholarship available—in language students will understand. The authors use memorable examples mined from pop culture, history, psychology, biology, and everyday life to truly engage students in the study of gender and spark interest in sociological perspectives.

If Nuns Ruled the World: Ten Sisters on a Mission


Jo Piazza - 2014
    During a time when American nuns are under attack from the very institution to which they pledge, these sisters offer inspiring, provocative counterstories that are sure to spark debate.Overthrowing our popular perception of nuns as killjoy schoolmarms content to live in the annals of nostalgia, Piazza defines them instead as the most vigorous catalysts of change in an otherwise constricting patriarchy.

Selected Poems


Kamala Suraiyya Das - 2014
    An illuminating introduction to her poetry by Devindra Kohli traces the sources of its ferment, and showcases its originality of style and its acts of resistance.

The Oxen at the Intersection: A Collision (or, Bill and Lou Must Die: A Real-Life Murder Mystery from the Green Mountains of Vermont)


pattrice jones - 2014
    What transpired after this simple offer was a catastrophe of miscommunication, misdirection, and misinterpretations, as the college dug in its heels, activists piled on, and social media erupted.Part true-crime mystery, part on-the-ground reportage, and part sociocultural critique, The Oxen at the Intersection is a brilliant unearthing of the assumptions, preconceptions, and biases that led all concerned with the lives and deaths of these two animals to fail to achieve their ends. How and why the threads of this story unspooled, as jones reveals, raises profound questions—most particularly about how ideas rooted in history, race, gender, region, and speciesism intersect and complicate strategy and activism, and their desired outcomes. In the end, notes jones, we must always ask, Where’s the body?

Hot, Wet, and Shaking: How I Learned to Talk about Sex


Kaleigh Trace - 2014
    It's a book about having sex by yourself, with one person, or with twenty people if everyone is down. It's about saying words like cunt, fuck, and come. But it's also about the things we don't talk about--the mystery, the expectations, and the bullshit that can go along with sex.Kaleigh Trace--disabled, queer, sex educator--chronicles her journey from ignorance to bliss as she shamelessly discusses her sexual exploits, bodily negotiations and attempts at adulthood, sparing none of the details and assuming you are not polite company.

Baby Zero


Emer Martin - 2014
    Each successive Taliban-like regime turns the year back to zero, as if to begin history again. Unaccustomed to such restrictions, she finds herself imprisoned and pregnant. To survive, she tells the story of her family to her unborn child. What did happen to the two beautiful and vulnerable refugee kids placed in the care of Uncle Mo, in his Malibu ocean house?

Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality


Kim Cosier - 2014
    The thought-provoking articles and curriculum in this life-changing book will be invaluable to everyone who wants to address these issues in their classroom, school, home, and community.

Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies, and Medics


Kathryn J. Atwood - 2014
    Readers meet 17-year-old Frenchwoman Emilienne Moreau, who assisted the Allies as a guide and set up a first-aid post in her home to attend to the wounded; Russian peasant Maria Bochkareva, who joined the Imperial Russian Army by securing the personal permission of Tsar Nicholas II, was twice wounded in battle and decorated for bravery, and created and led the all-women combat unit the “Women’s Battalion of Death” on the Eastern Front; and American journalist Madeleine Zabriskie Doty, who risked her life to travel twice to Germany during the war in order to report back the truth, whatever the cost. These and other suspense-filled stories of brave girls and women are told through the use of engaging narrative, dialogue, direct quotes, and document and diary excerpts to lend authenticity and immediacy. Introductory material opens each section to provide solid historical context, and each profile includes informative sidebars and “Learn More” lists of relevant books and websites, making this a fabulous resource for students, teachers, parents, libraries, and homeschoolers.

A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography


Mireille Miller-Young - 2014
    It is based on Mireille Miller-Young's extensive archival research and her interviews with dozens of women who have worked in the adult entertainment industry since the 1980s. The women share their thoughts about desire and eroticism, black women's sexuality and representation, and ambition and the need to make ends meet. Miller-Young documents their interventions into the complicated history of black women's sexuality, looking at individual choices, however small—a costume, a gesture, an improvised line—as small acts of resistance, of what she calls "illicit eroticism." Building on the work of other black feminist theorists, and contributing to the field of sex work studies, she seeks to expand discussion of black women's sexuality to include their eroticism and desires, as well as their participation and representation in the adult entertainment industry. Miller-Young wants the voices of black women sex workers heard, and the decisions they make, albeit often within material and industrial constraints, recognized as their own.

The Ring of Fire Anthology


E.T. Russian - 2014
    Ring of Fire is honest, engaging, and ahead of its time.Through black and white ink drawings, comics, linoleum block print portraits, essays, interviews and erotica, this collection explores the intersections of art, bodies, healthcare, ability, gender, race, community, class, healing and the politics of work.Alternately emotional and erotic, funny and political, Ring of Fire tells the author's personal story, and captures the work and words of various artists and leaders from disability culture and history. A young activist steeped in the cultures of queer and punk, Russian embraced a cultural identity of disability while writing Ring of Fire. Years later, Russian examines what it means to work in healthcare in the United States.

Untold Stories: Life, Love, and Reproduction


Kate Cockrill - 2014
    The authors share their most vulnerable experiences with emotional honesty, self-awareness and sometimes humor. The multiple perspectives in this book challenges stereotypes about people whose reproductive decisions and experiences fall outside of the dominant story of pregnancy and parentingIntimate and accessible, Untold Stories: Life, Love, and Reproduction invites you to join in a circle of sharing that is safe and affirming. By reading and discussing these stories about reproductive experiences, you will be part of ending shame and isolation while helping to expand a more inclusive and compassionate understanding of family…and don’t be surprised if you find that you, too, finally have the courage to share your own untold story.

Her Next Chapter: How Mother-Daughter Book Clubs Can Help Girls Navigate Malicious Media, Risky Relationships, Girl Gossip, and So Much More


Lori Day - 2014
    But these clubs can do more than that, suggests educational psychologist and parenting coach Lori Day. They can create a safe and empowering haven where girls can freely discuss and navigate issues surrounding girlhood. In Her Next Chapter, Day draws from experiences in her own club and her expertise as an educator to offer a timely and inspiring take on mother-daughter book clubs. She provides overviews of eight of the biggest challenges facing girls today, such as negative body image, bullying, gender stereotypes, media sexualization, unhealthy relationships, and more, while weaving in carefully chosen book, movie, and media recommendations; thoughtful discussion questions; and group activities and outings that extend and enrich conversations and make clubs fun. Her Next Chapter outlines how mothers can use the magic of books to build girls’ confidence and sense of possibility as leaders, allies, and agents of change. A list of further resources and reflections and observations from Day’s now-adult daughter, Charlotte, round out this indispensible resource for anyone who cares about, teaches, or works with girls.

