Celebrate Women's History Month

Fifteen years after her death, Andrea Dworkin remains one of the most important and challenging figures in second-wave feminism. Although frequently relegated to its more radical fringes, Dworkin was without doubt a formidable and influential writer, a philosopher, and an activist—a brilliant figure who inspired and infuriated in equal measure. Her many detractors were eager to reduce her to the caricature of the angry, man-hating feminist who believed that all sex was rape, and as a result, her work has long been misunderstood. It is in recent years, especially with the rise of the #MeToo movement, that there has been a resurgence of interest in her ideas.

This biography is the perfect complement to the widely reviewed anthology of her writing, Last Days at Hot Slit, published in 2019, providing much-needed context to her work. Given exclusive access to never-before-published photographs and archives, including her letters to many of the major figures of second-wave feminism, award-winning biographer Martin Duberman traces Dworkin's life, from her abusive first marriage through her central role in the sex and pornography wars of the following decades. This is a vital, complex, and long overdue reassessment of the life and work of one of the towering figures of second-wave feminism.

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
—Title IX’s first thirty-seven words

By prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education, the 1972 legislation popularly known as Title IX profoundly changed the lives of women and girls in the United States, accelerating a movement for equal education in classrooms, on sports fields, and in all of campus life.

37 Words is the story of Title IX. Filled with rich characters—from Bernice Resnick Sandler, an early organizer for the law, to her trans grandchild—the story of Title IX is a legislative and legal drama with conflicts over regulations and challenges to the law. It’s also a human story about women denied opportunities, students struggling for an education free from sexual harassment, and activists defying sexist discrimination. These intersecting narratives of women seeking an education, playing sports, and wanting protection from sexual harassment and assault map gains and setbacks for feminism in the last fifty years and show how some women benefit more than others. Award-winning journalist Sherry Boschert beautifully explores the gripping history of Title IX through the gutsy people behind it.

In the tradition of the acclaimed documentary She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, 37 Words offers a crucial playbook for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and who is horrified by current attacks on women’s rights.

In 1972, thirty-seven words quietly entered federal law and ignited a revolution: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Title IX redefined what was possible for women and girls in America’s schools—from access to classrooms and sports fields to protection from sexual harassment and assault. In Fifty Years of Title IX, a book The Washington Monthly calls “an impressive feat,” award-winning journalist Sherry Boschert traces the dramatic story of how this pivotal law came to be, how it has evolved, and why it remains a powerful—and contested—force in the struggle for gender justice.

Through meticulous reporting, Boschert introduces readers to the trailblazers behind the law, including Bernice Resnick Sandler, and the generations who have demanded that its promises be fulfilled. Called “inspiring” by Publishers Weekly, Fifty Years of Title IX “puts a human face” (Library Journal) on the fight for gender equity.

As Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of No Stopping Us Now, writes, Boschert has published “a road map for what it will take to go forward. It is a really important book.”

The lyrical and globe-spanning memoir by the influential feminist economist, with introductory pieces from two American icons

“Your heart and world will be opened by reading The Brass Notebook, the intimate and political life of Devaki Jain, a young woman who dares to become independent.” —Gloria Steinem

When she was barely thirty, the Indian feminist economist Devaki Jain befriended Doris Lessing, Nobel winner and author of The Golden Notebook, who encouraged Jain to write her story. Over half a century later, Jain has crafted what Desmond Tutu has called “a riveting account of the life story of a courageous woman who has all her life challenged what convention expects of her.”

Across an extraordinary life intertwined with those of Iris Murdoch, Gloria Steinem, Julius Nyerere, Henry Kissinger, and Nelson Mandela, Jain navigated a world determined to contain her ambitions. While still a young woman, she traveled alone across the subcontinent to meet Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave, hitchhiked around Europe in a sari, and fell in love with a Yugoslav at a Quaker camp in Saarbrücken. She attended Oxford University, supporting herself by washing dishes in a local café. Later, over the course of an influential career as an economist, Jain seized on the cause of feminism, championing the poor women who labored in the informal economy long before mainstream economics attended to questions of inequality.

With a foreword by Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen and an introduction by the well-known American feminist Gloria Steinem, whose own life and career were inspired by time spent with Jain, The Brass Notebook perfectly merges the political with the personal—a book full of life, ideas, politics, and history.

WINNER OF THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

THE GLOBE AND MAIL: BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2023

THE GLOBE AND MAIL BEST 100 BOOKS OF 2023

CBC BOOKS BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION OF 2023

Martha Baillie’s richly layered response to her mother’s passing, her father's life, and her sister’s suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time. 

Three essays, three deaths. The first is the death of the author’s mother, a protracted disappearance, leaving space for thoughtfulness and ritual: the washing of her body, the making of a death mask. The second considers the author’s father, his remoteness, his charm, a lacuna at the centre of the family even before his death, earlier than her mother’s. And then, the shocking death of the author’s sister, a visual artist and writer living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who writes three reasons to die on her bedroom wall and then takes her life.

In this close observation of a family, few absolutes hold, as experiences of reality diverge. A memoir of cascading grief and survival from the author of The Incident Report.

"Martha Baillie’s novels are thrillingly, joyously singular, that rare combination of sui generis and just plain generous. That There Is No Blue, her memoir, is all of those things too, is no surprise; still, she has gone somewhere extraordinary. This triptych of essays, which exquisitely unfolds the “disobedient tale” of the lives and deaths of her mother, her father, and her sister, is a meditation on the mystery and wonder of grief and art making and home and memory itself. It made me think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair, in which the mending is not hidden but featured and beautifully illuminated. Baillie’s variety of attention, carved out of language, is tenderness, is love." – Maud Casey, author of City of Incurable Women

"This is a stunning memoir, intense and meticulous in its observations of family life. Baillie subtly interrogates and conveys the devastating mistranslations that take place in childhood, the antagonism and porousness of siblings, and the tragedy of schizophrenia as it unfolds. I couldn’t put it down." – Dr. Lisa Appignanesi, author of Mad, Bad and Sad and Everyday Madness

""Exquisite." – Souvankham Thammavongsa, author of How to Pronounce Knife

"I am grateful for this profound meditation on family and loss.” – Charlie Kaufman, filmmaker

"This strange, unsettling memoir of outer life and inner life and their bizarre twining captures the author’s identity by way of her mother’s death, her sister’s failing battle with mental illness, and the mysterious figure of her father. It combines anguished guilt, deep tenderness, and bemused affection in highly evocative, often disturbing prose. Its brave honesty is amplified by a persistent lyricism; its undercurrent of fear is uplifted by a surprising, resilient hopefulness. It is both a plea for exoneration and an act of exoneration, an authentic meditation on the terrible difficulty of being human." – Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

THE GLOBE AND MAIL: BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2023

THE GLOBE AND MAIL BEST 100 BOOKS OF 2023

CBC BOOKS BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION OF 2023

Martha Baillie’s richly layered response to her mother’s passing, her father's life, and her sister’s suicide is an exploration of how the body, the rooms we inhabit, and our languages offer the psyche a home, if only for a time. 

