Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha - 2015
This passionate and riveting memoir is a mixtape of dreams and nightmares, of immigration court lineups and queer South Asian dance nights; it reveals how a disabled queer woman of color and abuse survivor navigates the dirty river of the past and, as the subtitle suggests, "dreams her way home."Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's poetry book Love Cake won a Lambda Literary Award.
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
Jon Krakauer - 2015
Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, with a highly regarded state university, bucolic surroundings, a lively social scene, and an excellent football team — the Grizzlies — with a rabid fan base. The Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported to the Missoula police between January 2008 and May 2012. Few of these assaults were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical. A DOJ report released in December of 2014 estimates 110,000 women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four are raped each year. Krakauer’s devastating narrative of what happened in Missoula makes clear why rape is so prevalent on American campuses, and why rape victims are so reluctant to report assault. Acquaintance rape is a crime like no other. Unlike burglary or embezzlement or any other felony, the victim often comes under more suspicion than the alleged perpetrator. This is especially true if the victim is sexually active; if she had been drinking prior to the assault — and if the man she accuses plays on a popular sports team. The vanishingly small but highly publicized incidents of false accusations are often used to dismiss her claims in the press. If the case goes to trial, the woman’s entire personal life becomes fair game for defense attorneys. This brutal reality goes a long way towards explaining why acquaintance rape is the most underreported crime in America. In addition to physical trauma, its victims often suffer devastating psychological damage that leads to feelings of shame, emotional paralysis and stigmatization. PTSD rates for rape victims are estimated to be 50%, higher than soldiers returning from war. In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of several women in Missoula — the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by the police, prosecutors, defense attorneys; the public vilification and private anguish; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. Some of them went to the police. Some declined to go to the police, or to press charges, but sought redress from the university, which has its own, non-criminal judicial process when a student is accused of rape. In two cases the police agreed to press charges and the district attorney agreed to prosecute. One case led to a conviction; one to an acquittal. Those women courageous enough to press charges or to speak publicly about their experiences were attacked in the media, on Grizzly football fan sites, and/or to their faces. The university expelled three of the accused rapists, but one was reinstated by state officials in a secret proceeding. One district attorney testified for an alleged rapist at his university hearing. She later left the prosecutor’s office and successfully defended the Grizzlies’ star quarterback in his rape trial. The horror of being raped, in each woman’s case, was magnified by the mechanics of the justice system and the reaction of the community. Krakauer’s dispassionate, carefully documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or drunk, or send mixed signals, or feel guilty about casual sex, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime and deserving of compassion from society and fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken.
The Season: A Social History of the Debutante
Kristen Richardson - 2019
In this brilliant history of the phenomenon, Richardson shares debutantes’ own words—from diaries, letters, and interviews—throughout her vivid telling, beginning in Henry VIII’s era, sweeping through Queen Elizabeth I’s court, crossing back and forth the Atlantic to colonial Philadelphia, African American communities, Jane Austen’s England, and Mrs. Astor’s parties, ultimately arriving at the contemporary New York Infirmary and International balls.Whether maligned for its archaic attitude and objectification of women or praised for raising money for charities and providing a necessary coming-of-age ritual, the debutante tradition has more to tell us in this entertaining and illuminating book.
With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia
Åsne Seierstad - 2000
Seierstad traveled extensively through Serbia between 1999 and 2004, following the lives of people from across the political spectrum. Her moving and perceptive account follows nationalists, Titoists, Yugonostalgics, rock stars, fugitives, and poets. Seierstad brings her acclaimed attention to detail to bear on the lives of those whom she encounters in With Their Backs to the World, as she creates a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation made up of so many different-and often conflicting-hopes, dreams, and points of view.
Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media
Nora Ephron - 1978
In these sharp, hilariously entertaining, and vividly observed pieces, Ephron illuminates an era with wicked honesty and insight. From the famous “A Few Words About Breasts” to important pieces on her time working for the New York Post and Gourmet Magazine, these essays show Ephron at her very best.