The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898


Lisa Tetrault - 2014
    The standard account credits founders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott with defining and then leading the campaign for women's suffrage. In her provocative new history, Lisa Tetrault demonstrates that Stanton, Anthony, and their peers gradually created and popularized this origins story during the second half of the nineteenth century in response to internal movement dynamics as well as the racial politics of memory after the Civil War. The founding mythology that coalesced in their speeches and writings--most notably Stanton and Anthony's "History of Woman Suffrage"--provided younger activists with the vital resource of a usable past for the ongoing struggle, and it helped consolidate Stanton and Anthony's leadership against challenges from the grassroots and rival suffragists. As Tetrault shows, while this mythology has narrowed our understanding of the early efforts to champion women's rights, the myth of Seneca Falls itself became an influential factor in the suffrage movement. And along the way, its authors amassed the first archive of feminism and literally invented the modern discipline of women's history.

Alice Paul: Claiming Power


J.D. Zahniser - 2014
    Raised by Quaker parents in Moorestown, New Jersey, she would become a passionate and outspoken leader of the woman suffrage movement. In 1913, she reinvigorated the American campaign for a constitutional suffrage amendment and, in the next seven years, dominated that campaign and drove it to victory with bold, controversial action-wedding courage with resourcefulness and self-mastery.This riveting account of Paul's early years and suffrage activism offers fresh insight into her private persona and public image, examining for the first time the sources of Paul's ambition and the growth of her political consciousness. Though many historians regard her Quaker upbringing as thegreatest influence in her commitment to women's rights, J. D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry explore the ways in which her political zeal developed out of years of education, as well as from her early involvement with British suffragists Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. These two women helped to honePaul's instincts and skills, which equipped her for later dealings with two important political adversaries, Woodrow Wilson and rival suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt.Using oral history interviews and the rich trove of Paul's correspondence, Zahniser and Fry substantially revise our understanding Paul's role in the suffrage movement. This compelling biography analyzes Paul's charisma and leadership qualities, sheds new light on her life and work, and is essentialreading for anyone interested in the woman suffrage movement, particularly as the American centennial of the women's vote approaches.

The Social Basis of the Woman Question


Aleksandra Kollontai - 2014
    Here we present one of her earliest works (currently out of print), complete with the introduction written by her in 1908.The sub-chapters of the main essay - originally published as a pamphlet in 1909 - are:-The Struggle for Economic Independence-Marriage and the Problem of the Family-The Struggle for Political RightsAnd as always with e-books from the Anarcho-communist Institute; this work was edited for minor grammatical errors presented in the original translation. First electronic edition

The 8th House


Feng Sun Chen - 2014
    These voices occupy the astrological 8th house, a house known for its healers and perversions, ruled by Pluto, where sex, death, and rebirth intersect and consume one another. Continuing to slice away at the distinctions between self and other, animal and human, male and female, the speaker of these poems "exposes by being exposed."

Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith


Alethia Jones - 2014
    Her four decades of grassroots activism forged collaborations that introduced the idea that oppression must be fought on a variety of fronts simultaneously, including gender, race, class, and sexuality. By combining hard-to-find historical documents with new unpublished interviews with fellow activists, this book uncovers the deep roots of today's identity politics and intersectionality and serves as an essential primer for practicing solidarity and resistance.

Poems and Fragments


Elise Cowen - 2014
    Women's Studies. LGBT Studies. Edited and with an introduction and supplementary material by Tony Trigilio. Designed for both general readers and scholars, this book brings together for the first time all of the poems and fragments in Elise Cowen's surviving notebook, recovering the work of a postwar female poet whose reputation had been submerged for more than a half-century. Remembered dismissively as the woman who dated Allen Ginsberg for a brief time in the early 1950s, she wrote hundreds of poems, many in a lyric mode that recalls Sappho and many in a visionary mode that resembles Emily Dickinson. After her suicide in 1962, nearly all of her work was destroyed. One notebook survived, rescued by a close friend, and this notebook is the basis for ELISE COWEN: POEMS AND FRAGMENTS. "Elise Cowen, an artist long obscured by legend, myth, archival uncertainty and copyright dispute, relegated to rumor and sensation, has been recuperated by Tony Trigilio's groundbreaking collection of her poetry. Trigilio collects the primary material from the poet's recovered notebook and provides, in his indispensable Notes to the Poems, an impressive critical literary historical analysis. A modern Eumenide and proto-second-wave feminist of uncompromising voice, Cowen's searing verse poignantly claims female subjectivity. Thanks to Trigilio's inspired, erudite and meticulous recovery work, this collection will make a profound difference in the way Beat movement writing is reckoned and experienced."--Ronna C. Johnson

Love, Money, and HIV: Becoming a Modern African Woman in the Age of AIDS


Sanyu Mojola - 2014
    Mojola examines how young African women, who suffer disproportionate rates of HIV infection compared to young African men, navigate their relationships, schooling, employment, and finances in the context of economic inequality and a devastating HIV epidemic. Writing from a unique outsider-insider perspective, Mojola argues that the entanglement of love, money, and the transformation of girls into consuming women lies at the heart of women's coming-of-age and health crises. At once engaging and compassionate, this text is an incisive analysis of gender, sexuality, and health in Africa.

Seven New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook boxed set


T.J. DemaChris Abani - 2014
    Publication is made possible through Slapering Hol Press, in association with APBF and the literary journal Prairie Schooner, with support from The Poetry Foundation.The chapbook contains:• Mandible by TJ Dema• The Cartographer of Water by Clifton Gachagua• Carnaval by Tsitsi Jaji• The Second Republic by Nick Makoha• Ordinary Heaven by Ladan Osman• Our Men Do Not Belong To Us by Wasan Shire• Otherwise Everything Goes On by Len Verwey

Teach a Woman to Fish: Overcoming Poverty Around the Globe


Ritu Sharma - 2014
    Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." But teach a woman to fish, and everyone eats for a lifetime. In this firsthand account, Ritu Sharma shares how women can, and are, overcoming the forces that keep them in poverty. She chronicles her travels through four countries—Sri Lanka, Burkina Faso, Honduras, and Nicaragua—and the intimate interactions she had with the women living there. Sharma's story not only details her experiences, but also looks at the broader systems that prevent women from leaving poverty behind. From lack of property rights and government corruption to the scarcity of basic infrastructure like roads, these women are restricted by the external limitations placed upon them. Sharma draws from her experiences to frame a larger exploration of how Americans can be instrumental in helping women break free of restrictive systems and begin to facilitate women's upward mobility. Written in her engaging personal voice, Teach a Woman to Fish provides an insider's look at women in poverty, how Washington works, and how change really happens—from the United States to the rest of the world.