Three essays, three deaths. The first is the death of the author’s mother, a protracted disappearance, leaving space for thoughtfulness and ritual: the washing of her body, the making of a death mask. The second considers the author’s father, his remoteness, his charm, a lacuna at the centre of the family even before his death, earlier than her mother’s. And then, the shocking death of the author’s sister, a visual artist and writer living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, who writes three reasons to die on her bedroom wall and then takes her life.

In this close observation of a family, few absolutes hold, as experiences of reality diverge. A memoir of cascading grief and survival from the author of The Incident Report.

"Martha Baillie’s novels are thrillingly, joyously singular, that rare combination of sui generis and just plain generous. That There Is No Blue, her memoir, is all of those things too, is no surprise; still, she has gone somewhere extraordinary. This triptych of essays, which exquisitely unfolds the “disobedient tale” of the lives and deaths of her mother, her father, and her sister, is a meditation on the mystery and wonder of grief and art making and home and memory itself. It made me think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repair, in which the mending is not hidden but featured and beautifully illuminated. Baillie’s variety of attention, carved out of language, is tenderness, is love." – Maud Casey, author of City of Incurable Women

"This is a stunning memoir, intense and meticulous in its observations of family life. Baillie subtly interrogates and conveys the devastating mistranslations that take place in childhood, the antagonism and porousness of siblings, and the tragedy of schizophrenia as it unfolds. I couldn’t put it down." – Dr. Lisa Appignanesi, author of Mad, Bad and Sad and Everyday Madness

""Exquisite." – Souvankham Thammavongsa, author of How to Pronounce Knife

"I am grateful for this profound meditation on family and loss.” – Charlie Kaufman, filmmaker

"This strange, unsettling memoir of outer life and inner life and their bizarre twining captures the author’s identity by way of her mother’s death, her sister’s failing battle with mental illness, and the mysterious figure of her father. It combines anguished guilt, deep tenderness, and bemused affection in highly evocative, often disturbing prose. Its brave honesty is amplified by a persistent lyricism; its undercurrent of fear is uplifted by a surprising, resilient hopefulness. It is both a plea for exoneration and an act of exoneration, an authentic meditation on the terrible difficulty of being human." – Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

“Intrepid and empathetic, gifted with the dispassionate gaze of a born observer…a  harmonious collage of worldview and character, a wunderkammer of experiences in a life fully lived.” —Melissa Febos, The New York Times

Winner of the 2023 Lowell Thomas Award

“DeSanctis encounters spies and love interests, but it’s her lushly polished writing that makes this book a joy to read.” —The Washington Post

Vogue's Best Books of 2022

The Washington Post’s Best Travel Books of 2022

Restless to leave, eager to return: this memoir in essays captures the unrelenting pull between the past and the present, between traveling the world and staying home.

Starting in a dreary Moscow hotel room in 1983, weaving back and forth to rural New England, and ending on a West Texas trail in 2020, Marcia DeSanctis tells stories that span the globe and half a lifetime. With intimacy and depth, over quicksand in France, insomnia in Cambodia, up a volcano in Rwanda, spinning through the eye of a snowstorm in Bismarck, and atop a dumpster in her own backyard, this New York Times bestselling author, award-winning essayist and journalist for Vogue and Travel + Leisure immerses us in places waiting to be experienced and some that may be more than we’re up for. She encounters spies, angels, leopards, shoes, the odd rattlesnake, a random head of state, and many times over, the ghosts of her past. Each subsequent voyage leads to revelations about her search for solitude, a capacity for adventure, and always, a longing for home.

"The best protection any woman can have... is courage."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, US suffragette

Throughout history, women have often been silenced, their contributions overlooked, their struggles ignored. Yet, despite these barriers, countless figures have challenged the status quo to fight for equality and justice. This little book features stirring words from women across the ages - leaders, activists, writers and pioneers who challenged societal norms and shattered glass ceilings.

From the fierce voices of the suffragettes to life-affirming advice from modern-day go-getters, each quote is a testament to the resilience, courage and vision of women who have shaped our world.

"I raise up my voice - not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard... We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back."
Malala Yousafzai

"My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet, is that they all realize their worth and ask for it."
Taylor Swift

"There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish."
Michelle Obama

When Jessica Teich happens upon the obituary of a fellow Rhodes scholar named Lacey, she vows to unravel the truth behind the young woman’s suicide. As Lacey’s story unspools, Teich begins to detect ghostly links to her own life, forcing her to reflect on her own anguished past. A funny, probing and deeply affecting book, The Future Tense of Joy is the luminous account of one woman’s efforts to free herself—and her family—from the demons of her memory. The book explores the daily upheavals of marriage and motherhood, even as it exposes the treachery of silence and honors the consoling power of love.

“'No one was less likely to take her own life.' That’s what her Oxford thesis advisor said. From the moment I stumbled across her obituary, late at night when I couldn’t sleep, I was captivated. This brilliant woman seemed incandescent. She was funny and gifted and generous and beloved. Twenty-seven years old, and a newlywed. Why would she decide to die?"

“Jessica Teich’s understanding of trauma is the infallible authority upon which her tale rests. But the delicacy and nuance with which she renders this story is that of a poet. This beautiful, compassionately imagined book will bring a pang of recognition to anyone who has traveled to young adulthood from a wounded adolescence via the quest for ‘perfection.’”  —MERYL STREEP 

Los malos de la historia: Malinche.

«Empezaré por una advertencia. Si el lector busca entre estas páginas una biografía del tipo: “La Malinche nació en el año tal, cursó sus estudios en la escuela primaria Herederos de Chimalpopoca, se graduó con honores, amó con pasión incondicional y desmedida a Hernán Cortés y fue madre del primer mestizo de América”, mejor devuelva este libro al estante. No va a encontrar nada de eso.

Malinche (ya explicaremos todos los nombres que se le dieron y sus porqués) es sin duda la mujer más importante de la historia de México. Ni doña Josefa, la Corregidora, ni Leona Vicario, ni la Güera Rodríguez, ni Carmen Serdán (aunque se enojen nuestros más fervientes patriotas, prófugos de la monografía y mártires de la cartulina) tuvieron el impacto que causó la mujer indígena protagonista de este libro. A su vez, ningún personaje femenino de la historia de este país ha pasado por tantas, extremas y contradictorias etapas de interpretación que la consideran, desde la traidora más abyecta de nuestra suave patria, hasta la víctima inerme y esclava sexual de los infames españoles.

