Beguines were laywomen, not nuns, and thus did not take solemn vows and did not live in monasteries. The beguines were a phenomenal movement that swept across Europe yet they were never a religious order or a formalized movement. But there were common elements that rendered these women distinctive and familiar, including their common way of life, their unusual business acumen, and their commitment to the poor and marginalized. These women were essentially self-defined, in opposition to the many attempts to control and define them. They lived by themselves or together in so-called beguinages, which could be single houses for as few as a handful of beguines or, as in Brugge and Amsterdam, walled-in rows of houses (enclosing a central court with a chapel) where over a thousand beguines might live—a village of women within a medieval town or city. And each region of Europe has its own beguine stories to tell. Among the beguines were celebrated spiritual writers and mystics, including Mechthild of Magdeburg, Beatrijs of Nazareth, Hadewijch of Brabant, and Marguerite Porete, who was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake in Paris in 1310. She was not the only beguine suspected of heresy, and often politics were the driving force behind such charges. Certain clerics defended beguines against charges of heresy, while other women had to go undercover by joining a Benedictine or Cistercian monastery. Amazingly, many beguine communities survived for a long time despite oppression, wars, the plague, and other human and natural disasters. Beguines lived through—and helped propel—times of great transition and reform. Beguines courageously spoke to power and corruption, never despairing of God’s compassion for humanity. They used their business acumen to establish and support ministries that extended education, health care, and other social services to the vulnerable. And they preached and taught of a loving God who desired a relationship with each individual person while calling to reform those who used God’s name for personal gain. What strength of spirit protected the lives of these women and their beguinages? What can we learn from them? What might they teach us? The beguines have much to say to our world today. This book invites us to listen to their voices, to discover them anew.

    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.

    In her clear and combative voice, Federici provides readers with an analysis of some of the key issues in contemporary thinking on this subject. Drawing on rich historical research, she maps the connections between the previous forms of enclosure that occurred with the birth of capitalism and the destruction of the commons and the “new enclosures” at the heart of the present phase of global capitalist accumulation. Considering the commons from a feminist perspective, this collection argues that women and reproductive work are crucial to both our economic survival and the construction of a world free from the capitalist hierarchies. Federici is clear that the commons should not be understood as happy islands in a sea of exploitative relations—but rather autonomous spaces from which to challenge the existing organization of life and labor.

    From Simon & Schuster, Moving Beyond Words is a collection of essays by influential feminist Gloria Steinem.In the book, Steinem examines the state of the women's movement in the 1990s and offers possibilities for the future, focusing on such issues as economic empowerment, women politicians, and life affirmations that affect women today.

    Exploring themes such as global gender relations and the practical uses of masculinity research, this text looks at the implications for the field, particularly with regard to understanding current world issues.

    Now Orenstein uses the same interviewing and reporting skills to examine the lives of women in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The advances of the women's movement allow women to grow up with a sense of expanded possibilities. Yet traditional expectations have hardly changed. To discover how they are navigating this double burden personally and professionally, Orenstein interviewed hundreds of women and has blended their voices into a compelling narrative that gets deep inside their lives and choices. With unusual sensitivity, Orenstein offers insight and inspiration for every woman who is making important decisions of her own.

    A Russian Jewish immigrant at the age of 17, she moved by her own efforts from seamstress in a clothing factory to internationally known radical lecturer, writer, editor and friend of the oppressed. This book is a collection of her remarkably penetrating essays, far in advance of their time, originally published by the Mother Earth press which she founded.In the first of these essays, Anarchism: What It Really Stands For, she says, "Direct action, having proven effective along economic lines, is equally potent in the environment of the individual." In Minorities Versus Majorities she holds that social and economic well-being will result only through "the non-compromising determination of intelligent minorities, and not through the mass." Other pieces deal with The Hypocrisy of Puritanism; Prisons: A Social Crim and Failure; The Psychology of Political Violence—note the relevence of these themes to our own time; The Drama: A Powerful Disseminator of Radical Thought; Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty; and The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation. A biographical sketch by Hippolyte Havel precedes the essays.Anarchism and Other Essays provides a fascinating look into revolutionary issues at the turn of the century, a prophetic view of the social and economic future, much of which we have seen take place, and above all, a glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary woman: brilliant, provocative, dedicated, passionate, and what used to be called "high-minded."Unabridged republication of the 3rd (1917) edition, with a new Introduction by Richard Drinnon. Frontispiece. xv + 271 pp. 5-3/8 x 8-1/2. Paperbound.

    50-black-and-white photos.

    A revised edition of Lee Maracle's visionary book which links teaching of her First Nations heritage with feminism.

    The results are nothing less than an education in the ways literature grips its readers and, at times, transforms their lives. Imagining Characters is indispensable, a work of criticism that returns us to the books it discusses with renewed respect and wonder.

    Cultural critic Mithu Sanyal is picking up where Susan Brownmiller left off in her influential 1975 book Against Our Will. In fact, she argues that the way we understand rape hasn't changed since then, even as the world has changed beyond recognition. She contends that it is high time for a new and informed debate about rape, sexual boundaries and consent.Sanyal argues that the way we as a society understand rape tells us not just how we understand sexual violence, but how we understand sex, sexuality, and gender itself. For instance, why is it so hard to imagine men as victims of rape? Why do we expect victims to be irreparably damaged? When we think of rapists, why do we still think of strangers in dark alleys, rather than uncles, husbands, priests, or boyfriends?The book examines the role of race and the trope of the black rapist, the omission of male victims, and what we mean when we talk about rape culture. She provocatively takes every received opinion we have about rape, and turns it inside out - arguing with liberals, conservatives, feminists and sexists alike.

    Anthony were two heroic women who vastly bettered the lives of a majority of American citizens. For more than fifty years they led the public battle to secure for women the most basic civil rights and helped establish a movement that would revolutionize American society. Yet despite the importance of their work and they impact they made on our history, a century and a half later, they have been almost forgotten.Stanton and Anthony were close friends, partners, and allies, but judging from their backgrounds they would seem an unlikely pair. Stanton was born into the prominent Livingston clan in New York, grew up wealthy, educated, and sociable, married and had a large family of her own. Anthony, raised in a devout Quaker environment, worked to support herself her whole life, elected to remain single, and devoted herself to progressive causes, initially Temperance, then Abolition. They were nearly total opposites in their personalities and attributes, yet complemented each other's strengths perfectly. Stanton was a gifted writer and radical thinker, full of fervor and radical ideas but pinned down by her reponsibilities as wife and mother, while Anthony, a tireless and single-minded tactician, was eager for action, undaunted by the terrible difficulties she faced. As Stanton put it, "I forged the thunderbolts, she fired them." The relationship between these two extraordinary women and its effect on the development of the suffrage movement are richly depicted by Ward and Burns, and in the accompanying essays by Ellen Carol Dubois, Ann D. Gordon, and Martha Saxton. We also see Stanton and Anthony's interactions with major figures of the time, from Frederick Douglass and John Brown to Lucretia Mott and Victoria Woodhull. Enhanced by a wonderful array of black-and-white and color illustrations, Not For Ourselves Alone is a vivid and inspiring portrait of two of the most fascinating, and important, characters in American history.

    Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is, Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, "The Black Atlantic" also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison.In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic.

    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.

    Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs’s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to the ways echolocation changes our understandings of “vision” and visionary action, this is a masterful use of metaphor and natural models in the service of social justice.