The Stolen Light of Women: A Quest for Spiritual Truth Beyond Religion


C.C. Campbell - 2014
    Campbell examines the historical and spiritual truths behind the most controversial texts of the Bible. By investigating the Biblical texts that have been used to oppress women and men, C.C. Campbell reveals the origins of our current religious climate of ignorance and intolerance.Why do extremists always focus on women?Why does the Bible seem to take such a hard stance against homosexuality?Are Christians truly following the teachings of Christ?Why is Christianity obsessed with Satan, but Judaism is not?These are the kinds of questions that you will find answers to within this book. By revealing the true identity of Satan, the existence of God's Wife, and the hidden spirituality of human sexuality, she has sought to help women and men alike rediscover their souls. Written for the religious and the spiritual alike, this book can answer some of your deepest questions. Packed with useful information and spiritual insight, Campbell has written a timeless guide for anyone seeking to discover the truths behind their beliefs.

New Organism: Essais


Andrea Rexilius - 2014
    Literary Nonfiction. I am a girl, and what does it feel like to be a girl. It feels like a hand over your mouth. A hand over your mouth and on your thighs. Some say it is the sound of a rabbit before it is caught. It is the sound of the sky before it comes crashing down.

Because I Am a Girl: I Can Change the World


Rosemary McCarney - 2014
    Because I am a Girl is a global initiative from Plan International to end gender inequality, promote girls' rights and lift millions of girls out of poverty. Plan helped the UN declare October 11th the -International Day of the Girl- to recognize and advocate for girls' rights globally. This book illustrates the Because I am Girl call to change by telling stories of girls around the world. They begin by telling us -Because I am a girl, I eat if there is food left over when everyone is done- and -I am the Poorest of the Poor.- But it ends with the inspiring section -Because I am a Girl, I can change the world.- Each part begins with one real girl's story, illustrated with Plan's amazing photographs.

Her Name Is Kaur: Sikh American Women Write about Love, Courage, and Faith


Meeta Kaur - 2014
    Until now.In Her Name is Kaur, Sikh American women explore the concept of love from many angles, offering rich, critical insight into the lives of Sikh women in America. Through a chorus of multi-generational voices—in essays ranging in tone from dramatic to humorous—they share stories of growing into and experiencing self-love, spiritual love, love within family, romantic love, the love they nurture for humanity and the world through their professional work, and more. Eye-opening and multifaceted, this collection of stories encourages its readers to take the feeling of love and turn it into action—practical action that will make the world a better place to be for everyone, regardless of their faith or creed.

The M Word: Conversations about Motherhood


Kerry ClareNicole Dixon - 2014
    Whether they are stepmothers or mothers who have experienced abortion, infertility, adoption, or struggles with having more or less children, all these writers are women who have faced down motherhood on the other side of the white picket fence. It is time that motherhood opened its gates to include everyone, not just the picture postcard stories. The M Word is a fabulous collection by a talented author and blogger, which is bound to attract readers from all walks of motherhood. The anthology that presents women's lives as they are really lived, probing the intractable connections between motherhood and womanhood with all necessary complexity and contradiction laid out in a glorious tangle. It is a book whose contents themselves are in disagreement, essays rubbing up against one another in uncomfortable ways. There is no synthesis -- is motherhood an expansive enterprise, or is motherhood a trap? -- except perhaps a general sense that being a mother and not being a mother are each as terrible and wonderful as being alive is. What these essays do show, however, is that in this age of supposed reproductive choice, so many women still don't have the luxury of choosing their mothering story or how it will play out. And those who do exercise choice often still end up contending with judgement or backlash. The essays also make clear that women are not as divided between the mothers and the childless as we might be led to believe. Women's lives are so much more complicated than that. There is mutual ground between the woman who decided to have no more children and the woman who decided to have none at all. A woman with no children also endures a similar kind of scrutiny as the woman who's had many, both of them operating outside of societal norms. A woman who has miscarried longs to be acknowledged for her own beyond-visible mothering experiences, for the baby she held inside her. And while infertility is its own kind of journey, that journey is also just one of so many whose origins lie with the desire for a child.

Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision


Frances Spalding - 2014
    The third child of Leslie and Julia Stephen, and sister of Vanessa (later Bell), Woolf was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group: that union of friends who revolutionised British culture with their innovative approach to art, design and society in the early years of the twentieth century.Portraiture figured greatly in Woolf’s life. Portraits by G.F. Watts and photographs made by her aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron, furnished rooms in which she lived. Written portraits were produced in the family home; her father, Leslie Stephen, published short biographies of Samuel Johnson, Pope, Swift, George Eliot and Thomas Hobbes, while editing the first twenty-six volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography. Throughout her life, Woolf, a sharp observer and a brilliant wordsmith, composed memorable vignettes-in-words of people she knew or encountered, and was herself portrayed by artists and photographers on many occasions.This beautifully illustrated book, like the exhibition it accompanies, catches Woolf’s appearance and that of the world around her, but it also points to her pursuit of the hidden, the fleeting and obscure, in her desire to understand better the place and moment in time and in history in which she lived. In charting the emotional milestones in Woolf’s life – her love affairs, wartime experiences and the depression that resulted in her suicide in 1941 – author Frances Spalding acknowledges the seen and unseen aspects of her subject; the outer and the inner, the recognisable and the concealed.