Baste con reafirmar que este libro no es una apología en favor de ningún bando, sino que busca comprender el devenir vital de una mujer tan peculiar como ensombrecida, sin reconvenciones moralinas que dicten lo que unos debieron hacer, pensar y evitar, o lo que los otros dejaron de hacer, lo cual es una tarea fundamental del historiador».

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

The Villains of History: Malinche.

“Let me begin with a warning. If the reader expects a biography like: ‘Malinche was born in such-and-such year, attended Herederos de Chimalpopoca Elementary School, graduated with honors, loved Hernán Cortés with unconditional and excessive passion, and became the mother of the first mestizo of the Americas,’ they’d better put this book back on the shelf. That’s not what they’ll find here.”

Malinche (all her names and their meanings will be explained) is undoubtedly the most important woman in Mexican history. Not even Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, Leona Vicario, La Güera Rodríguez, or Carmen Serdán (despite what our most fervent patriots may think, fugitives from school projects and martyrs of poster board) had the impact of the indigenous woman who stars in this book. No other female figure in Mexican history has undergone such extreme and contradictory interpretations—ranging from the most abject traitor of our tender homeland to the helpless victim and sexual slave of the infamous Spaniards.

This book is not an apology for any side, but rather an attempt to understand the vital journey of a woman as peculiar as she is shadowed, without moralistic judgments about what some should have done, thought, or avoided, or what others failed to do—an essential task for any historian.”

Meet the Real Women of Regency Romance

Fans of the Bridgerton books and Jane Austen will love Felicity Day’s collection of true stories from women who have lived and loved in Regency England.

Welcome to London’s marriage season. Six high society women are preparing for the biggest moment of their lives: finding a suitable husband. But their stories aren’t what you may have read in historic romances by Julia Quinn or Georgette Heyer. In The Game of Hearts, go behind the drawing-room door with history author Felicity Day and delve into the competitive world of love, scandal, and fortune. With shocking revelations about London’s most eligible heiresses and the society they live in, you’ll see British history and love stories from a whole new perspective.

May the best lady win. For our six privileged debutantes, life wasn’t like a Regency romance; they had to work for their happily ever after. Even if it meant competing with dozens of other women who want the same thing. By using the letters, diaries, and other confessions from our heroines, Felicity Day shares how they and many other Regency women combined attraction with practicality to navigate upper-class British society, known as the ton,  and its courtship rituals. And with obstacles such as scandals, rakes, and social warfare, you’ll discover how love and success may not always win, but perseverance shall.

Discover more true stories from real Regency heroines, including:

• How the survival of Britain’s elite families depended on their children’s marriages
• What really happened during a grand ball and promenade
• How the game of conversation and attraction unfolded between a lady and her suitor
• What became of those who did and did not secure a match

So if you liked historic women biographies like Jane Austen at Home, The Palace Papers, or A Room of Their Own, then you’ll love The Game of Hearts.

Informed by over 150 surveys and 14 interviews with military personnel, NATO elites, and force generators, this book provides a necessary challenge to the policies, processes, and assumptions that are often taken for granted in military organizational cultures of NATO and its member states.

NATO’s buy-in to gender-sensitive policies and programming at the policy level was only formalized in 2007 with the NATO/EAPC Policy for the Implementation of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. The policy reiterates the importance of women’s participation across NATO, its member states and partners in order to enhance operational effectiveness.

Determining what factors influence women’s deployment and participation in the military is essential to meet NATO’ and member states’ ongoing commitments to gender equality and gender mainstreaming. This book exposes hidden resistances that hinder women’s deployment on NATO operations through critical appraisal of NATO’s gender architecture and policies, and comparing the perspectives of force generators and policy makers with the experiences of military personnel.

From the sunlit courtyard of her family home in Mogadishu to the icy streets of Minneapolis, Life, Interrupted is a deeply personal memoir about migration, motherhood, and the enduring influence of a father’s love.

Raised in a close-knit, multigenerational Somali household, Sahra was shaped early by tradition and by the towering presence of her father, Noor. His voice, his choices, and his values became the compass by which she learned to navigate the world. But when she arrived in the United States as a teenager, everything shifted. As she built a life in America on her own terms, she examined how her father’s hopes and expectations both shaped and confined her and how the love between them, though complex, endured through every chapter of her life. 

Told with fierce honesty, emotional clarity, and quiet resilience, Life, Interrupted is a memoir for anyone who has ever straddled two cultures, two generations, or two selves and searched for belonging in the in-between.

Her name is synonymous with the Boundary Waters and root beer. Her story is one of struggle and triumph. Dorothy Molter lived in the BWCA for over 50 years—15 miles and 5 portages from the nearest road. In 1952, a Saturday Evening Post article even declared her “The Loneliest Woman in America,” though nothing could be further from the truth, as she received countless visitors over the years.

This is the biography of the Nightingale of the Wilderness, of a woman who fought the government for her land, of a woman whose life inspired a museum in her honor.

Book Features:

• A fresh look at Dorothy’s life from the people who operate her museum
• New stories and long-forgotten photographs
• Dorothy’s famous Christmas letters
• Dorothy’s very own root beer recipe

Even those familiar with Dorothy’s incredible life story have never experienced it like this.

'Call the Midwife compellingly transposed from the East End of London to the Borneo rainforest'
Lynne Tembey, Mothers' Union Worldwide President

1959. Newcastle nurse Wendy Grey leaves her comfortable life and answers a call from people in Borneo to run a clinic in a place so remote, many there have never before seen a white woman. Until her arrival, medical witchcraft has been the norm. Nevertheless, Wendy quickly gains the trust of the locals, and they begin to flock to her for treatment. And - terrifyingly - when some require emergency surgery, she must also become anaesthetist and surgeon... or watch her patients die.

From treacherous journeys on land and water to tea parties with the governor; from tussles with snakes and scorpions to Scrabble with nuns; from struggling with illness to suddenly falling in love - this unique glimpse into contrasting sides of a lost colonial world is possible thanks to Wendy's detailed diaries, written by the light of an oil lamp in her bamboo and palm-leaf house.

Meanwhile, back home, churches throughout the UK are praying for the young woman in Borneo.

'A heart-warming adventure... a spellbinding narrative... a step into another world.' Mark Beaumont, adventurer, author and broadcaster

'A sickly child not expected to survive, a chubby teenager and a binge-eating bride? The unlikely beginnings of a health and fitness legend.' Daily Express

'A story of glamour, success and achievement, mixed with vulnerability, near-despair and searing honesty.’ Rob Parsons OBE

The doctor’s voice is sad but firm: ‘I’m very sorry, but I have to tell you that your little girl is unlikely to reach her 10th birthday.’ Years later, having defied the odds and become a teenager, the same girl discovers a medical report that tells her, to her horror, she is overweight.

