Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture.The works of Rainey, Smith, and Holiday have been largely misunderstood by critics. Overlooked, Davis shows, has been the way their candor and bravado laid the groundwork for an aesthetic that allowed for the celebration of social, moral, and sexual values outside the constraints imposed by middle-class respectability. Through meticulous transcriptions of all the extant lyrics of Rainey and Smith--published here in their entirety for the first time--Davis demonstrates how the roots of the blues extend beyond a musical tradition to serve as a conciousness-raising vehicle for American social memory. A stunning, indispensable contribution to American history, as boldly insightful as the women Davis praises, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism is a triumph.

    Davis has written on liberation theory and democratic praxis. Challenging the foundations of mainstream discourse, her analyses of culture, gender, capital, and race have profoundly influenced democratic theory, antiracist feminism, critical studies and political struggles. Even for readers who primarily know her as a revolutionary of the late 1960s and early 1970s (or as a political icon for militant activism) she has greatly expanded the scope and range of social philosophy and political theory. Expanding critical theory, contemporary progressive theorists - engaged in justice struggles - will find their thought influenced by the liberation praxis of Angela Y. Davis.The Angela Y. Davis Reader presents eighteen essays from her writings and interviews which have appeared in If They Come in the Morning, Women, Race, and Class, Women, Culture, and Politics, and Black Women and the Blues as well as articles published in women's, ethnic/black studies and communist journals, and cultural studies anthologies. In four parts - Prisons, Repression, and Resistance, Marxism, Anti-Racism, and Feminism, Aesthetics and Culture, and recent interviews - Davis examines revolutionary politics and intellectualism.Davis's discourse chronicles progressive political movements and social philosophy. It is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary political philosophy, critical race theory, social theory, ethnic studies, American studies, African American studies, cultural theory, feminist philosophy, gender studies.

    Drawing vibrant connections between the colonization of whole nations, the health of the mountainsides and the abuse of individual women, children and men, Medicine Stories offers the paradigm of integrity as a political model to people who hunger for a world of justice, health and love.

    Beginning with the self-portraits of nuns in medieval illuminated manuscripts, Borzello reconstructs an overlooked genre and provides essential contextual information. She moves on to sixteenth-century Italy, where Sofonisba Anguissola painted one of the longest known series of self-portraits, recording her features from adolescence to old age. In 1630, Artemisia Gentileschi depicted herself as the personification of painting, and at the same time in the Netherlands Judith Leyster portrayed herself at her easel, as a relaxed, self-assured professional. In the 1700s, women from Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun to Angelica Kauffman conveyed, each in her own way, ideas of femininity and the artist's passion for her chosen field. And in the nineteenth century, as the doors to art schools began to open to women, self-portraits by the likes of Berthe Morisot, Marie Bashkirtseff, and photographers such as Alice Austen resonated with a newfound self-confidence. Seeing Ourselves concludes with the breaking of taboos in the twentieth century. Paula Modersohn-Becker imagines herself pregnant in her fantasy nude of 1906; Alice Neel paints herself naked at the age of eighty; and Frida Kahlo explicitly renders her own physical pain in a self-portrait complete with nails piercing her skin. And in recent decades, Cindy Sherman explores identity by transforming herself over and over into a cast of different characters, posing the questions that all the women in this enthralling book have faced when "seeing" themselves.

    Besieged by the press, his widow Millie flees to a remote Scottish village, where she seeks solace in memories of their marriage. The reminiscences of those who knew Joss Moody render a moving portrait of a shared life founded on an intricate lie, one that preserved a rare, unconditional love.

    Miranda is, too, one who'll find her femme persona as intriguing and fuckable as she is in boy drag. Jack thinks she's hot no matter what she looks like, and after "introducing" her to a few of his friends, decides to keep her on. This is San Francisco's notorious SOMA/South of Market, a neighborhood colonized by leatherfolk long before the dot-commers and ravers arrived. From dark alleys to tastefully-appointed dungeons, from hotel penthouses to tranny bars, Randy/Miranda embraces her heart's, mind's, and body's desires with an assortment of sexes, genders, and sexual orientations. With Jack and others--all denizens of San Francisco's sexual fringes--she creates her own queer version of family. Mistress of sexual storytelling Carol Queen offers a fresh look at sexual lifestyles and choices that are misinterpreted and repudiated by the mainstream. Her perceptive and knowledgeable treatment inserts a new viewpoint into the carefully developed relationships of power play, destroying stereotypes and modeling open communication. A 1999 Firecracker Alternative Book Award-winner in the original edition (Cleis Press, 1998).

    In this brilliant exploration of the apparent conflicts and tensions between feminism and contemplative spirituality, Carol Lee Flinders uncovers how a life of meaning, self-knowledge, and freedom depends on both.In 'At the Root of This Longing'

    Exploring two critical social issues: how to establish a healthy masculinity and how men can release themselves from suffocating and outdated social moulds, Biddulph addresses the problems and possibilities confronting men in their daily lives. Women have found the book to be a profoundly moving and revealing read, while men acquire recognition and a sense of hope that life can be different. Topics include:- Your relationship with your father - Getting sex right- Being a true dad - Real male friends - Finding a job with heartThis edition has been revised and updated to meet the needs of younger men, who are struggling with these issues in the twenty-first century.