LIFE Gone with the Wind: The Great American Movie 75 Years Later


LIFE - 2014
    This richly illustrated book is a must-have collector's item for old fans and new.At age 75, Gone with the Wind endures magnificently and is often considered one of the best films of all time. The travails of getting the movie made in the 1930s were chronicled in the pages of LIFE (1,400 actresses interviewed before Vivien Leigh chosen; Selznick waited two years for Clark Gable to sign on to the project), as was the frenzy of its premiere. All of this coverage is revisited in this lavish coffee-table edition, which also includes behind-the-scenes photography from the set, stunning pictures of the famed burning of Atlanta scene, as well as all of the fascinating, intimate photography from the making of the movie. Furthermore, LIFE partnered with renowned southern authors to bring readers insight into the influence of the book and film on American culture and presents a side-by-side chronicle of what Gone with the Wind claims, and what really happened during the Civil War. This book is as informative and intriguing as it is beautifully illustrated.<!--EndFragment-->

Voices From History: East London Suffragettes


Sarah Jackson - 2014
    Sylvia’s mother and sister, Emmeline and Christabel, had encouraged her to give up her work with the poor women of East London - but Sylvia refused.Besides campaigning for women to have the right to vote, from their headquarters in Bow the ELFS called for equal pay, a living wage, and better housing. They opened a nursery, a 'cost price' restaurant, and a cooperative toy factory. When the First World War brought mass unemployment and starvation, their relief efforts saved countless lives.The pioneering work of the East London Federation of the Suffragettes (and “our Sylvia”) deserves to be remembered. This book, filled with astonishing first-hand accounts, commemorates an extraordinary time in East London’s history and a courageous and creative group of forgotten East End rebels.

The Bible For Black Girls: a collection of texts posts from tumblr user pinkvelourtracksuit


Chelsea N. Claverie - 2014
    A collection of text posts from tumblr user pinkvelourtracksuit.

None Shall Sleep


Otep Shamaya - 2014
    The highly anticipated release of the secret diaries of the nefarious vigilante Hydra Moonlight. In the killer's own words we learn of her birth, her upbringing, & the alarming events that brought her to power in this insane, feral world.

Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation


David A. Grimes - 2014
    Wade was enacted in 1973. The legalization of abortion resulted in prompt and dramatic health improvements for women, children, and families, but an entire generation of Americans has grown up unaware of the harsh and unnecessary tragedies of back-alley abortions. Current attacks on safe, legal abortion at the state level are designed to return women to those desperate, dangerous days before abortion was legalized. One of the world's leading abortion scholars, Dr. Grimes chronicles the public-health story of legal abortion in America and the harms women face at the mercy of state laws restricting access to care. He shares the stories of his patients seeking abortion and how they and their families benefited.

20 Beautiful Women


Saba Tekle - 2014
    Amazon.com best-selling author Saba Tekle has compiled these stories from women who have experienced devastating circumstances, loss, and disappointments. The one thing that connects them all: they had the strength to heal, find their purpose through their pain and now passionately help others in the areas self-love, weight loss, career, spirituality, relationships, finances, and forgiveness. Many of these stories, told here for the very first time, will empower you to make real changes in your life, heal down to your soul, find your passion, and live your divine purpose, now. After a soul-stirring foreword by national best-selling author, Debrena Jackson Gandy, you will find stories you can connect with, learn from, cry with, and grow from. It's a must read for anyone desiring connection with other real women and true transformation. This compelling book may change your life forever!

Here We Stand: Women Changing the World


Helena Earnshaw - 2014
    A fascinating and unique anthology about contemporary women campaigners and how they were changed by the process of changing the world.

Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman


Jean Shinoda Bolen - 2014
    Even fictional character Bridget Jones was reading that book.Now comes Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman, a groundbreaking new book that explores the archetype of the activist. Indomitable means untamed, unsubdued. It is the one-in-herself quality in girls and women who will not be victims, no matter what. To bring the Artemis archetype to life, Dr. Bolen delves deeply into the myth of Atalanta, the famous hunter and runner in ancient Greek mythology, a mortal woman who is identified with Artemis the Greek Goddess of the Hunt and Moon. Atalanta began life abandoned and left to die because she was born a girl. She faced the Calydon Boar and drew first blood; she was the runner who would demand to be beaten in a footrace by the man who could claim her as his bride. Atalanta exemplifies the indomitable spirit in competent, courageous girls and in the women they become. This is grit, the passion and persistence to go the distance, to survive, and to succeed.Dr. Bolen paints a vivid picture of Artemis women in current media, including Princess Merida from the animated film Brave and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. In all these examples and those of real-life women who grow into their Artemis spirit, she provides the means through which readers can navigate their own personal exploration to become their authentic selves.

The Business Birthing Handbook


Jennifer Armbrust - 2014
    Understanding that process (and where you are in it) will help you work with more ease and less frustration. It will also save you money and time, in the long run. The Business Birthing Handbook outlines the Trimester Theory, Sister’s proprietary business development framework. Using the phases of prenatal development as a guide, the Handbook walks you through the four gestational stages. For each stage, there is a description of your tasks at-hand, a series of questions for journaling and contemplation, as well as tips and suggestions for supporting yourself (and your body) as you do the deep and challenging work of bringing your business to life.

Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life


Sally G. McMillen - 2014
    Anthony, and Lucretia Mott. Historically, the inscription beneath the marble statue notes, these three stand unique and peerless. Infact, the statue has a glaring omission: Lucy Stone. A pivotal leader in the fight for both abolition and gender equality, her achievements marked the beginning of the women's rights movement and helped to lay the groundwork for the eventual winning of women's suffrage. Yet, today most Americanshave never heard of Lucy Stone.Sally McMillen sets out to address this significant historical oversight in this engaging biography. Exploring her extraordinary life and the role she played in crafting a more just society, McMillen restores Lucy Stone to her rightful place at the center of the nineteenth-century women's rightsmovement. Raised in a middle-class Massachusetts farm family, Stone became convinced at an early age that education was key to women's independence and selfhood, and went on to attend the Oberlin Collegiate Institute. When she graduated in 1847 as one of the first women in the US to earn a collegedegree, she was drawn into the public sector as an activist and quickly became one of the most famous orators of her day. Lecturing on anti-slavery and women's rights, she was instrumental in organizing and speaking at several annual national woman's rights conventions throughout the 1850s. Sheplayed a critical role in the organization and leadership of the American Equal Rights Association during the Civil War, and, in 1869, cofounded the American Woman Suffrage Association, one of two national women's rights organizations that fought for women's right to vote. Encompassing Stone'smarriage to Henry Blackwell and the birth of their daughter Alice, as well as her significant friendships with Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and others, McMillen's biography paints a complete picture of Stone's influential and eminently important life and work.Self-effacing until the end of her life, Stone did not relish the limelight the way Elizabeth Cady Stanton did, nor did she gain the many followers whom Susan B. Anthony attracted through her extensive travels and years of dedicated work. Yet her contributions to the woman's rights movement were noless significant or revolutionary than those of her more widely lauded peers. In this accessible, readable, and historically-grounded work, Lucy Stone is finally given the standing she deserves.