That was the moment the young Rosemary Conley decided to change her life. After leaving school at 15, training as a secretary and working as a Tupperware dealer, Rosemary started her own slimming classes in 1972 with an investment of just £8. In 1983 she published the first of 36 books that were to sell in their millions around the world, alongside millions more of her fitness videos, while also starring in her own TV shows on BBC and ITV. She became, in short, one of the most popular and successful diet and fitness experts the world has seen.

But Rosemary’s life was not to be one of unbounded achievement and success. As well as the good times there were dark and distressing times, and here she tells of the sorrows and setbacks that were to come – as well as the joy she found, and still finds, in helping people live longer, healthier and happier lives.

'Call the Midwife compellingly transposed from the East End of London to the Borneo rainforest'
Lynne Tembey, Mothers' Union Worldwide President

1959. Newcastle nurse Wendy Grey leaves her comfortable life and answers a call from people in Borneo to run a clinic in a place so remote, many there have never before seen a white woman. Until her arrival, medical witchcraft has been the norm. Nevertheless, Wendy quickly gains the trust of the locals, and they begin to flock to her for treatment. And - terrifyingly - when some require emergency surgery, she must also become anaesthetist and surgeon... or watch her patients die.

From treacherous journeys on land and water to tea parties with the governor; from tussles with snakes and scorpions to Scrabble with nuns; from struggling with illness to suddenly falling in love - this unique glimpse into contrasting sides of a lost colonial world is possible thanks to Wendy's detailed diaries, written by the light of an oil lamp in her bamboo and palm-leaf house.

Meanwhile, back home, churches throughout the UK are praying for the young woman in Borneo.

'A heart-warming adventure... a spellbinding narrative... a step into another world.' Mark Beaumont, adventurer, author and broadcaster

Award-winning author Christina Myers navigates the uncharted territory of midlife in a time of rapid social, cultural, and environmental change.

Modern midlife is finding oneself halfway home but without any reliable maps for the route ahead. With wit and warmth, these personal essays move from a first bra to first hot flashes to consider the lessons we learn through media and culture––and from each other––about bodies, sexuality, fatphobia, gender roles, and what we should want in life. Christina Myers explores the ways that beauty standards and cultural expectations around femininity have shaped our identities and how we might shed those going forward; the power of friendships and the value of having other women to learn from; the anxiety of moving through motherhood into menopause in a time of global environmental crisis and political upheaval; and the uncertainty of how this stage of life should unfold, as old systems shift and crumble. Though our maps for midlife are never identical, we discover familiar paths and common landmarks in each other’s stories; these essays remind us there are others on this trail with us, just behind or just ahead, out of sight. We are not alone.

As seen in previous pandemics, girls and young women are particularly vulnerable as social issues such as homelessness, mental healthcare, access to education, and child labor are often exacerbated. The Girl in the Pandemic considers what academics, community activists, and those working in local, national, and global NGOs are learning about the lives of girls and young women during pandemics. Drawing from a range of responses during the pandemic including first person narratives, community ethnographies, and participatory action research, this collection offers a picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic played out in eight different countries.

A new edition of a groundbreaking, feminist defense of pornography as free speech

Named a Notable Book by The New York Times Book Review in 1995, Defending Pornography examines a key question that has divided feminists for decades: is censoring pornography good or bad for women? Nadine Strossen makes a powerful case that increasing government power to censor sexual expression, beyond the limits that the First Amendment sensibly permits (for example, outlawing child pornography) would do more harm than good for women and others who have traditionally been marginalized due to sex or gender, She explains how the very anti-porn laws pushed by some feminists have led to the censorship of LGBTQ+ and feminist works, and she examines the startling connections between anti-porn feminists and right-wing fundamentalists. In an illuminating new Preface, Strossen lays out the multiple current assaults on sexual expression, which continue to come from across the ideological spectrum. She shows that freedom for such expression remains an essential prerequisite for the equality, safety, and dignity of women and sexual/gender minorities.

Honorable Mention, 2019 Distinguished Book Award, given by the Sex & Gender Section of the American Sociological Association

Honorable Mention, 2019 Marysa Navarro Book Prize, given by the New England Council of Latin American Studies (NECLAS)


A profound reflection on state violence and women’s survival

In the 1970s and early 80s, military and security forces in Argentina hunted down, tortured, imprisoned, and in many cases, murdered political activists, student organizers, labor unionists, leftist guerrillas, and other people branded “subversives.” This period was characterized by massive human rights violations, including forced disappearances committed in the name of national security. State terror left a deep scar on contemporary Argentina, but for many survivors and even the nation itself, talking about this dark period in recent history has been difficult, and at times taboo.

For women who endured countless forms of physical, sexual, and emotional violence in clandestine detention centers, the impetus to keep quiet about certain aspects of captivity has been particularly strong. In Surviving State Terror, Barbara Sutton draws upon a wealth of oral testimonies to place women’s bodies and voices at the center of the analysis of state terror. The book showcases poignant stories of women’s survival and resistance, disinterring accounts that have yet to be fully heard, grappled with, and understood. With a focus on the body as a key theme, Sutton explores various instances of violence toward women, such as sexual abuse and torture at the hands of state officials. Yet she also uses these narratives to explore why some types of social suffering and certain women’s voices are heard more than others, and how this can be rectified in our own practices of understanding and witnessing trauma. In doing so, Sutton urges us to pay heed to women survivors’ political voices, activist experiences, and visions for social change.

Recounting not only women’s traumatic experiences, but also emphasizing their historical and political agency, Surviving State Terror is a profound reflection on state violence, social suffering, and human resilience—both personal and collective.

What prenatal tests and down syndrome reveal about our reproductive choices

When Alison Piepmeier—scholar of feminism and disability studies, and mother of Maybelle, an eight-year-old girl with Down syndrome—died of cancer in August 2016, she left behind an important unfinished manuscript about motherhood, prenatal testing, and disability. In Unexpected, George Estreich and Rachel Adams pick up where she left off, honoring the important research of their friend and colleague, as well as adding new perspectives to her work.

Based on interviews with parents of children with Down syndrome, as well as women who terminated their pregnancies because their fetus was identified as having the condition, Unexpected paints an intimate, nuanced picture of reproductive choice in today’s world. Piepmeier takes us inside her own daughter’s life, showing how Down syndrome is misunderstood, stigmatized, and condemned, particularly in the context of prenatal testing.

At a time when medical technology is rapidly advancing, Unexpected provides a much-needed perspective on our complex, and frequently troubling, understanding of Down syndrome.