    Now, in Fighting Words, Collins expands and extends the discussion of the "outsider within" presented in her earlier work, investigating how effectively Black feminist thought confronts the injustices African American women currently face.Collins takes on a broad range of issues -- poverty, mothering, white supremacy and Afrocentrism, the resegregation of American society by race and class, the ideas of Sojourner Truth and how they can serve as a springboard for more liberating social theory. Contrasting social theories that support unjust power relations of race, class, gender, and nation with those that challenge inequalities, Collins investigates why some ideas are granted the status of "theory" while others remain "thought". "It is not that elites produce theory while everyone else produces mere thought", she writes. "Rather, elites possess the power to legitimate the knowledge that they define as theory as being universal, normative, and ideal".Collins argues that because African American women and other historically oppressed groups seek economic and social justice, their social theories may emphasize themes and work from assumptions that are different from those of mainstream American society, generating new angles of vision on injustice. Collins also puts such oppositional social theory to the test: while the words of these theories may challenge injustice, do the ideas make a difference in the lives of the people they claim to represent?Throughout,Collins provides an essential understanding of how "outsiders" resist mainstream perspectives, and what the mainstream can learn from such "outsiders". Historically situated yet transcending the specific, Fighting Words provides a new interpretive framework for both thinking through and overcoming social injustice.

    and the Latina/o youth movement, De Colores Means All of Us will appeal to readers and activists seeking to organize for the future and build new movements for liberation.

    In Trans Liberation, Feinberg has gathered a collection of hir speeches on trans liberation and its essential connection to the liberation of all people. This wonderfully immediate, impassioned, and stirring book is for anyone who cares about civil rights and creating a just and equitable society.

    Drawing on their individual narratives, it explores international struggles to uphold the rights of this often marginalized group.

    Continuing in the tradition of her classic collections Civil Wars and Technical Difficulties, Jordan acquaints readers with moments of American life threatened by social negligence and economic despair. With her characteristic insight, Jordan unveils how these too-frequent bouts of civil unrest bring out the weakest parts of the American spirit and challenges readers to remain inspired as society approaches the millennium.June Jordan's wisdom shines through in this brilliant collection of inspirational essays, which will be eagerly awaited by Jordan loyalists and enjoyed by her new readers.

    As one of the first writers in the United States to claim black feminism for black women, Barbara Smith has done groundbreaking work in defining black women’s literary traditions and in making connections between race, class, sexuality, and gender.Smith’s essay “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” is often cited as a major catalyst in opening the field of black women’s literature. Pieces about racism in the women’s movement, black and Jewish relations, and homophobia in the Black community have ignited dialogue about topics that few other writers address. The collection also brings together topical political commentaries on the 1968 Chicago convention demonstrations; attacks on the NEA; the Anita Hill–Clarence Thomas Senate hearings; and police brutality against Rodney King and Abner Louima. It also includes a never-before-published personal essay on racial violence and the bonds between black women that make it possible to survive.

    Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles. While feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical hermaphrodites suggested a deeper question: just how many human sexes are there? Ultimately hermaphrodites led doctors and scientists to another surprisingly difficult question: what is sex, really?Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex takes us inside the doctors' chambers to see how and why medical and scientific men constructed sex, gender, and sexuality as they did, and especially how the material conformation of hermaphroditic bodies--when combined with social exigencies--forced peculiar constructions. Throughout the book Dreger indicates how this history can help us to understand present-day conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality. This leads to an epilogue, where the author discusses and questions the protocols employed today in the treatment of intersexuals (people born hermaphroditic). Given the history she has recounted, should these protocols be reconsidered and revised?A meticulously researched account of a fascinating problem in the history of medicine, this book will compel the attention of historians, physicians, medical ethicists, intersexuals themselves, and anyone interested in the meanings and foundations of sexual identity.

    Most studies examining this encounter between dominant and subordinate groups focus on how it occurs in films, books, and popular culture. In contrast, Razack addresses how non-white women are viewed, and how they must respond, in classrooms and courtrooms. Examining the discussion of equity issues in the classroom and immigration and sexual violence cases in the courtroom, she argues that non-white women must often present themselves as culturally different instead of oppressed. Seen as victims of their own oppressive culture who must be pitied and rescued by white men and women, non-white women cannot then be seen as subjects. This book makes clear why we must be wary of educational and legal strategies that begin with saving 'Other' women. It offers powerful arguments for why it is important to examine who are the saviours and who are the saved, and what we must do to disrupt these historical relations of power.

    Wood explores the relationships between narrative form and style and sexual politics, probing the political and sexual ramifications of fascism and cinema, marriage and the couple, romantic love, and representations of women, race and gender in films from the United States, Europe, and Japan.

    Selections are organized into five historical periods from the 18th century to the mid-1990s. The book includes key feminist manifestoes to help students see the link between feminist theory and application, as well as clear, concise explanations of 12 key concepts that characterize the development of feminist thought since its inception.