The Female Assumption: A Mother's Story, Freeing Women From the View that Motherhood is a Mandate


Melanie Holmes - 2014
    50 years after the 2nd Women's Movement, it's time to free females from the assumption that motherhood is the ultimate expression of womanhood. It is a meaningful path--and there are many more! Women have been redefining the female experience for centuries, but their voices keep vanishing. Following in the footsteps of Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Tillie Olsen, Madelyn Cain and other mothers who have written about the realities of women's lives and motherhood, Holmes endeavors to shine a 21st century bright light on this topic and encourages everyone to dispense with outdated scripts that refer to motherhood as a foregone conclusion rather than 1 path among many that can lead to a meaningful happy life. No one should tell another person that the love in their life is greater or less than someone else's. Join Holmes in her quest to change the way we view women's lives.

Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture


Per Faxneld - 2014
    The notion of woman as the Devil's accomplice is prominent throughout the history of Christianity. During the nineteenth century, rebellious females performed counter-readings of this misogynist tradition. Hereby, Lucifer was reconceptualised as a feminist liberator of womankind, and Eve became a heroine. In these reimaginings, Satan is an ally in the struggle against a patriarchy supported by God the Father and his male priests.This study delineates how such Satanic feminism is expressed in a number of nineteenth-century esoteric works, literary texts, autobiographies, pamphlets and journals, newspaper articles, paintings, sculptures and even artefacts of consumer culture such as jewellery.We encounter figures like the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, author and diplomat wife Aino Kallas, gender-bending Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, actress Sarah Bernhardt, anti-clerical witch enthusiast Matilda Joslyn Gage, decadent marchioness Luisa Casati, and the Luciferian lesbian poetess Renée Vivien.The analysis focuses on interfaces between esotericism, literature, art and the political realm. New light is thus shed on neglected aspects of the intellectual history of feminism, Satanism and revisionary mythmaking.

How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having "Female Brains")


Valerie Alexander - 2014
     How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace (Despite Having “Female Brains”), takes a frank and honest approach to examining what women are doing to hold ourselves back, and how we can compete on a playing field designed by men to reward their achievements. Using relevant studies in evolutionary biology, anthropology and sociology, as well as examples from her life as a securities lawyer, investment banker, Internet executive and screenwriter, Valerie Alexander explains the evolution of the “gendered” brain and the corporate structure, showcasing and dissecting areas where women’s natural tendencies prevent us from succeeding in male-designed workplaces. How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace tackles a difficult subject with candor, humor and confidence -- and two of those traits are actually welcome in the workplace!

The Forgotten Feminine


Denise Jordan - 2014
    She clearly and passionately presents the fuller understanding that God is both masculine and feminine and that we are created fully in His image as male and female. She shows us that the war being waged by the enemy against femininity is for a very specific reason, that is, to destroy the image of God. She teaches us about God’s mothering heart to comfort and nurture His children. This book is timely and relevant, as God is beginning to pour His love into the foundations of the Church as it was in the beginning. It is written in a fusion of theology, story and reflection to bring a deeper revelation of God to the human heart.

What Is Not Missing Is Light


Bridgette Bates - 2014
    Part prose, part layering of the chiseled line, we are introduced to a gaze that includes all aspects of a relic's presence, and all aspects of the act of being present: "I will repair our damage," writes Bates, "by describing a heap of stones,/ the start of a wall." Bates' commitment to what (art, recollection, theft, and lie) survives is captured in a series of surprising and spirited vignettes."Bridgette Bates is a muse's dream-votary, the best possible and readiest visitor to the whole idea of the museum. Why? Because her visits there produce not the tedious descriptiveness of the camera, but spells of observation, recollection, invention, and wish. These poems unfold organically, gracefully—as though the thinking a sculpture might engender were itself a natural artform. But let it not be thought that Bates isn't attentive to the physical particulars of her museums—she most certainly is—it's just that she sees them not through a camera's but a human lens, drawing distinctions and forging associations that no machine can. WHAT IS NOT MISSING IS LIGHT restores our faith in the human by reminding us of our capacity to do just that."—Timothy Donnelly"In Bridgette Bates' vitally intelligent debut, prose poems center around figures of women rendered in statuary, while the poems' speaker lives as flesh made word, an entwining of a curious mind and its body. These gorgeous histories of objects, nations, myths, and one watchful woman make clear that the museum and its inhabitants are not immune to the dangers of war, love, and other disasters. Reading this magnificent book feels like lifting weights and praying at the same time, in the company of a good but not overly kind trainer. I come away feeling at once stronger and unnerved."—Heather Christle"Because inspiration is derived from inspirer, which means 'to breathe' I find myself inspired, or better, aware that I am alive, as I read Bridgette Bates' book full of statues. Searching for a muse that withholds, as thought withholds moving to the next thought, the poems in this beautiful debut collection exhibit what I can only call a moral intelligence as they straddle the ever fluid movement of perception in time: 'I am awaking inside the awakening inside the awoken.' With the help of her muse, and through the devotedness of her need, Bates achieves her waking: 'Here we welcome the heretofore and the hereafter into the now.' WHAT IS NOT MISSING IS LIGHT is a fiercely accomplished first book."—Claudia KeelanBridgette Bates' poems have appeared in the Boston Review, Fence, jubilat, VERSE, and elsewhere. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and a "Discovery" Prize, she is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Originally from Nashville, she lives in Los Angeles where she is the writer-in-residence at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and a frequent features contributor to the Kirkus Reviews.

Voices of the Sacred Feminine: Conversations to Re-Shape Our World


Karen Tate - 2014
    How do we counter beliefs that there is no option but the authoritarian father? How does society go about making a course correction? How do ideas that permeate every level of society from womb to tomb, boardroom to bedroom, voting booth to the workplace shift into a more fair, equal, and just world of partnership, sharing, caring and peace? Those are exactly the questions discussed on the long-running radio show, /Voices of the Sacred Feminine/, hosted by Rev. Dr. Karen Tate in her show dedicated to the Sacred Feminine as deity, archetype and ideal. Never before has an internet radio show cast such a wide net to include so many voices whose ideals are in alignment with sacred feminine liberation thealogy. If we can imagine it, vision it, and restore ancient truths swept beneath the rug and kicked to the curb by patriarchy, then we can manifest it! Hear solutions from these visionaries, scholars, wayshowers, foremothers and activists - women and men - dedicated to reshaping our world... Noam Chomsky, Laura Flanders, Gloria Feldt, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Phyllis Chesler, Barbara G. Walker, Riane Eisler, Matthew Fox, Roy Bourgeois, Starhawk, Charles Eisenstein, Genevieve Vaughan, Carl Ruck, David Hillman, Judy Grahn, Nicki Scully, Normandi Ellis, Selena Fox, Patrick McCollum, Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Cristina Biaggi, Charlene Spretnak, Shirley Ranck, Elizabeth Fisher, Amy Peck, Art Noble, Jeanette Blonigen Clancy, Joan Norton, Andrew Gurevich, Gus diZerega, Lydia Ruyle, Vajra Ma, Ava, Donna Henes, Candace Kant, Sandra Spencer, Layne Redmond, Isadora Leidenfrost, ALisa Starkweather, Joan Marler, Tim Ward, James Rietveld and Karen Tate."

Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories about Beauty, Bravery & Loving Your Body


Melanie C. Klein - 2014
    Sara Gottfried--discuss how yoga and body image intersect. Through inspiring personal stories you'll discover how yoga not only affects your physical health, but also how you feel about your body.Offering unique perspectives on yoga and how it has shaped their lives, the writers provide tips for using yoga to find self-empowerment and improved body image. This anthology unites a diverse collection of voices that address topics across the spectrum of human experience, from culture and media to gender and sexuality. Yoga and Body Image will help you learn to connect with and love your beautiful body.2015 IPPY Award Bonze Medal Winner in Inspirational/Spiritual2014 ForeWord IndieFab Bronze Winner for Body, Mind & Spirit

The Conscious Activist: Where Activism Meets Mysticism


James O'Dea - 2014
    Throughout the book, O'Dea poses that an integration of the two has the power to permanently transform the social order and to wake up humanity from its course of rapid self-destruction. Divided into two parts, Part I offers parallel narratives of author James O’Dea’s training and spiritual development as both a mystic and an activist. The mystic, he explains, must move past petty ego concerns in order to experience oneness with each other and our divine source. The activist, on the other hand, explores the role of passion and conscience in activating social change. In Part II, O’Dea pursues this fascinating concept of a meeting ground between the two worlds, where spirituality and action unite to spark an accelerated transition towards our greater goal: a more evolved civilization. He asks us all to become conscious activists – to learn, collectively, how to move beyond our rigid conformity to beliefs of the past and its archaic structures of power and control.

House of Deer


Sasha Steensen - 2014
    With language as lush as Hopkins' and then as small and weird as Niedecker's, Steensen tells a story, or alights in and out of a story, all her own. It's an American story, too, with all the bloodiness and experiment that such a thing requires."—Maggie NelsonSasha Steensen's third volume is a lyric inquiry into a personal history of the back-to-the-land idealism of the 1970s, with its promises and failings, naturalism gone awry, and journeys into the worlds of addiction, recovery, and, ultimately, family. "If family is a body, learn its anatomy," Steensen writes early in the book, immediately before upending all our expectations and giving us new thoughts to think.The family bought a rural plot & planted a garden.The family formed thoughts.Within these thoughts, eggs hatched, animals were born, little wars formed. Each thought said unspeakable things to the other thoughts.As you know, unspoken thoughts rot.Sasha Steensen teaches poetry workshops, literature courses, letterpress printing, and bookmaking at Colorado State University. She is the author of The Method (2008) and A Magic Book (Alberta Prize, 2004), and chapbooks including A History of the Human Family (2010), The Future of an Illusion (2008), and correspondence (with Gordon Hadfield, 2004). Steensen is also co-editor of Bonfire Press, and she serves as one of the poetry editors for Colorado Review.

The Thief's Tale chapter 1


Maia Kobabe - 2014
    Whether he's ready or not, he's leaving home for the first time to begin an apprenticeship in Port Glas. He pauses outside the bakery where he will begin his new life to take a deep breath... when a ragged girl leaps through the door, knocks him over and steals his bag. Owen gives chase, but will he ever catch her in the tangled streets of the city? This is the first chapter of a now-discontinued webcomic series.

Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India


Amrita Pande - 2014
    In the first detailed ethnography of India's surrogacy industry, Amrita Pande visits clinics and hostels and speaks with surrogates and their families, clients, doctors, brokers, and hostel matrons in order to shed light on this burgeoning business and the experiences of the laborers within it. From recruitment to training to delivery, Pande's research focuses on how reproduction meets production in surrogacy and how this reflects characteristics of India's larger labor system.Pande's interviews prove surrogates are more than victims of disciplinary power, and she examines the strategies they deploy to retain control over their bodies and reproductive futures. While some women are coerced into the business by their families, others negotiate with clients and their clinics to gain access to technologies and networks otherwise closed to them. As surrogates, the women Pande meets get to know and make the most of advanced medical discoveries. They traverse borders and straddle relationships that test the boundaries of race, class, religion, and nationality. Those who focus on the inherent inequalities of India's surrogacy industry believe the practice should be either banned or strictly regulated. Pande instead advocates for a better understanding of this complex labor market, envisioning an international model of fair-trade surrogacy founded on openness and transparency in all business, medical, and emotional exchanges.

Behind the Yellow Wallpaper: New Tales of Madness


Rose YndigoyenLaura Hartenberger - 2014
    Over a century later women are still battling gender bias in the treatment of mental illness. Here are 15 stories of very different women who have in common the fact that they are fighting for control of their worlds and of their minds. Traci Orsi's "Waiting for Jordan" finds Julia hallucinating at home when her husband is shipped off to Iraq. Leah Chaffin's "Last Caress" delves into the sad and savage story of a rare female serial killer while in "An Obedient Girl" Amy Bridges relates her experience as an average girl who has a singular experience with a lobotomized woman. Age, religion, motherhood, sex and work life are all explored in these gripping stories of women who remain Behind the Yellow Wallpaper, battling valiantly and sometimes viciously to break free by any means necessary. Each story is paired with original photographic art by Loreal Prystaj. Prystaj’s dark, gripping art evoke the same despair, fear, anger, hopelessness, heartache, and fight for survival that make up these extraordinary New Tales of Madness.