PROSE Award Winner for Biography and Autobiography

Named one of Library Journal's Best Books of 2023

Winner, Next Generation Indie Book Awards - Women's Nonfiction

Offers thought-provoking theories and life-transforming ways to deal with pain

What can we ask of pain? How can we be more creative and courageous in carrying pain in our lives? In this genre-bending work that is equal parts memoir and scholarly criticism, L. Ayu Saraswati provides thought-provoking theories and life-transforming ways to understand pain, specifically in relation to feminism. Arguing that pain is not merely a state we are in, Scarred reframes pain as a “transnational feminist object,” something that we can carry across international borders. Drawing on her own experience traveling across twenty countries within just over a year, Saraswati aims to bring readers along on her journey so that they might ask themselves, “How can I live with pain differently?”

By using pain as a lens of feminist analysis, Scarred allows us to chart how power produces and operates through pain, and how pain is embodied and embedded in relationships. Saraswati provides a heartfelt and engaging recount of her experiences while also pushing the boundaries of the respective fields her story engages with. She allows for renewed academic and personal insights to blossom by using a blend of transnational feminist theory, travel studies, and pain studies. Ultimately, Scarred invites us to reframe pain and ask how might we carry it in a more humane, life-sustaining, enchanting, and feminist way.

An inside look at women graffiti artists around the world

Since the dawn of Hip Hop graffiti writing on the streets of Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1960s, writers have anonymously inscribed their tag names on trains, buildings, and bridges. Passersby are left to imagine who the author might be, and, despite the artists’ anonymity, graffiti subculture is seen as a “boys club,” where the presence of the graffiti girl is almost unimaginable. In Graffiti Grrlz, Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón interrupts this stereotype and introduces us to the world of women graffiti artists.

Drawing on the lives of over 100 women in 23 countries, Pabón-Colón argues that graffiti art is an unrecognized but crucial space for the performance of feminism. She demonstrates how it builds communities of artists, reconceptualizes the Hip Hop masculinity of these spaces, and rejects notions of “girl power.” Graffiti Grrlz also unpacks the digital side of Hip Hop graffiti subculture and considers how it widens the presence of the woman graffiti artist and broadens her networks, which leads to the formation of all-girl graffiti crews or the organization of all-girl painting sessions.

A rich and engaging look at women artists in a male-dominated subculture, Graffiti Grrlz reconsiders the intersections of feminism, hip hop, and youth performance and establishes graffiti art as a game that anyone can play.

A critique of population control narratives reproduced by international development actors in the 21st century

Since the turn of the millennium, American media, scientists, and environmental activists have insisted that the global population crisis is “back”—and that the only way to avoid catastrophic climate change is to ensure women’s universal access to contraception. Did the population problem ever disappear? What is bringing it back—and why now? In On Infertile Ground, Jade S. Sasser explores how a small network of international development actors, including private donors, NGO program managers, scientists, and youth advocates, is bringing population back to the center of public environmental debate. While these narratives never disappeared, Sasser argues, histories of human rights abuses, racism, and a conservative backlash against abortion in the 1980s drove them underground—until now.

Using interviews and case studies from a wide range of sites—from Silicon Valley foundation headquarters to youth advocacy trainings, the halls of Congress and an international climate change conference—Sasser demonstrates how population growth has been reframed as an urgent source of climate crisis and a unique opportunity to support women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. ­Although well-intentioned—promoting positive action, women’s empowerment, and moral accountability to a global community—these groups also perpetuate the same myths about the sexuality and lack of virtue and control of women and the people of global south that have been debunked for decades. Unless the development community recognizes the pervasive repackaging of failed narratives, Sasser argues, true change and development progress will not be possible.

On Infertile Ground presents a unique critique of international development that blends the study of feminism, environmentalism, and activism in a groundbreaking way. It will make any development professional take a second look at the ideals driving their work.

A woman's fight to reclaim her body after a paralysis-inducing cycling accident

In the early evening on October 1, 2003, Christina Crosby was three miles into a seventeen mile bicycle ride, intent on reaching her goal of 1,000 miles for the riding season. She was a respected senior professor of English who had celebrated her fiftieth birthday a month before. As she crested a hill, she caught a branch in the spokes of her bicycle, which instantly pitched her to the pavement. Her chin took the full force of the blow, and her head snapped back. In that instant, she was paralyzed.

In A Body, Undone, Crosby puts into words a broken body that seems beyond the reach of language and understanding. She writes about a body shot through with neurological pain, disoriented in time and space, incapacitated by paralysis and deadened sensation. To address this foreign body, she calls upon the readerly pleasures of narrative, critical feminist and queer thinking, and the concentrated language of lyric poetry. Working with these resources, she recalls her 1950s tomboy ways in small-town, rural Pennsylvania, and records growing into the 1970s through radical feminism and the affirmations of gay liberation.

Deeply unsentimental, Crosby communicates in unflinching prose the experience of "diving into the wreck" of her body to acknowledge grief, and loss, but also to recognize the beauty, fragility, and dependencies of all human bodies. A memoir that is a meditation on disability, metaphor, gender, sex, and love, A Body, Undone is a compelling account of living on, as Crosby rebuilds her body and fashions a life through writing, memory, and desire.

A trailblazing look at how the law regulates women’s bodies as reproductive sites and what can be done about it.

At the center of the “war on women” lies the fact that women in the contemporary United States are facing more widespread and increased surveillance of their reproductive health and decisions. In recent years states have passed a record number of laws restricting abortion. Physicians continue to sterilize some women against their will, especially those in prison, while other women who choose to forego reproduction cannot find physicians to sterilize them. While these actions seem to undermine women’s decision-making authority, experts and state actors often defend them in terms of promoting women’s autonomy.

In Governed through Choice, Jennifer M. Denbow exposes the way that the notion of autonomy allows for this apparent contradiction and explores how it plays out in recent reproductive law, including newly enacted informed consent to abortion laws like ultrasound mandates and the regulation of sterilization. Denbow also shows how developments in reproductive technology, which would seem to increase women’s options and autonomy, provide even more opportunities for state management of women’s bodies. The book argues that notions of autonomy and choice, as well as transformations in reproductive technology, converge to enable the state’s surveillance of women and undermine their decision-making authority. Yet, Denbow asserts that there is a way forward and offers an alternative understanding of autonomy that focuses on critique and social transformation. Moreover, while reproductive technologies may heighten surveillance, they can also help disrupt oppressive norms about reproduction and gender, and create space for transformation. A critically important analysis, Governed through Choice is a trailblazing look at how the law regulates women’s bodies as reproductive sites and what can be done about it.