    How can women's full participation transform Jewish law, prayer, sexuality, and marriage? What does it mean to "engender" Jewish tradition? Pioneering theologian Rachel Adler gives this timely and powerful question its first thorough study in a book that bristles with humor, passion, intelligence, and deep knowledge of traditional biblical and rabbinic texts.

    

    Women and men have been and will always be equal in the sight of God." -Baha'u'llahAdvancement of Women presents the Baha'í Faith's global perspective on the equality of the sexes, including:The meaning of equalityThe education of women and the need for their participation in the world at largeThe profound effects of equality on the family and family relationshipsThe intimate relationship between equality of the sexes and global peaceChastity, modesty, sexual harassment, and rapeThe equality of women and men is one of the basic tenets of the Baha'i Faith, and much is said on the subject in the Baha'i writings. Until now, however, no single volume created for a general audience has provided comprehensive coverage of the Baha'i teachings on this topic and its many aspects. In this broad survey husband and wife team Janet and Peter Khan address even those aspects of equality of the sexes that are usually ignored or glossed over in the existing literature.Tactfully treating a subject that often provokes argumentation, contention, polarization of attitudes, and accusations, the authors elevate the discussion to a new level that challenges all while offending none.

    Kate Bornstein provides an introduction. Boys Like Her is a road movie of young queer life. Four distinct voices come together in a tag-team dialogue, interwoven with disturbingly beautiful photographs that echo their transformative energy.Reading this book is like watching a circus troupe juggle a chainsaw, a grapefruit, a beach ball and a pocket watch without dropping a beat, With identities ranging from boy-girl to power-femme to borderline testosterone-enhanced, these talented upstarts explore and explode gender, sex and family. Gentleness is mixed with harsh honesty, as grandmother's good advice jostles with hormone therapy, surviving the psych ward, rough play and lost love. Each piece stands alone, together they are a conversation, a road movie of young queer life, rolling with the punches and taking the reader along for a ride to remember!

    Explores the historical perception of woman as the seductress whose influence undermines the power of the white male.

    With hundreds of works by authors ranging from Ovid to James Baldwin, from Plato to Oscar Wilde, The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature presents a wide range of poetry, fiction, essays, and autobiography that depict love, friendship, intimacy, desire, and sex between men.

    Photographs of orphans with vacant eyes, sad faces, and wasted bodies circled the globe, as did alarming maternal mortality statistics and heart-breaking details of a devastating infant AIDS epidemic. Gail Kligman's chilling ethnography—of the state and of the politics of reproduction—is the first in-depth examination of this extreme case of political intervention into the most intimate aspects of everyday life.Ceausescu's reproductive policies, among which the banning of abortion was central, affected the physical and emotional well-being not only of individual men, women, children, and families but also of society as a whole. Sexuality, intimacy, and fertility control were fraught with fear, which permeated daily life and took a heavy moral toll as lying and dissimulation transformed both individuals and the state. This powerful study is based on moving interviews with women and physicians as well as on documentary and archival material. In addition to discussing the social implications and human costs of restrictive reproductive legislation, Kligman explores the means by which reproductive issues become embedded in national and international agendas. She concludes with a review of the lessons the rest of the world can learn from Romania's tragic experience.

    and Europe. The results are humorous, touching. elegant, sexy, and very, very feminine.

    An impressive list of contributors explores the byways, bringing this tragic, funny, and engrossing story up to recent times." -- Lucy Lippard, author of "The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Essays on Feminist Art" During the 1930s and 1940s, women artists associated with the Surrealist movement produced a significant body of self-images that have no equivalent among the works of their male colleagues. While male artists exalted Woman's otherness in fetishized images, women artists explored their own subjective worlds. The self-images of Claude Cahun, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, Kay Sage, and others both internalize and challenge conventions for representing femininity, the female body, and female subjectivity. Many of the representational strategies employed by these pioneers continue to resonate in the work of contemporary women artists. The words "Surrealist" and "surrealism" appear frequently in discussions of such contemporary artists as Louise Bourgeois, Ana Mendieta, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman, Kiki Smith, Dorothy Cross, Michiko Kon, and Paula Santiago. This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, explores specific aspects of the relationship between historic and contemporary work in the context of Surrealism. The contributors reexamine art historical assumptions about gender, identity, and intergenerational legacies within modernist and postmodernist frameworks. Questions raised include: how did womenin both groups draw from their experiences of gender and sexuality? What do contemporary artistic practices involving the use of body images owe to the earlier examples of both female and male Surrealists? What is the relationship between self-image and self- knowledge?Contributors: Dawn Ades, Whitney Chadwick, Salomon Grimberg, Katy Kline, Helaine Posner, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Dickran Tashjian.

    Part autobiography, part history, part confession, this intertwined, powerful essay wonderfully describes the multiplicity of disciplines required to construct fiction. In "She Would Be the First Sentence of My Next Novel," a lyrical exploration of her own approach to writing novels, master writer Nicole Brossard offers to her readers the secrets and the struggles of writing in the feminine.

    Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, King Kong, the Wolf Man, or any of the other legendary Hollywood monsters. Some were even monsters themselves, such as Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Gloria Holden as Dracula's Daughter. And while evading the Strangler of the Swamp, former Miss America Rosemary La Planche is allowed to rescue her leading man. This book provides details about the lives and careers of 21 of these cinematic leading ladies, femmes fatales, monsters, and misfits, putting into perspective their contributions to the films and folklore of Hollywood terror--and also the sexual harassment, exploitation, and genuine danger they faced on the job. In a previously unpublished account, Bride of Frankenstein's Anne Darling remembers when, at age 17, she was humiliated on-set by director James Whale over the color of her underwear. Filled with anecdotes and recollections, many of the entries are based on original interviews, and there are numerous old photographs and movie stills.

    The differences in behaviour between men and women are constantly remarked upon, yet poorly understood. In this persuasive volume, David Geary argues that the differences between the sexes are best illuminated by Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection. Male, Female shows how one of our most fundamental goals in life - survival through reproduction - is key to understanding such differences as preferred attributes in mates; level of investment in parenting; boys' and girls' play patterns and social interactions; the evolution and development of the mind; and even in rates of violence, mental disorders, academic abilities and occupational interests and achievement.

    On a far-off world, an asexual class of blands exists to serve their fellow humans, protected and isolated from contact with the rest of the universe. But no bland has ever left its sheltered homeworld--until now. Tedla has been found in an alley light-years away from its planet. And it has just tried to commit suicide. Val, an expert in alien cultures, helps Tedla recuperate and in doing so, uncovers the secret tortured world of the blands.

    women's collective history! A landmark work, The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, gathers together more than 400 articles to offer a diverse, rich, and often neglected panorama of the nation's past. Written by more than 300 contributors, drawn from various areas of expertise, these narrative and interpretive entries "effectively cover five centuries of women's experiences" (Bloomsbury Review). Here are articles on cowgirls and child care, on the daily lives of single women and the changing notions of motherhood, on the artistic contributions of women of color and the history of Jewish feminism. Wide-ranging in scope and wonderfully accessible, this unique resource reexamines with fresh clarity and brio the issues and concerns that color the lives of all women. Articles and their contributors include: African American Women, Darlene Clark Hine; Cult of Domesticity, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg; Fashion and Style, Lynn Yaeger; Jazz and Blues, Daphne Duval Harrison; Lesbians, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy; Native American Cultures, Clara Sue Kidwell; Picture Brides, Judy Yung; Salem Witchcraft Trials, Mary Beth Norton; Vietnam Era, Sara M. Evans.

    In this land, the original America, men who wore women’s clothes and did women’s work became artists, ambassadors, and religious leaders, and women sometimes became warriors, hunters and even chiefs. Same-sex marriages flourished. Berdaches—individuals who combine male and female social roles with traits unique to their status as a third gender—have been documented in more than 150 North American tribes. By looking at this aspect of non-Western culture, Roscoe challenges the basis of the dualistic way most Americans think about sexuality, and shakes the foundation of the way we understand and define gender.

    O. Wilson, Desmond Morris, and David Buss, What Women Want—What Men Want offers compelling new evidence about the real reasons behind men's and women's differing sexual psychologies and sheds new light on what men and women look for in a mate, the predicament of marriage in the modern world, the relation between sex and emotion, and many other hotly debated questions. Drawing upon 2000 questionnaires and 200 intimate interviews that show how our sexual psychologies affect everyday decisions, John Townsend argues against the prevailing ideologically correct belief that differences in sexual behavior are "culturally constructed." Townsend shows there are deep-seated desires inherited from our evolutionary past that guide our actions. In a fascinating series of experiments, men and women were asked to indicate preferences for potential mates based on their attractiveness and apparent economic status. Women overwhelmingly preferred expensively dressed men to more attractive but apparently less successful men, and men were clearly inclined to choose more attractive women regardless of their professional status. Townsend's studies also indicate that men are predisposed to value casual sex, whereas women cannot easily separate sexual relations from the need for emotional attachment and economic security. Indeed, wherever men possess sexual alternatives to marriage, and women possess economic alternatives, divorce rates will be high. In the concluding chapter, Townsend draws upon the advice of couples who have maintained their marriages over the years to suggest ways to survive our evolutionary predicament. Lucidly and accessibly written, What Women Want—What Men Want shows us why we are the way we are and brings new clarity to one of the most intractable debates of our time.

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

    It describes clearly the troubles that the "system" deliver to maintain the status-quo, and the overwhelming drive needed by both the child and the parent in overcoming these burdens and achieving success. This should be required reading for any parent of a Transgendered person. The writing style is easy and familiar and will make for a "quick read" ; one you won't want to put down

    At a time when white elites were concerned with imperialist projects and civilizing missions, progressive white women developed an explicit racial ideology to promote their cause, defending patriarchy for "primitives" while calling for its elimination among the "civilized." By exploring how progressive white women at the turn of the century laid the intellectual groundwork for the feminist social movements that followed, Louise Michele Newman speaks directly to contemporary debates about the effect of race on current feminist scholarship.