Truth, Lies, and the Single Woman: Dispelling 10 Common Myths


Allison K. Flexer - 2014
    Truth, Lies, and the Single Woman: Dispelling 10 Common Myths combats the lies that destroy the joy and confidence of unmarried women.In her groundbreaking book, Allison Flexer dispels the following myths surrounding single women:1. Because no one has chosen me, I'm not valuable.2. God has forgotten about me .3. Sex outside of marriage is okay.4. My past can't be forgiven.5. I'm not beautiful.6. Getting married will solve all my problems.7. There is something wrong with me.8. The church values married people more than me.9. It's too late for God's plan to work so I should settle for less.10. My life is on hold until I find a spouse.Single women will gain practical steps to accept and believe God's truth and why Flexer says the question, Who am I? is best answered by asking, Who is God?

Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a Post-Feminist Era


Kristin J. Anderson - 2014
    Some commentators describe the state of feminism as post-feminist, alongside equally questionable claims of Barack Obama's election as signaling a post-racial America. Modern Misogynyexamines contemporary anti-feminism in a post-feminist era. It considers the widespread notion that the feminist movement has ended, in large part because the work of feminism has been completed. In fact, the argument goes, women have been so successful in achieving equality, it is now men whocurrently are at risk of becoming irrelevant and unnecessary. These sentiments make up modern anti-feminism. Modern Misogyny argues that equality has not been fully achieved and that anti-feminism is now packaged in a more palatable, but stealthy form. This book addresses the nature, function, andimplications of modern anti-feminism in the United States.Modern Misogyny explores the landscape of popular culture and politics, emphasizing relatively recent moves away from feminist activism to individualism and consumerism where self-empowerment represents women's progress. It also explores the retreat to traditional gender roles after September 11, 2001. It interrogates the assumption that feminism is unnecessary, that women have achieved equality, and therefore those women who do insist on being feminists want to get ahead of men. Finally, it takes a fresh look at the positive role that feminism plays in today's post-feminist era, and howfeminism does and might function in women's lives.Post-feminist discourse encourages young women to believe that they were born into a free society, so if they experience discrimination, it is an individual, isolated problem that may even be their own fault. Modern Misogyny examines that rendering of feminism as irrelevant and as the silencing andmarginalizing of feminists. Anderson calls for a revived feminism that is vigilant in combatting modern forms of sexism.

Equal Means Equal: Why the Time for an Equal Rights Amendment Is Now


Jessica Neuwirth - 2014
    Over the course of the next ten years, an initial wave of enthusiasm led to ratification of the ERA by thirty-five states, just three short of the thirty-eight states needed by the 1982 deadline. Many of the arguments against the ERA that historically stood in the way of ratification have gone the way of bouffant hairdos and Bobby Riggs, and a new Coalition for the ERA was recently set up to bring the experience and wisdom of old-guard activists together with the energy and social media skills of a new-guard generation of women.In a series of short, accessible chapters looking at several key areas of sex discrimination recognized by the Supreme Court, Equal Means Equal tells the story of the legal cases that inform the need for an ERA, along with contemporary cases in which women’s rights are compromised without the protection of an ERA. Covering topics ranging from pay equity and pregnancy discrimination to violence against women, Equal Means Equal makes abundantly clear that an ERA will improve the lives of real women living in America.

The Grey Muse: Love Notes from the Old Woman


Heather Mattern - 2014
    Mattern's writing brings light into the dark places with raw authentic love notes on faith, life, love, and other mysteries. Her debut poetry collection The Grey Muse introduces readers to a new perspective on celebrating everything, even the messy bits. It is her heart exposed, an honest and sacred collection.

Love and War: How Militarism Shapes Sexuality and Romance


Tom Digby - 2014
    This so-called "battle of the sexes" is intensified by the use of misogyny to encourage men and boys to conform to the demands of masculinity. These are among Tom Digby's fascinating insights shared in Love and War, which describes the making and manipulation of gender in militaristic societies and the sweeping consequences for men and women in their personal, romantic, sexual, and professional lives.Drawing on cross-cultural comparisons and examples from popular media, including sports culture, the rise of "gonzo" and "bangbus" pornography, and "internet trolls," Digby describes how the hatred of women and the suppression of empathy are used to define masculinity, thereby undermining relations between women and men--sometimes even to the extent of violence. Employing diverse philosophical methodologies, he identifies the cultural elements that contribute to heterosexual antagonism, such as an enduring faith in male force to solve problems, the glorification of violent men who suppress caring emotions, the devaluation of men's physical and emotional lives, an imaginary gender binary, male privilege premised on the subordination of women, and the use of misogyny to encourage masculine behavior. Digby tracks the "collateral damage" of this disabling misogyny in the lives of both men and women, but ends on a hopeful note. He ultimately finds the link between war and gender to be dissolving in many societies: war is becoming slowly de-gendered, and gender is becoming slowly de-militarized.

Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women's Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System


Nahla Abdo - 2014
    However, there are few books on Arab political prisoners, fewer still on the Palestinians who have been detained in their thousands for their political activism and resistance.Nahla Abdo's Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on stories of the women themselves, as well as her own experiences as a former political prisoner, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse their anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their appalling treatment as political detainees.Making crucial comparisons with the experiences of female political detainees in other conflicts, and emphasising the vital role Palestinian political culture and memorialisation of the 'Nakba' have had on their resilience and resistance, Captive Revolution is a rich and revealing addition to our knowledge of this little-studied phenomenon.

Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India


Pratiksha Baxi - 2014
    The social stigma associated with rape is the biggest hurdle that a rape survivor faces right from the time of reporting the matter to the police to the stage of trial. This book, one of the first ethnographic studiesof rape trials in India, focuses on the everyday socio-legal processes that underlie the making of rape trials. It describes how state law is transformed in its localization, often to the point of bearing little resemblance to written law.The work centres around four extended case studies in a trial court in Ahmedabad. These case studies show how the effects of power and knowledge congeal to disqualify women's (and children's) testimonies at different sites of state law such as the police station, forensic science laboratory, or thehospital and the court.This book describes multiple ways in which public secrecy is subjected to specific revelations in rape trials that do not bring justice to a rape survivor but address and reinforce deeply entrenched phallocentric notions of justice.Bringing sociological insights to the contested and anguishing issue of rape trials, this book is an essential read for all those committed to a just and safe society for women in India.

