Book picks similar to
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Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home
Pamela Stone - 2007
Based on a series of candid, in-depth interviews with women who returned home after working as doctors, lawyers, bankers, scientists, and other professions, Pamela Stone explores the role that their husbands, children, and coworkers play in their decision; how women’s efforts to construct new lives and new identities unfold once they are home; and where their aspirations and plans for the future lie. What we learn—contrary to many media perceptions—is that these high-flying women are not opting out but are instead being pushed out of the workplace. Drawing on their experiences, Stone outlines concrete ideas for redesigning workplaces to make it easier for women—and men—to attain their goal of living rewarding lives that combine both families and careers.
The Mother of All Jobs: How to Have Children and a Career and Stay Sane(ish)
Christine Armstrong - 2018
As our working days get ever longer and our phones keep so many of us glued to work, the needs of our children and the world of school and childcare has not changed at all. School summer holidays are still longer than our annual leave. Working mothers everywhere are tearing themselves apart, trying to meet the needs of their children, their relationships and their careers and too often feeling like they are failing. So is there a solution?When Christine Armstrong became a mother, it never occurred to her that she would want to give up her job. But the truth is, combining work and small kids is hard, and when Christine tried it, she found herself desolate with misery. Determined to find a way forward, she looked for answers by interviewing other working mums and found that she wasn't alone.The Mother of All Jobs brings together the wisdom of the women who opened up about everything (and we mean everything) into a manifesto for happy professional families. Ignoring the glossy lives presented on social media, this book shows that, while it's not always pretty, working parents can thrive if they have the knowledge others learnt the hard way.
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity
José Esteban Muñoz - 2009
It has been stifled by this myopic focus on the present, which is short-sighted and assimilationist.Cruising Utopia seeks to break the present stagnancy by cruising ahead. Drawing on the work of Ernst Bloch, José Esteban Muñoz recalls the queer past for guidance in presaging its future. He considers the work of seminal artists and writers such as Andy Warhol, LeRoi Jones, Frank O'Hara, Ray Johnson, Fred Herko, Samuel Delany, and Elizabeth Bishop, alongside contemporary performance and visual artists like Dynasty Handbag, My Barbarian, Luke Dowd, Tony Just, and Kevin McCarty in order to decipher the anticipatory illumination of art and its uncanny ability to open windows to the future.In a startling repudiation of what the LGBT movement has held dear, Muñoz contends that queerness is instead a futurity bound phenomenon, a "not yet here" that critically engages pragmatic presentism. Part manifesto, part love-letter to the past and the future, Cruising Utopia argues that the here and now are not enough and issues an urgent call for the revivification of the queer political imagination.
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters—And How to Get It
Laurie Mintz - 2017
Mainstream media, movies, and porn have taught us that sex = penis + vagina, and everything else is just secondary. Standard penetration is how men most reliably achieve orgasm. The problem is, women don’t orgasm this way. We’ve separated our most reliable route to orgasm—clitoral stimulation—from how we feel we should orgasm—penetration. As a result, we’ve created a pleasure gap between women and men:50% of 18-35-year-old women say they have trouble reaching orgasm with a partner64% of women vs 91% of men said they had an orgasm at their last sexual encounter55% of men vs. 4% of women say they usually reach orgasm during first-time hookup sexIn Becoming Cliterate, psychology professor and human sexuality expert Dr. Laurie Mintz exposes the broader cultural problem that’s perpetuating this gap, and what we can do about it. Pulling together evidence from biology, sociology, linguistics, and sex therapy into one comprehensive, accessible, and prescriptive book, Becoming Cliterate features:Cultural & historical analysis of female orgasm (spoiler: the problem’s been going on for ages)An anatomy section (it’s all custom under the hood)Proven techniques for cliterate sex (it starts with training the sex organ between your ears)A comprehensive final chapter for men (because you don’t have to have a clitoris to be cliterate)By dispelling the lies, misunderstandings, and myths that have been holding us back, Becoming Cliterate tackles both personal and political problems and replaces them with updated outlooks and practical skills needed to change our collective perspective on sex. It’s time to finally inform women and men on how to have satisfying experiences in bed that benefit both parties.The revolution is cuming—and Becoming Cliterate offers a radical, simple solution to progress and pleasure for all.
Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
Joan Roughgarden - 2004
A distinguished evolutionary biologist, Roughgarden takes on the medical establishment, the Bible, social science—and even Darwin himself. She leads the reader through a fascinating discussion of diversity in gender and sexuality among fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, including primates. Evolution's Rainbow explains how this diversity develops from the action of genes and hormones and how people come to differ from each other in all aspects of body and behavior. Roughgarden reconstructs primary science in light of feminist, gay, and transgender criticism and redefines our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality. Witty, playful, and daring, this book will revolutionize our understanding of sexuality.Roughgarden argues that principal elements of Darwinian sexual selection theory are false and suggests a new theory that emphasizes social inclusion and control of access to resources and mating opportunity. She disputes a range of scientific and medical concepts, including Wilson's genetic determinism of behavior, evolutionary psychology, the existence of a gay gene, the role of parenting in determining gender identity, and Dawkins's "selfish gene" as the driver of natural selection. She dares social science to respect the agency and rationality of diverse people; shows that many cultures across the world and throughout history accommodate people we label today as lesbian, gay, and transgendered; and calls on the Christian religion to acknowledge the Bible's many passages endorsing diversity in gender and sexuality. Evolution's Rainbow concludes with bold recommendations for improving education in biology, psychology, and medicine; for democratizing genetic engineering and medical practice; and for building a public monument to affirm diversity as one of our nation's defining principles.
The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?
Deborah Cameron - 2007
In this wide-ranging and thoroughly readable book, Deborah Cameron, Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University and author of a number of leading texts in the field of language and gender studies, draws on over 30 years of scientific research to explain what we really know and to demonstrate how this is often very different from the accounts we are familiar with from recent popular writing. Ambitious in scope and exceptionally accessible, The Myth of Mars and Venus tells it like it is: widely accepted attitudes from the past and from other cultures are at heart related to assumptions about language and the place of men and women in society; and there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as between men and women, often associated with social roles and relationships. The author goes on to consider the influence of Darwinian theories of natural selection and the notion that girls and boys are socialized during childhood into different ways of using language, before addressing problems of miscommunication surrounding, for example, sex and consent to sex, and women's relative lack of success in work and politics. Arguing that what linguistic differences there are between men and women are driven by the need to construct and project personal meaning and identity, Cameron concludes that we have an urgent need to think about gender in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow.
In a Day's Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers
Bernice Yeung - 2018
But it takes a lot. It takes a lot.” —Dolores Huerta, United Farm Workers co-founderApple orchards in bucolic Washington state. Office parks in Southern California under cover of night. The home of an elderly man in Miami. These are some of the workplaces where female workers have suffered brutal sexual assault and shocking harassment at the hands of their employers, often with little or no official recourse. In this harrowing yet often inspiring tale, investigative journalist Bernice Yeung exposes the epidemic of sexual violence levied against women farmworkers, domestic workers, and janitorial workers and charts their quest for justice in the workplace.Yeung takes readers on a journey across the country, introducing us to women who came to America to escape grinding poverty only to encounter sexual violence in the United States. In a Day’s Work exposes the underbelly of economies filled with employers who take advantage of immigrant women’s need to earn a basic living. When these women find the courage to speak up, Yeung reveals, they are too often met by apathetic bosses and underresourced government agencies. But In a Day’s Work also tells a story of resistance, introducing a group of courageous allies who challenge dangerous and discriminatory workplace conditions alongside aggrieved workers—and win. Moving and inspiring, this book will change our understanding of the lives of immigrant women.
Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: An Integrated Study
Paula Rothenberg - 1998
Rothenberg deftly and consistently helps students analyze each phenomena, as well as the relationships among them, thereby deepening their understanding of each issue surrounding race and ethnicity.
Forget "Having It All": How America Messed Up Motherhood--and How to Fix It
Amy Westervelt - 2018
After filing a story only two hours after giving birth, and then getting straight back to full-time work the next morning, journalist Amy Westervelt had a revelation: America might claim to revere motherhood, but it treats women who have children like crap. From inadequate maternity leave to gender-based double standards, emotional labor to the "motherhood penalty" wage gap, racist devaluing of some mothers and overvaluing of others, and our tendency to consider women's value only in terms of their reproductive capacity, Westervelt became determined to understand how we got here and how the promise of "having it all" ever even became a thing when it was so far from reality for American women. In Forget "Having It All," Westervelt traces the roots of our modern expectations of mothers and motherhood back to extremist ideas held by the first Puritans who attempted to colonize America and examines how those ideals shifted -- or didn't -- through every generation since. Using this historical backdrop, Westervelt draws out what we should replicate from our past (bringing back home economics, for example, this time with an emphasis on gender-balanced labor in the home), and what we must begin anew as we overhaul American motherhood (including taking a more intersectional view of motherhood, thinking deeply about the ways in which capitalism influences our views on reproduction, and incorporating working fathers into discussions about work-life balance). In looking for inspiration elsewhere in the world, Westervelt turned not to Scandinavia, where every work-life balance story inevitably ends up, but to Japan where politicians, in an increasingly desperate effort to increase the country's birth rates (sound familiar?), tried to apply Scandinavian-style policies atop a capitalist democracy not unlike America's, only to find that policy can't do much in the absence of cultural shift. Ultimately, Westervelt presents a measured, historically rooted and research-backed call for workplace policies, cultural norms, and personal attitudes about motherhood that will radically improve the lives of not just working moms but all Americans.
Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy
Melvin Konner - 2015
In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is malformed and shrunken beyond recognition. The result is a shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression.It is called maleness.Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women and men. With patience and wit he explores the knotty question of whether men are necessary in the biological destiny of the human race. He draws on multiple, colorful examples from the natural world — such as the mating habits of the octopus, black widow, angler fish, and jacana — and argues that maleness in humans is hardly necessary to the survival of the species.In characteristically humorous and engaging prose, Konner sheds light on our biologically different identities, while noting the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers such as those in Botswana, whose culture gave women a prominent place, invented the working mother, and respected women’s voices around the fire. Recent human history has upset this balance, as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past two centuries, and an unstoppable move toward equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men, but it will be the end of male supremacy and a better, wiser world for women and men alike.
Motherwhelmed
Beth Berry - 2020
We’ve been conditioned to believe our inadequacy is the reason we can’t seem to “keep up” or enjoy mothering more, but nothing could be further from the truth.We aren’t failing as mothers. We’re mothering within a culture that is misleading and inadequately supporting us.Motherwhelmed is a deep, yet lighthearted exploration of the messy frontier of modern-day motherhood we’re all struggling to navigate. With compassion, realness, and rich storytelling, Beth Berry:• Illuminates the mindsets and narratives keeping us feeling overwhelmed, disempowered, anxious, isolated, and riddled with self-doubt• Provides the perspectives and tools needed for mothers to rewrite their stories and reclaim a sense of wholeness• Shares from her 25 years as an idealistic, passionate, all-in mother of four daughters• Reminds us of our worthiness and reframes our importanceThis is not a book about parenting. It’s a book about mothers, our greatness, and how important it is that we thrive. It’s about untangling ourselves from the stories keeping us trapped and deconstructing those we’ve outgrown. It’s about daring the lives we’re here to live and, thereby, giving our children permission to do the same.Until we begin to organize our lives around not only our children’s worthiness but also our own, mothers everywhere will continue to bear the brunt of cultural pain and dysfunction. This matters because we cannot be the changemakers we’re meant to be while so heavily burdened.
Go with the Flow
Lily Williams - 2020
Hazelton High never has enough tampons. Or pads. Or adults who will listen.Sick of an administration that puts football before female health, the girls confront a world that shrugs―or worse, squirms―at the thought of a menstruation revolution. They band together to make a change. It’s no easy task, especially while grappling with everything from crushes to trig to JV track but they have each other’s backs. That is, until one of the girls goes rogue, testing the limits of their friendship and pushing the friends to question the power of their own voices.Now they must learn to work together to raise each other up. But how to you stand your ground while raising bloody hell?
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media
Susan J. Douglas - 1994
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Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student
Miriam Grossman - 2006
Dr Anonymous should know: she’s treated over 2000 students at a prestigious university, and seen first hand how the anything-goes, women-are-just like- men, “safer-sex” agenda harms our sons and daughters. After years of hesitation, she’s speaking up. In Unprotected you will learn: * About an Ivy League university’s health website that okays risky behaviors including S&M, “swinging”, and bestiality * How campus health centers hound students to stop smoking, eat right, get enough sleep, and wear sunscreen, but tacitly approve of promiscuity, and whitewash the consequences of sexually transmitted infections * How HIV education is distorted, causing hysteria among students who are at no risk for infection * How campus counselors focus on sexual orientation, abuse, molestation, cigarettes and caffeine, but neglect to ask students about abortion * How ideology-driven health services lead young women to believe they are just like men – and to pay a high price for it. * How, despite strong evidence of significant health benefits of church attendance and faith in God, psychology remains anti-religion -- an irrational, out-dated prejudice Dr Anonymous calls “theophobia” Parents, educators, and health providers are all disturbed and mystified by the epidemic of sexually transmitted infections on our college campuses, as well as the rampant depression, suicidal behavior, eating disorders, and cutting. Dr Anonymous has seen it all. The solution, she contends, is not Zoloft or condoms. Instead, she urges her colleagues to stop feeding students platitudes about diet and exercise and misinformation about “protection”. What campus counselors and health providers must do, she argues, is tell uncomfortable, politically-incorrect truths, especially to young patients in their most vulnerable and confusing moments.
Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag
A.K. Summers - 2014
Teek wonders, “Can butches even get pregnant?”Of course, as she and her pragmatic femme girlfriend Vee discover, they can. But what happens when they do? Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, and based on her own pregnancy, Pregnant Butch strives to depict this increasingly common, but still underrepresented experience of queer pregnancy with humor and complexity—from the question of whether suspenders count as legitimate maternity wear to the strains created by different views of pregnancy within a couple and finally to a culturally critical and compassionate interrogation of gender in pregnancy. Offering smart, ambitious art, this graphic memoir is a must-read for would-be pregnant butches and anyone interested in the intersection of birth and gender, as well as a perfect queer baby shower gift and conversation starter for those who always assumed they “got” being pregnant.