    Outspoken, visionary, and sometimes contentious, these women stepped into the pulpit long before twentieth-century battles over female ordination began. They were charismatic, popular preachers, who spoke to hundreds and even thousands of people at camp and revival meetings, and yet with but a few notable exceptions--such as Sojourner Truth--these women have essentially vanished from our history. Recovering their stories, Brekus shows, forces us to rethink many of our common assumptions about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture.

    (1 man.) THE MADNESS OF LADY BRIGHT traces the mental breakdown of Lesley Bright, an aging homosexual whose past returns to haunt him with the emptiness of the choices he made. (2 men, 1 woman.) THIS IS THE RILL SPEAKING, A Play for Voices, is a poetic, mosaic-style evocation of small-town life told through multiple voices which shift and blend from identity to identity. (3 men, 3 women.) SAY DE KOONING pits an artist and two female lovers against the very strains of modern life they hoped to escape by summering at the beach. Not even there, though, can they avoid the pitfalls of their own demanding personalities.(1 man, 2 women.)

    The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior, 2/e, brings together recent critical writings in this important field, covering such diverse topics as the sources of eating disorders, the nature of lesbianism, and the consequences of violence against women. With the exception of two classic articles, all pieces were published in the last decade, and one-quarter of the selections are new to the second edition. The Politics of Women's Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance, and Behavior, 2/e, begins by looking at how ideas about women's bodies become culturally accepted. As the writings in the first section demonstrate, this is a political process that can reflect, reinforce, or challenge the distribution of power between men and women. Subsequent sections look at how, once ideas about women's bodies become accepted, they can serve as powerful--and political--tools for controlling women's appearance, sexuality, and behavior. Articles new to this edition include Daring to Desire: Culture and the Bodies of Adolescent Girls, by Deborah L. Tolman; Casing My Joints: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis, by Mary Lowenthal Felstiner; and Holding Back: Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women's Muscular Strength, by Shari L. Dworkin. This unique interdisciplinary anthology is ideal for undergraduate courses that cover the body and sexuality. It is also appropriate for introductory courses in women's studies and courses in the psychology, anthropology, or sociology of women; women and health; and feminist theory.

    Irreverent and rich with insight, this book connects the feminist movement to struggles for racial and class equality as it traces the highlights and low points of feminist thinking in the past twenty-five years on a range of issues: the parallels between the current state of feminism and the setbacks in American and English feminism after World War I; why feminism must accept the leadership of women of color; and the necessity of socialist and feminist theory, despite traditional clashes between feminists and the Left. What Are We Fighting For? will help feminists and their allies connect the issues, build coalitions, and revive the movement's radical spirit.

    Infants' bodies are altered, and what was "ambiguous" is made "normal." Kessler's interviews with pediatric surgeons and endocrinologists reveal how the intersex condition is normalized for parents and she argues that the way in which intersexuality is managed by the medical and psychological professions displays our culture's beliefs about gender and genitals.Parents of intersexed children are rarely heard from, but in this book they provide another perspective on reasons for genital surgeries and the quality of medical and psychological management. Although physicians educate parents about how to think about their children's condition, Kessler learned from parents of intersexed children that some parents are able to accept atypical genitals. Based on analysis of the medical literature and interview with adults who had received treatment as interesexed children, Kessler proposes new approaches for physicians to use in talking with parents and children. She also evaluates the appearance of a politicized vanguard, many of who are promoting an intersexual identity, who seek to alter the way physicians respond to intersexuality.Kessler explores the possibilities and implications of suspending a commitment to two "natural" genders and addresses gender destabilization issues arising from intersexuality. She thus compels readers to re-think the meaning of gender, genitals, and sexuality.

    While there are many studies of tricksters, few have focused on the chicanery of women, and none have dealt with the ways in which the female trickster is constructed in America.Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women is the first book to explore the cultural work performed by female tricksters in the new country of American mass consumer culture. Beginning with such nineteenth-century novels as Capitola the Madcap and moving through twentieth-century novels, films, radio, and television shows, Lori Landay looks at how popular heroines use craft and deceit to circumvent the limitations of femininity. She considers texts of the 1920s such as Elinor Glyn's It and Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; films of Mae West, as well as other Depression-era and wartime film comedy; the postwar television series I Love Lucy; and such contemporary texts as Roseanne, Ellen, and Batman. In addition, Landay explores the connections between these texts and advertisements selling products that encourage female deception and trickery.

    Brody’s readings of Victorian novels, plays, paintings, and science fiction reveal the impossibility of purity and the inevitability of hybridity in representations of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and race. She amasses a considerable amount of evidence to show that Victorian culture was bound inextricably to various forms and figures of blackness. Opening with a reading of Daniel Defoe’s “A True-Born Englishman,” which posits the mixed origins of English identity, Brody goes on to analyze mulattas typified by Rhoda Swartz in William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, whose mixed-race status reveals the “unseemly origins of English imperial power.” Examining Victorian stage productions from blackface minstrel shows to performances of The Octoroon and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she explains how such productions depended upon feminized, “black” figures in order to reproduce Englishmen as masculine white subjects. She also discusses H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of debates about the “new woman,” slavery, and fears of the monstrous degeneration of English gentleman. Impossible Purities concludes with a discussion of Bram Stoker’s novella, “The Lair of the White Worm,” which brings together the book’s concerns with changing racial representations on both sides of the Atlantic. This book will be of interest to scholars in Victorian studies, literary theory, African American studies, and cultural criticism.