The Bonobo Way


Susan Block - 2014
    The Bonobo Way is a very unusual book: whimsical yet serious, easy to read yet thoroughly researched, challenging yet ultimately deeply comforting. Dr. Susan Block is living proof that bonobos aren’t just sexy and fun—some of them are damned smart, too."--Christopher Ryan, Ph.D., best-selling author of Sex at DawnIn her unique and game-changing book, internationally acclaimed and controversial sex educator Dr. Susan Block offers a brilliant new view of human sexuality, war, peace and community, inspired by a role model who isn’t even human: our closest genetic cousin, the bonobo. With a provocative, humorous and engaging style that makes science fun and ecology erotic, The Bonobo Way boldly asks: What do these great apes know about sex, war and the rest of life that we don’t? Here are some things we know about bonobos: They have a lot of sex. They never kill each other. They empower the females. They stay younger longer. They live in peace through pleasure. And we thought humans were the smartest apes! For decades, scientists and philosophers have used the “killer ape” paradigm to explain why humans murder, make war, bomb and behead each other, and supposedly always will. Sure, our common chimp cousins kill, but do they tell the whole story? Luckily, they don’t. The Bonobo Way shows the other side of the primate story, presenting the bonobos as an exciting new great ape paradigm for humanity that could change the world… or at least improve your love life. From the lush depths of the Congo rainforest to the satin sheets of your own bedroom, Dr. Block takes you on an unprecedented and fascinating journey into an erotic, peaceful paradise on Earth. Powerful yet playful, heartfelt but science-based, she weaves stories, studies, theories and fantasies into possibilities and a practical path of action, presenting a very different kind of “12-Step Program” to release your “inner bonobo,” help save the real bonobos from extinction and energize all facets of your life. Whether you don’t know bonobos from bananas, or you think you know all about these amazing creatures, The Bonobo Way will show you the way to a happier, healthier, sexier life, and a more peaceful, sustainable culture. Take it for a test drive! You'll be glad you did, and so will everyone you know.www.TheBonoboWay.com

Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Health Care for Native American Women


Barbara Gurr - 2014
    Gurr paints an insightful portrait of the Indian Health Service (IHS)—the federal agency tasked with providing culturally appropriate, adequate healthcare to Native Americans—shedding much-needed light on Native American women’s efforts to obtain prenatal care, access to contraception, abortion services, and access to care after sexual assault. Reproductive Justice goes beyond this local story to look more broadly at how race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, and nation inform the ways in which the government understands reproductive healthcare and organizes the delivery of this care. It reveals why the basic experience of reproductive healthcare for most Americans is so different—and better—than for Native American women in general, and women in reservation communities particularly. Finally, Gurr outlines the strengths that these communities can bring to the creation of their own reproductive justice, and considers the role of IHS in fostering these strengths as it moves forward in partnership with Native nations. Reproductive Justice offers a respectful and informed analysis of the stories Native American women have to tell about their bodies, their lives, and their communities.

The Cha Cha Files:A Chapina Poética


Maya Chinchilla - 2014
    Part memory, part imaginary, The Cha Cha Files honors Central American feministas, Long Beach roqueras, families divided by war, lovers separated by borders, and celebrates the pleasure and heartbreak of femmes, machas, y mariconadas. These poems, stories, and snapshots traverse California coastlines and southern borderlines, cut across tense multi-culti high-school hallways, sing Solidarity Movement songs, mosh through tribal slam pits, and find home in the vibrant Bay Area where radical activists and lovers alike come of age. Chinchilla’s hopeful and uniquely Chapina voice emerges as a significant contribution to U.S. Latina/o literary works.

Reporting Under Fire: 16 Daring Women War Correspondents and Photojournalists


Kerrie Logan Hollihan - 2014
    When she boarded the “small tatty plane” she was handed “a rough brown blanket and a brown paper bag for throwing up.” The flight took 16 hours, stopping to  refuel twice, and was forced to dip and bob through Japanese occupied airspace.Reporting Under Fire tells readers about women who, like Gellhorn, risked their lives to bring back scoops from the front lines. Margaret Bourke-White rode with Patton’s Third Army and brought back the first horrific photos of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Marguerite Higgins typed stories while riding in the front seat of an American jeep that was fleeing the North Korean Army. And during the Guatemalan civil war, Georgie Anne Geyer had to evade an assassin sent by the rightwing Mano Blanco, seeking revenge for her reports of their activities.These 16 remarkable profiles illuminate not only the inherent danger in these reporters’ jobs, but also their struggle to have these jobs at all. Without exception, these war correspondents share a singular ambition: to answer an inner call driving them to witness war firsthand, and to share what they learn via words or images.

Celluloid Ceiling: Women Film Directors Breaking Through


Gabrielle KellyCoonoor Kripalani - 2014
    This collection of essays, by an impressive array of international writers, examines the progress of women film directors around the world, and arrives at some surprising conclusions.From the blockbusters of the Hollywood studios to emerging voices from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Laos, we learn of women making films in traditionally male-dominated areas such as action, fantasy and horror. With wide-ranging contributions from countries with mature and nascent film industries, Celluloid Ceiling demonstrates that economic and technological changes are creating new opportunities for women film directors everywhere.With contributions from Africa, Latin America, Europe, USA, Asia and India, chapters on new voices in Japanese and Middle Eastern cinema, the book also covers women directors working in TV, and reminds us of the first woman director, Frenchwoman, Alice Guy Blaché. Exploring the rise of the independent film sector including the horror aficionados the Soska Sisters, Celluloid Ceiling asks whether economic and technological change will work to the advantage of women in film.Celluloid Ceiling follows in the footsteps of Supernova’s Women Make Noise, which lifted the lid on the widespread and destructive misogyny that still plagues the rock music world.

You Are Not Alone: Stories from the front lines of womanhood


Leah Carey - 2014
    With the Twitter conversation as inspiration, 10 women came together to share their stories with each other and the world. They dug within themselves to find wisdom...but they also revealed their own inner conflict about their experiences and their views of the world. They were willing to be vulnerable and admit not only how they have been hurt, but also how they have hurt others. Through telling our stories - and hearing the stories of others - we learn that there is much more that unites us than divides us. That is the purpose of this book. To remind you: You are not alone. I hope that you will hear those words repeating in your head as you read this book and realize how true they are: YOU ARE NOT ALONE

PERIYAR FEMINISM


K. Veeramani - 2014
    He was a school dropout but acquired efficiency and unalloyed wisdom. With his extra cute and rationalist ideology he started ridiculing the ghosts, goblins and gods. He found out that humans alone are not only responsible in creating their our gods but also enslaving themselves to their creation. The result: superstitions, rituals, religious killings, social injustices, women enslavement, untouchability, deprivation of education and unemployment to the lower rungs, heinous hegemony of the Brahmins in the Hindu caste system. As god is the root cause for these evils ‘rout god’ was his war cry. He felt that unless and until god is abandoned, liberty, equality and fraternity will have no meaning at all.