A comprehensive history of women in Japanese religious traditions

Scholars have widely acknowledged the persistent ambivalence with which the Japanese religious traditions treat women. Much existing scholarship depicts Japan’s religious traditions as mere means of oppression. But this view raises a question: How have ambivalent and even misogynistic religious discourses on gender still come to inspire devotion and emulation among women?

In Women in Japanese Religions, Barbara R. Ambros examines the roles that women have played in the religions of Japan. An important corrective to more common male-centered narratives of Japanese religious history, this text presents a synthetic long view of Japanese religions from a distinct angle that has typically been discounted in standard survey accounts of Japanese religions.

Drawing on a diverse collection of writings by and about women, Ambros argues that ambivalent religious discourses in Japan have not simply subordinated women but also given them religious resources to pursue their own interests and agendas. Comprising nine chapters organized chronologically, the book begins with the archeological evidence of fertility cults and the early shamanic ruler Himiko in prehistoric Japan and ends with an examination of the influence of feminism and demographic changes on religious practices during the “lost decades” of the post-1990 era. By viewing Japanese religious history through the eyes of women, Women in Japanese Religions presents a new narrative that offers strikingly different vistas of Japan’s pluralistic traditions than the received accounts that foreground male religious figures and male-dominated institutions.

Before 1970 Oman was one of teh more isolated countries on the Arab peninsula. The growth of the oil economy during the seventies, however, has brought rapid change to the small towns and villages that make up the country.
In Women and Community in Oman Chritine Eickelman captures the tone and feel of this desert culture on the verge of substantial, and probably irreversible, change. During 1979 and 1980 she lived in Hamra, an oasis of 2,500 persons and the capital of the Abriyin tribe. Situated on the western edge of the Jabal al-Akhdar region of inner Oman, this was formerly one of the most inaccessible areas of the peninsula. Eickelman lived there among the people of Hamra, visiting Omani, this was formerly one of the most inaccessible areas of the peninsula. Eickelman lived there among the people of Hamra, visiting Omani homes, and speaking daily with the men and women - especially the women. The result is a lively and very personal firsthand account of day-to-day life in the Omani interior.
The book looks at the practical changes in the life of the Omanis, and at the roles, concerns, and aspirations of the women there. Eickelman explores key concepts in the Omani community and family life, from choosing a spouse and "negotiating" a marriage to giving birth and raising children; from work and status within the community to rituals, mores and sociability in the neighborhood.
Eickelman's study stands as a discriminateing and sympathetic view of a sturdily independent culture. This perceptive and informative account will be of lasting importance and interest to Middle East specialists, anthroupoligists, those concerned with women's studies, and to al persons who want to learn more about the implications of political and social change in the Third World.

"A lot of people in the general public think female bodybuilding is gross and freaky . . . that that's not what a woman is supposed to look like." So says Michelle, a national bodybuilding judge. In fact, athletic women, especially those in sports where strength, muscle, and sweat feature prominently, are typically viewed by the public as being outside the boundaries of appropriate femininity. And perhaps no group of women athletes embodies this gender outlaw status more than female bodybuilders, who by their bulk and sheer strength challenge our very notions of what it means to be a woman. Why would women choose to look like that? And what does it take to get and stay so muscular?
Maria R. Lowe has interviewed more than one hundred people connected with women's bodybuilding, from the bodybuilders themselves, to trainers, family members, spouses, judges, and sponsors. In Women of Steel, Lowe introduces us to a world where size and strength must be balanced with a nod toward grace and femininity. Lowe, who actually worked out with a couple of the bodybuilders she interviewed, gets at the heart of what it is to be a woman bodybuilder. We learn about "paying the price"--doing the necessary exercise, and sometimes drugs--that allows women to rise to the top of their profession. We follow their successes and failures, and discover the benefits-- including increased self-esteem and physical strength--as well as the sometimes unhealthy effects of their training regimen, from dehydration to baldness to rampant acne to high blood pressure. We travel with the women from competition to competition and find that judges' standards seem to vary alarmingly depending on momentary notions of what constitutes "the overall package"--that elusive perfect body that catches judges' eyes and wins competitions.
Above all, Women of Steel is a keenly observant diary of life in women's bodybuilding, a must-read for people interested in sports, competition, physical culture, and gender.

Women, says conventional wisdom, are warm, nurturing caregivers with an intrinsically enhanced capacity for attachment and compassion. Feminists, says the popular image, are full of rage, devoid of the feelings that are natural to women. How have feminists themselves dealt with this dualism and, more specifically, with the disagreeable passions?
What has too often been missing from discussions of women's psychology in social theory is an account of women as ambivalent: both empathic and enraged, loving and hating. The Problem of the Passions fills this void. Examining the work of such feminist theorists as Carol Gilligan, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin, and Dorothy Dinnerstein in a new light, Burack argues that feminist social theory can be repaired through attention to the pioneering psychoanalytic work of Melanie Klein. Sure to be of interest to feminists, psychoanalysts, political scientists, and social theorists, The Problem of the Passions is essential reading for anyone concerned with feminism and questions of identity in social thought.

Among the most prominent icons of the American south is that of the southern belle, immortalized by such figures as Scarlett O'Hara, Dolly Madison, and Lucy Pickens (whose elegant image graced the Confederate $100 bill). And yet the women of America's south iave always defied pat generalization, no more readily forced into facle categories than women in the country's other regions.
Never before has a book of southern history so successfully integrated the experiences of white and non-white women. Among the myriad subjects addressed in the book are black women's suffrage, the economic realities of Choctaw women, female kin and female slaves in planters's wills, the northern myth of the rebel girl, second wave feminism in the South, and southern lesbians. Bringing to light the lives of Cherokee women, Appalachian "coal daughters," and Jewish women in the South, the essays all but one published in this book for the first time, ensure that monolithic representations of southern womanhood are a thing of the past.
Filling a crucial gap in southern history and women's history, Women of the American South is a valuable reference and pedagogical aid for a wide range of scholars and students.

Uncovers the truth behind the ideas, struggles, and eventually success of Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists regarding key feminist issues of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s

While most people believe that the movement to secure voluntary reproductive control for women centered solely on abortion rights, for many women abortion was not the only, or even primary, focus. Jennifer Nelson tells the story of the feminist struggle for legal abortion and reproductive rights in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s through the particular contributions of women of color. She explores the relationship between second-wave feminists, who were concerned with a woman's right to choose, Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists, who were concerned that Black and Puerto Rican women have as many children as possible “for the revolution,” and women of color themselves, who negotiated between them. Contrary to popular belief, Nelson shows that women of color were able to successfully remake the mainstream women's liberation and abortion rights movements by appropriating select aspects of Black Nationalist politics—including addressing sterilization abuse, access to affordable childcare and healthcare, and ways to raise children out of poverty—for feminist discourse.