    This edited volume is an outgrowth of a discussion that began on the Sociologists for Women in Society Listserve, in which participants were asked to talk about key pieces in feminist scholarship that had particularly influenced their sociological thinking. Editors Kristen A. Myers, Cynthia D. Anderson, and Barbara J. Risman have chosen articles that fall into what they consider the intellectual genres that compose feminist sociology. This collection differs from others because the editors avoid organizing material by substantive specialty areas (i.e., family, race and ethnicity, criminology, or methods). Their vision instead sees sociology as an integrated discipline, where feminist contributions have systematically influenced the shape of the whole by similarly influencing the distinct parts. In addition to simply compiling a comprehensive list of important articles from the last two decades, the editors have invited major feminist scholars to comment and reflect on the articles in each section of the book. These reflections help provide the historical and social context in which feminist scholarship has taken place. This book will be of obvious appeal to feminist scholars and gender sociologists. Yet, as feminist thought rightfully takes its place away from the margins and toward the center of the discipline, this book stands as a rich and useful resource for any contemporary theory course.

    It takes a critical look at the writer who after spending more than 40 years as a man, underwent a sex change in the 1970s and became a woman.

    And they will note the overlap of her ideas on ethics, religion, arts, and socialism, written in the 1830s, with her more famous husband's works, published 25 years later.

    Travestis are males who, often beginning at ages as young as ten, adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, and linguistic pronouns. More dramatically, they ingest massive doses of female hormones and inject up to twenty liters of industrial silicone into their bodies to create breasts, wide hips, and large thighs and buttocks. Despite such irreversible physiological changes, virtually no travesti identifies herself as a woman. Moreover, travestis regard any male who does so as mentally disturbed. Kulick analyzes the various ways travestis modify their bodies, explores the motivations that lead them to choose this particular gendered identity, and examines the complex relationships that they maintain with one another, their boyfriends, and their families. Kulick also looks at how travestis earn their living through prostitution and discusses the reasons prostitution, for most travestis, is a positive and affirmative experience. Arguing that transgenderism never occurs in a "natural" or arbitrary form, Kulick shows how it is created in specific social contexts and assumes specific social forms. Furthermore, Kulick suggests that travestis—far from deviating from normative gendered expectations—may in fact distill and perfect the messages that give meaning to gender throughout Brazilian society and possibly throughout much of Latin America. Through Kulick's engaging voice and sharp analysis, this elegantly rendered account is not only a landmark study in its discipline but also a fascinating read for anyone interested in sexuality and gender.

    In The Empress Is a Man: Stories from the Life of Jos� Sarria (winner of the Lammy Award in the transgender category), Michael Gorman exposes Sarria's life in a frank manner and with a unique storytelling ability that simultaneously causes amusement and sadness. Sarria's amazing life story tells of his perserverance to advance the cause of equality for gay citizens.At a time when gays were arrested, institutionalized, and castrated, Sarria did not try to hide his beliefs and convictions. Sarria was ahead of his time, becoming a significant figure in gay history and culture. You'll find The Empress Is a Man fascinating as you read about the life of this truly courageous, outrageous, and remarkable man. Some of Sarria's experiences and achievements you'll read about include:being the first openly gay male to run for political officebeing one of America's most important female impersonatorsentertaining throughout the world, live and on filmpostitively affecting the gay communityfounding an extremely successful charity fundraising organizationbeing featured in a PBS documentaryserving in the Army in The Battle of the Bulge in WWIIUntil recently, gay and lesbian stories were published in very limited venues and often at great personal risk, forcing knowledge of this history to be passed down orally. The Empress Is a Man reflects this tradition by telling much of the story in Sarria's own words. Adding to the enjoyment and originality of this book is a structure similar to the dramatic style of a play or novel. Each section ends with an exciting climax, although the book is chronological in order. The Empress Is a Man is an untraditional book about an untraditional man.

    "Mexican American Women Activists" tells the stories of Mexican American women from two Los Angeles neighborhoods and how they transformed the everyday problems they confronted into political concerns. By placing these women's experiences at the center of her discussion of grassroots political activism, Mary Pardo illuminates the gender, race, and class character of community networking. She shows how citizens help to shape their local environment by creating resources for churches, schools, and community services and generates new questions and answers about collective action and the transformation of social networks into political networks. By focusing on women in two contiguous but very different communities the working-class, inner-city neighborhood of Boyle Heights in Eastside Los Angeles and the racially mixed middle-class suburb of Monterey Park Pardo is able to bring class as well as gender and ethnic concerns to bear on her analysis in ways that shed light on the complexity of mobilizing for urban change. Unlike many studies, the stories told here focus on women's strengths rather than on their problems. We follow the process by which these women empowered themselves by using their own definitions of social justice and their own convictions about the importance of traditional roles. Rather than becoming political participants in spite of their family responsibilities, women in both neighborhoods seem to have been more powerful because they had responsibilities, social networks, and daily routines separate from the men in their communities. Pardo asserts that the decline of real wages and the growing income gap means that unfortunately most women will no longer be able to focus their energies on unpaid community work. She reflects on the consequences of this change for women's political involvement, as well as on the politics of writing about women and politics. Author note: Mary Pardo is Professor of Chicana/o Studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the author of several articles on women and grassroots organizing and has been active in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles for about twenty-five years.