How to Be a Woman
Caitlin Moran - 2011
“Half memoir, half polemic, and entirely necessary,” (Elle UK), Moran’s debut was an instant runaway bestseller in England as well as an Amazon UK Top Ten book of the year; still riding high on bestseller lists months after publication, it is a bona fide cultural phenomenon. Now poised to take American womanhood by storm, here is a book that Vanity Fair calls “the U.K. version of Tina Fey’s Bossypants….You will laugh out loud, wince, and—in my case—feel proud to be the same gender as the author.”
Fight Like A Girl
Clementine Ford - 2016
A passionate and urgently needed call to arms, Fight Like A Girl insists on our right to be angry, to be heard and to fight. It'll change lives.' Emily Maguire, author of An Isolated IncidentA friend recently told me that the things I write are powerful for her because they have the effect of making her feel angry instead of just empty. I want to do this for all women and young girls - to take the emptiness and numbness they feel about being a girl in this world and turn it into rage and power. I want to teach all of them how to FIGHT LIKE A GIRL. Clementine FordOnline sensation, fearless feminist heroine and scourge of trolls and misogynists everywhere, Clementine Ford is a beacon of hope and inspiration to thousands of Australian women and girls. Her incendiary debut Fight Like A Girl is an essential manifesto for feminists new, old and soon-to-be, and exposes just how unequal the world continues to be for women. Crucially, it is a call to arms for all women to rediscover the fury that has been suppressed by a society that still considers feminism a threat.Fight Like A Girl will make you laugh, cry and scream. But above all it will make you demand and fight for a world in which women have real equality and not merely the illusion of it.
Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World
Linda R. Hirshman - 2006
Hirshman published an article called “Homeward Bound” in last December’s American Prospect, she fully intended to reignite the dying embers of feminism’s fire. But the ensuing maelstrom of criticism and applause from national op-ed columnists like David Brooks in The New York Times to mothers—stay-at-home and working mothers alike— surprised even her. Suddenly, the retired professor of philosophy and women’s studies is at the center of an increasingly hot debate on sexual politics. With Get to Work, Hirshman expands her now-infamous call for all women to realize the ideal of economic independence and self-determination. Examining the trend of affluent, educated women abandoning their careers in order to raise children, Hirshman has concluded that the real glass ceiling that’s barring women from success in the workplace is in their own homes. Why, forty years after The Feminine Mystique, do men and women assign the low-level and generally unrewarding jobs of housekeeping and child rearing to women? The time is ripe for a new feminist revolution based on values and quality of life, not some false promise of “choice.” Get to Work will lead the national discussion as Hirshman lays out a strategic plan to help women rediscover that their place is not necessarily in the kitchen.
Rebel Lives: Helen Keller
Helen Keller - 1903
It includes texts written about her, by figures such as socialist leader Eugene V. Debs and Mark Twain.
"Her liberal views and wide sympathies ought to shame those who have physical eyes, yet do not open them to the sorrows that encompass the mass of men."—New York Call (1911)
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"We were born into an unjust system. We are not prepared to grow old in it."—Bernadette Devlin
Rebel Lives books feature writings both by and about individuals who have played significant roles in humanity’s ongoing fight for a better world. The series shows the not-so-well-recognized political views of some well-known figures and introduces some not-so-famous rebels. Strongly representative of race, class and gender, these books are smaller format, inexpensive, accessible and provocative.
Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement
Robin MorganMary Daly - 1970
This anthology captures the range of problems being considered by the new feminists, and the variety of approaches to analysis and action. Over fifty contributors, all women, write about how the "51% minority group" is used and abused by the major institutions of our society--marriage, the family, church, courts, the media, welfare, the schools, the professions, business, and industry. A section on the psychological and sexual repression of women attacks the freudian view of the female, and discusses the problems of the aging woman, abortion and birth control, prostitution, the persecution of lesbians. Black women, a Mexican woman, high school women, ex-New Leftists, housewives, and seasoned feminists speak from their experience in tones that range from detachment to outrage. ARE MEN REALLY THE ENEMY?A Questionnaire by Jayne West, from No More Fun and Games True or False __ Woman's work is never done. __ You can't tell a book by its cover. __ Housework can be fun. __ A female dog is referred to as a bitch. __ One of the more degrading terms that can be applied to a man is "son of a bitch." Multiple Choice 1. Most rapes are committed by: (a) women; (b) children; (c) men (perverts); (d) I am unable to distinguish rape from ordinary sexual relations. 2. Which do you prefer being called: (a) lady; (b) woman; (c) female; (d) girl; (e) none of the above. 3. If I could do away with anything I wanted, the first thing I would do away with is: (a) the family; (b) the state; (c) private property; (d) menstrual periods; (e) all of the above. Essay Discuss the variations in tone possible when asking a male druggist: "Have you Tampax Super?"