From the FDA review of RU-486 to the recent growth of fertility clinics to the rights of lesbian parents, women's reproductive lives are aggressively regulated by law and medicine. While a great deal has been written on such issues as abortion and postpartum depression, no single volume has offered a broad discussion of the interface between the legal, medical, and political aspects of women's reproduction in a manner accessible and informative to non-specialists.The Wandering Uterus fills that gap. Taking her title from an ancient Greek belief that women's health problems were caused by a wandering uterus that needed to be confined and controlled, Meyer exposes the way in which myths and prejudice about female sexuality continue to influence the practice of law and medicine today.This book offers new insights and provides a wealth of up-to- date information on a subject that changes every day. The text is divided into three main parts: political issues of pre- conception, the politics of pregnancy, and the politics of motherhood. Throughout, Meyer argues passionately that while technology and medicine must progress, they should not be allowed to do so at women's expense.

Winner of the 2015 Bonnie Ritter Book Award from the National Communication Association

As an omnipresent figure of the media landscape, girls are spectacles. They are ubiquitous visual objects on display at which we are incessantly invited to look. Investigating our cultural obsession with both everyday and high-profile celebrity girls, Sarah Projanskyuses a queer, anti-racist feminist approach to explore the diversity of girlhoods in contemporary popular culture.The book addresses two key themes: simultaneous adoration and disdain for girls and the pervasiveness of whiteness and heteronormativity. While acknowledging this context, Projansky pushes past the dichotomy of the “can-do” girl who has the world at her feet and the troubled girl who needs protection and regulation to focus on the variety of alternative figures who appear in media culture, including queer girls, girls of color, feminist girls, active girls, and sexual girls, all of whom are present if we choose to look for them.

Drawing on examples across film, television, mass-market magazines and newspapers, live sports TV, and the Internet, Projansky combines empirical analysis with careful, creative, feminist analysis intent on centering alternative girls. She undermines the pervasive “moral panic” argument that blames media itself for putting girls at risk by engaging multiple methodologies, including, for example, an ethnographic study of young girls who themselves critique media. Arguing that feminist media studies needs to understand the spectacularization of girlhood more fully, she places active, alternative girlhoods right in the heart of popular media culture.

The American South before the Civil War was the site of an unprecedented social experiment in women's education. The South offered women an education explicitly designed to be equivalent to that of men, while maintaining and nurturing the gender conventions epitomized by the ideal of the Southern belle. This groundbreaking work provides us with an intimate picture of the entire social experience of antebellum women's colleges and seminaries in the South, analyzing the impact of these colleges upon the cultural construction of femininity among white Southern women, and their legacy for higher education.
Christie Farnham investigates the contradiction involved in using a male-defined curricula to educate females, and explores how educators denied these incongruities. She also examines the impact of slavery on faculty and students. The emotional life of students is revealed through correspondence, journals, and scrapbooks, highlighting the role of sororities and romantic friendships among female pupils. Farnham ends with an analysis of how the end of the Civil War resulted in a failure to keep up with the advances that had been achieved in women's education.
The most comprehensive history of this brief and unique period of reform to date, The Education of the Southern Belle is must reading for anyone interested in women's studies, Southern history, the history of American education, and female friendship.

Still Lifting, Still Climbing is the first volume of its kind to document African American women's activism in the wake of the civil rights movement.
Covering grassroots and national movements alike, contributors explore black women's mobilization around such areas as the black nationalist movements, the Million Man March, black feminism, anti-rape movements, mass incarceration, the U.S. Congress, welfare rights, health care, and labor organizing. Detailing the impact of post-1960s African American women's activism, they provide a much-needed update to the historical narrative.
Ideal for course use, the volume includes original essays as well as primary source documents such as first-hand accounts of activism and statements of purpose. Each contributor carefully situates their topic within its historical framework, providing an accessible context for those unfamiliar with black women's history, and demonstrating that African American women's political agency does not emerge from a vacuum, but is part of a complex system of institutions, economics, and personal beliefs.
This ambitious volume will be an invaluable resource on the state of contemporary African American women's activism.

Americans have long held fast to a rigid definition of womanhood, revolving around husband, home, and children. Women who rebelled against this definition and carved out independent lives for themselves have often been rendered invisible in U.S. history.In this unusual comparative study, Trisha Franzen brings to light the remarkable lives of two generations of autonomous women: Progressive Era spinsters and mid-twentieth century lesbians. While both groups of women followed similar paths to independence--separating from their families, pursuing education, finding work, and creating woman-centered communities--they faced different material and cultural challenge and came to claim very different identities. Many of the turn-of-the-century women were prominent during their time, from internationally recognized classicist Edith Hamilton through two early Directors of the Women's Bureau, Mary Anderson and Freida Miller. Maturing during the time of a broad and powerful women's movement, they were among that era's new women, the often-single women who were viewed as in the vanguard of women's struggle for equality.
In contrast, never-married women after World War II, especially lesbians, were considered beyond the pale of real womanhood. Before the women's and gay/lesbian liberation movements, they had no positive contemporary images of alternative lives for women. Highlighting the similarities and differences between women-oriented women confronting changing gender and sexuality systems, Spinsters and Lesbians thus traces a continuum among women who constructed lives outside institutionalized heterosexuality.

Long perceived as the ultimate symbol of social breakdown and sexual irresponsibility, the single mother is now, in the context of welfare-to-work policies, often hailed as the new spokesperson for hard work and self-sufficiency. A dozen years after Dan Quayle denounced the television character Murphy Brown for making the decision to become a single mother “just another lifestyle choice,” President George W. Bush applauded single mothers for “heroic work,” and positive on-screen representations of single mothers abound, from The Gilmore Girls to Sex and the City to American Idol.
Single Mother describes the recent cultural valorization of this figure that—in the midst of demographic changes in the U.S.—has emerged as the unlikely heroic and seductive voice of the new American family. Drawing on her own life as a single mother, interviews with dozens of other single mothers, cultural representations, and policies on welfare, immigration, childcare, and child custody, Juffer analyzes this contingent acceptance of single mothers. Finally, critiquing the relentless emphasis on self-sufficiency to the exclusion of community, Juffer shows the remarkable organizing skills of these new mothers of invention. At a moment when one-third of all babies are born to single moms, Single Mother is a fascinating and necessary examination of these new “domestic intellectuals.”