    At the center of the transformation was a shift from a marital property regime based on custom to one based on contract. In the former, a widow typically inherited her husband's property; in the latter, she shared it with or simply held it for his family or offspring. Howell asks why the law changed as it did and assesses the law's effects on both social and gender meanings but she insists that the reform did not originate in general dissatisfaction with custom or a desire to disempower widows. Instead, it was born in a complex economic, social and cultural history during which Douaisiens gradually came to think about both property and gender in new ways.

    This book develops the foundations of the theory and indicates the range of classical and modern applications. The hardcover edition received the prestigious Steele Prize in 1996 for best exposition.

    Based on a popular Australian song that tells of the time when it was illegal for whites and Aborigines to marry, and how such relationships were hidden.

    The book embraces historical chapters, contemporary political analyses, and cultural studies (focusing on literature and religion).Socialist Yugoslavia undertook a relatively unusual experiment during the forty-six years of its existence (1945-91)--to eliminate the sources of social, economic, and gender inequality while laying the foundation for a society in which women and men could enjoy complete equality in politics, in education and careers, and in family life. Although the aspiration was shared with other communist countries, Yugoslavia gave its experiment a unique twist by linking its program with institutional changes to be realized through self-management organs and a complicated delegate system. The socialist system represented an improvement where gender equality was concerned over the pre-existing system associated with the interwar Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but it did not fulfill its promises.Recognizing the need for a book that surveys the experience of South Slav women during the twentieth century, Sabrina Ramet commissioned essays from leading scholars in East European/Yugoslav studies and women's studies for this volume. The resulting collection is arranged in rough chronological order, covering primarily Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia from before World War II until present day. Topics covered include the structures of traditional society, gender relations in the interwar period, anti-Fascist organizations, the socialist experience, and issues connected to post-socialist politics and the war, making this the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the subject.Contributors are Andrei Simic, Thomas A. Emmert, Vlasta Jalusič, Barbara Jancar-Webster, Tatjana Pavlovic, Zarana Papic, Julie Mertus, Obrad Kesic, Regan Ralph, Dorothy Thomas, Gordana Crnkovic, Mart Bax, Branka Magas, and Sabrina Ramet.

    Inés of Herrera del Duque, a leather tanner's twelve-year-old daughter whose messianic prophesies captivated both children and adults, was burned at the stake along with many of her followers. Nine years after the death of Catarina de San Juan, the Inquisition banned copies of her image and biography, fearing that a cult was forming around this popular holy woman in Puebla, New Spain. Inquisitors enlisted the assistance of Mari Sánchez's daughter to prove that this Jewish converso was guilty of practicing Judaism in secret, an accusation that led to her death. In Women in the Inquisition, Mary E. Giles brings together scholars from literature, history, and religious studies to explore women's experiences under the Inquisition in both Spain and the New World.Based on fresh archival work, the essays provide a broader perspective on the Inquisition than has previously been available. Examining the stories of fifteen women in the context of this fearful Catholic institution in both Spain and the New World, the contributors chronicle a broad range of "crimes" against the Catholic Church, including sexual transgressions, the practice of crypto-Judaism, and the writing and preaching by alumbradas that undermined Catholic orthodoxy. The accounts, representing the experiences of girls and women from different classes and geographical regions, also include the trials' vastly divergent outcomes ranging from burning at the stake to exoneration.

    Victorian England can be credited with inventing the ideal of the home inviolate, an ideal best condensed in the notion that "an Englishman's home is his castle".It was during this period that the family emerged as a subject of continuous discussion by politicians and of intervention by middle-class reformers. The discussion tended to address specific problems -- domestic violence, juvenile criminality, and the fate of illegitimate children, among others -- rather than focusing on the family as a whole. The reformers not only set the agenda of family-focused debates but also supplied the leadership for a vast array of interventionist groups -- philanthropists, civil servants, magistrates, medical practitioners, educators, and child psychologists -- whose common goal was to save the family, especially the working-class family, from itself.Thus this book shows that long before the building of a modern welfare state, English homes had become targets of regulation: the Englishman's castle possessed neither moat nor drawbridge. It also reveals the extent to which working-class parents participated in a cultural "policing" process; the Victorian poor were never the inert lump of humanity that many contemporaries, and some modern scholars, have supposed. Nor did the weight of schemes to regulate and elevate family conduct fall exclusively on the poor. The book demonstrates that middle-class reformers were not shy about dictating the terms of good parenting to their own class.Charting the origins, elaborations, and limitations of the concept of theideal home is no antiquarian exercise, for the social policy implications bound up with the myth of family privacy persist today. Intellectual critics of the "therapeutic state" such as Christopher Lasch and Michel Foucault hold that the rise of tutelary "experts" -- from social workers to public health inspectors and juvenile court judges -- has subverted parental autonomy. Similarly, populist conservative politicians in both England and the United States attack "welfarist" social programs because they appear to undercut the sense of individual responsibility that allegedly once flourished during a golden age of family strength.