New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay
Caitlin Kunkel - 2018
. . to promote me. He promotes me again and again. I am wild with ecstasy. Imagine a world where erotica was written by feminists: Their daydreams include equal pay, a gender-balanced Congress, and Tom Hardy arriving at their doorstep to deliver a fresh case of LaCroix every week. Both light-hearted and empowering, New Erotica for Feminists is a sly, satirical take on all the things that turn feminists on. From a retelling of Adam and Eve to tales of respectful Tinder dates, New Erotica for Feminists answers the question of “What do women really want?” with stories of power, equality, and an immortal Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Early Grrrl: The Early Poems of Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy - 1988
In homage to a new generation of tough young feminists, Marge Piercy presents a gathering of poems that reveal the poet as an early 'Grrrl.' Comprising over ninety poems selected from four books now out of print; poems previously published in literary magazines but never before collected and very early poems never published, this volume presents the bold and passionate political verse for which Piercy is well known alongside poems celebrating the sensual pleasures of gardening and cooking and sex; funny poems about New Year's Eve and warring boom boxes; vulnerable poems in which a young working class woman from the Midwest takes stock of herself and the limits of her world. For longtime fans and those new to Piercy's early work, this volume is an indispensable addition to the oeuvre of one of America's best-known and best-selling poets.Marge Piercy is the author of fifteen novels and fifteen books of poetry, most recently The Art of Blessing the Day (Knopf, 1999) a selection of Piercy's Jewish-themed poems. What Are Big Girls Made Of?(Knopf, 1997) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and selected as one of their Most Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association. In October, 1999, she will be a featured poet on the Bill Moyers' PBS-TV poetry specials "Fooling with Words" and "The Sounds of Poetry" and her newest novel, Three Women will be published by William Morrow.TABLE OF CONTENTSPreface, .xiFrom THE TWELVE SPOKED WHEEL FLASHINGThe meaningful exchange, 4 Five thousand miles, 5 The summer invasion, and the fall, 6 Nothing you can have, 9 Archipelago, 12 The first salad of March, 15 Exodus, 16 Ask me for anything else, 18 What is permitted, 20 A gift of light, 22 Short season, 27 Ghosts, 29 The new novel, 31 Women of letters, 32From LIVING IN THE OPENThe token woman, 37 The clearest joy, 39 Make me feel it, 40 Sage and rue, 42 River road, High Toss, 44 Paradise Hollow, 45
Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate
Barbara Mikulski - 2000
And following the 2000 election of four women to the Senate, the table is now set for thirteen. Weaving together their individual stories of triumph, adversity, adaptability, and leadership, Nine and Counting gives voice to these charismatic women as never before, offering a rare, insider's glimpse into Washington and sending the powerful message that membership in the "world's most exclusive club" is open to every woman in America.
A Mother's Story
Rosie Batty - 2015
But her world changed forever when her troubled ex-partner, Greg Anderson, killed Luke in an horrendous attack at the local cricket ground in February that year. Rosie had suffered years of family violence, and had intervention orders in place in an effort to protect herself and her son. She believes the killing was Greg's final act of power and control over her. But Rosie would not be silenced. Since the events of last February, she has become an outspoken crusader against family violence, winning hearts and minds all over Australia with her compassion and her courage. In January 2015, she was named Australian of the Year.
Women Don't Owe You Pretty
Florence Given - 2020
In a world that tells women we're either not enough or too much, it's time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to re-shape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society.Florence's book will help you to tackle and challenge the limiting narrative you have been bombarded with your whole life, and determine feminism on your own terms. After all, you are the love of your own life.