    It tells stories in close up and from below, allowing everyone to talk: anxious boys, naughty girls, cantankerous teachers, pontificating principals and feisty feminists.This book challenges many sacred ideas about gender reform in schools and will surprise and unsettle teachers and researchers. It draws on a deep knowledge of gender issues in schools and of feminist theories, policies and practices. It is compelling and provocative reading at the leading edge.

    Here, for the first time in English translation, Dominique Godineau offers an illuminating account of these female revolutionaries. As nurturing and tender as they are belligerent and contentious, these are not singular female heroines but the collective common women who struggled for bare subsistence by working in factories, in shops, on the streets, and on the home front while still finding time to participate in national assemblies, activist gatherings, and public demonstrations in their fight for the recognition of women as citizens within a burgeoning democracy. Relying on exhaustive research in historical archives, police accounts, and demographic resources at specific moments of the Revolutionary period, Godineau describes the private and public lives of these women within their precise political, social, historical, and gender-specific contexts. Her insightful and engaging observations shed new light on the importance of women as instigators, activists, militants, and decisive revolutionary individuals in the crafting and rechartering of their political and social roles as female citizens within the New Republic.

    In 1759, in an effort to end infant mortality, Louis XV commissioned Madame Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray to travel throughout France teaching the art of childbirth to illiterate peasant women. For the next thirty years, this royal emissary taught in nearly forty cities and reached an estimated ten thousand students. She wrote a textbook and invented a life-sized obstetrical mannequin for her demonstrations. She contributed significantly to France's demographic upswing after 1760.Who was the woman, both the private self and the pseudonymous public celebrity? Nina Rattner Gelbart reconstructs Madame du Coudray's astonishing mission through extensive research in the hundreds of letters by, to, and about her in provincial archives throughout France. Tracing her subject's footsteps around the country, Gelbart chronicles du Coudray's battles with finance ministers, village matrons, local administrators, and recalcitrant physicians, her rises in power and falls from grace, and her death at the height of the Reign of Terror. At a deeper level, Gelbart recaptures du Coudray's interior journey as well, by questioning and dismantling the neat paper trail that the great midwife so carefully left behind. Delightfully written, this tale of a fascinating life at the end of the French Old Regime sheds new light on the histories of medicine, gender, society, politics, and culture.

    The result is a unique depiction of the lives of these strong, creative, independent-minded women who achieved a visibility in their society that led to recognition of sanctity."A tremendous piece of scholarship. . . . This journey through more than 2,000 saints is anything but dull. Along the way, Schulenburg informs our ideas regarding the role of saints in the medieval psyche, gender-specific identification, and the heroics of virginity." —Library Journal"[This book] will be a kind of 'roots' experience for some readers. They will hear the voices, haunted and haunting, of their distant ancestors and understand more about themselves." —Christian Science Monitor"This fascinating book reaches far beyond the history of Christianity to recreate the 'herstory' of a whole gender." —Kate Saunders, The Independent

    Taken together, these pieces demonstrate the wide-ranging and sometimes antagonistic viewpoints of scholars and activists pursuing different political and intellectual goals.Essays include a documentation of how readers of mass-circulation print media became aware of new medical possibilities for the surgical and hormonal alteration of sex characteristics and began agitating for them; a challenge from feminist theorists to transgender movement activists to avoid repeating the mistakes of previous feminist, gay, and lesbian political mobilizations; a critique of the overreliance on discursive analysis in much current transgender scholarship; and paired essays exploring the so-called Butch/FTM Border Wars from either side of that divide. There are also pieces that focus on intersex activism, the bioethics of gender dysphoria management, and the mobilization of transgender advocacy organizations.Considering perceptions of queer embodiment past and present, these essays explore the sweeping changes in professional and popular attitudes regarding the transgender community and the issues that affect it. The timeliness of this issue as well as the diversity of its viewpoints makes it a significant contribution to the growing body of transgender literature.Contributors. Cheryl Chase, Patricia Elliot, Judith Halberstam, C. Jacob Hale, Joanne Meyerowitz, James Lindeman Nelson, Katrina Roen, Henry Rubin, Susan Stryker

    The author, who has herself been surgically reassigned, has conducted extensive interviews with transsexuals from many walks of life. Her personal experiences, which inform this book, have given her an access to her subjects that others would likely be denied. While highlighting how the gender identity of transsexuals relates to hormonal and surgical changes in the body as well as to changes in dress, the book investigates the pressures and motivations to conform to expected gender roles, and the ways in which these are affected by social, educational, and professional status. Differences in the experiences of those who change from male to female and those who change from female to male are also examined.Sex reassignment has been the focus of considerable media attention recently, as increasing numbers of people feel able to talk frankly about their personal experiences with gender dysphoria. Strides with medical technology have given transsexuals new opportunities in their lives. This book provides unique insights into how these changes are seen by those people most affected them.