It is increasingly difficult to use the word "victim" these days without facing either ridicule for "crying victim" or criticism for supposed harshness toward those traumatized. Some deny the possibility of "recovering" repressed memories of abuse, or consider date rape an invention of whining college students. At the opposite extreme, others contend that women who experience abuse are "survivors" likely destined to be psychically wounded for life.
While the debates rage between victims' rights advocates and "backlash" authors, the contributors to New Versions of Victims collectively argue that we must move beyond these polarizations to examine the "victim" as a socially constructed term and to explore, in nuanced terms, why we see victims the way we do.
Must one have been subject to extreme or prolonged suffering to merit designation as a victim? How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars? Resisting the reductive oversimplifications of the polemicists, the contributors to New Versions of Victims critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the harm of victimization while simultaneously taking on the reactionary boilerplate of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering further strategies for countering the backlash.
Written in clear, accessible language, New Versions of Victims offers a critical analysis of popular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory.

What role does theory play in academia today? How can feminist theory be made more relevant to the very real struggles undertaken by women of all professions, races, and sexual orientation? How can it be directed into more effective social activism, and how is theory itself a form of practice?
Feminist theory and political activism need not—indeed cannot—be distinct and alienated from one another. To reconcile the gulf between word and deed, scholar-activists from a broad range of disciplines have come together here to explore the ways in which practice and theory intersect and interact. The authors argue against overly abstract and esoteric theorizing that fails its own tests of responsible political practice and suggest alternative methods by which to understand feminist issues and attain feminist goals. They also examine the current state of affairs in the academy, exposing the ways in which universities systematically reinforce social hierarchies and offering important and intelligent suggestions for curricular and structural changes.
Is Academic Feminism Dead? marks a significant step forward in relating academic and social movement feminism. It recognizes and examines the diverse realities experienced by women, as well as the changing political, cultural, and economic realities shaping contemporary feminism.

Women, we are told, should not own guns. Women, we are told, are more likely to be injured by their own guns than to fend off an attack themselves. This "fact" is rooted in a fundamental assumption of female weakness and vulnerability. Why should a woman not be every bit as capable as a man of using a firearm in self-defense?
And yet the reality is that millions of American women--somewhere between 11,000,000 and 17,000,000--use guns confidently and competently every day. Women are hunting, using firearms in their work as policewomen and in the military, shooting for sport, and arming themselves for personal security in ever-increasing numbers. What motivates women to possess firearms? What is their relationship to their guns? And who exactly are these women? Crucially, can a woman be a gun-owner and a feminist too?
Women's growing tendency to arm themselves has in recent years been political fodder for both the right and the left. Female gun owners are frequently painted as "trying to be like men" (the conservative perspective) or "capitulating to patriarchal ideas about power" (the liberal critique). Eschewing the polar extremes in the heated debate over gun ownership and gun control, and linking firearms and feminism in novel fashion, Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster here cut through the rhetoric to paint a precise and unflinching account of America's gun women.

Explores the social and political developments that have energized movements of global feminism

Increasingly feminists around the world have successfully campaigned for recognition of women's full personhood and empowerment. Global Feminism explores the social and political developments that have energized this movement. Drawn from an international group of scholars and activists, the authors of these original essays assess both the opportunities that transnationalism has created and the tensions it has inadvertently fostered. By focusing on both the local and global struggles of today's feminist activists this important volume reveals much about women's changing rights, treatment and impact in the global world.

Contributors: Melinda Adams, Aida Bagic, Yakin Ertürk, Myra Marx Ferree, Amy G. Mazur, Dorothy E. McBride, Hilkka Pietilä, Tetyana Pudrovska, Margaret Snyder, Sarah Swider, Aili Mari Tripp, Nira Yuval-Davis.

How young woman are redefining sex 30 years after the Sexual Revolution

Three decades after the Sexual Revolution, women's power and status have begun to match men's, and women are finally making the rules in order to experience a more radical and truer form of liberation.

Her Way demonstrates how and why 20- and 30-something women have evolved to act and think more like men sexually, while also creating their own distinct sexual patterns and appetites. Today's young women are now the leaders of an unreported but sweeping "Sexual Evolution," in which women take control of sex and redefine it from their perspective. In other words, do it "her way."

Paula Kamen characterizes this Sexual Evolution according to two major developments that are setting sexual patterns for future generations of women: young women's sexual profiles are now remarkably similar to those of men, in terms of age of first intercourse, and numbers of sex partners and casual encounters. They also feel less guilt or shame about their behavior, from premarital sex to having a child out of marriage to coming out of the closet to cohabiting.
Yet young women are not merely imitating men, but forging their own distinct sexual perspectives and asserting their own needs. In addition to discovering the pleasures of sex, young women are also exploring the dilemmas, challenging male-defined sexual scripts, and changing what actually goes on in bed.

Based on more than one hundred lively, unfiltered and in-depth interviews with women across the country, Her Way cuts through the sensationalism and speculation of popular discussions about young women and sex. Kamen reports the real story of today's enhanced sexual expectations and choices.

Dandies: Fashion and Finesse in Art and Culture considers the visual languages, politics, and poetics of personal appearance. Dandyism has been most closely associated with influential caucasian Western men-about-town, epitomized by the 19th century style-setting of Oscar Wilde and by Tom Wolfe's white suits. The essays collected here, however, examine the spectacle and workings of dandyism to reveal that these were not the only dandies. On the contrary, art historians, literary and cultural historians, and anthropologists identify unrecognized dandies flourishing among early 19th century Native Americans, in Soviet Latvia, in Africa, throughout the African-American diaspora, among women, and in the art world.
Moving beyond historical and fictional accounts of dandies, this volume juxtaposes theoretical models with evocative images and descriptions of clothing in order to link sartorial self-construction with artistic, social, and political self-invention. Taking into consideration the vast changes in thinking about identity in the academy, Dandies provides a compelling study of dandyism's destabilizing aesthetic enterprise.
Contributors: Jennifer Blessing, Susan Fillin-Yeh, Rhonda Garelick, Joe Lucchesi, Kim Miller, Robert E. Moore, Richard J. Powell, Carter Ratcliffe, and Mark Allen Svede.

Contemporary theory is full of references to the modern and the postmodern. How useful are these terms? What exactly do they mean? And how is our sense of these terms changing under the pressure of feminist analysis?
In Doing Time, Rita Felski argues that it makes little sense to think of the modern and postmodern as opposing or antithetical terms. Rather, we need a historical perspective that is attuned to cultural and political differences within the same time as well as the leaky boundaries between different times.
Neither the modern nor the postmodern are unified, coherent, or self-evident realities. Drawing on cultural studies and critical theory, Felski examines a range of themes central to debates about postmodern culture, including changing meanings of class, the end of history, the status of art and aesthetics, postmodernism as "the end of sex," and the politics of popular culture. Placing women at the center of analysis, she suggests, has a profound impact on the way we thing about historical periods. As a result, feminist theory is helping to reshape our vision of both the modern and the postmodern.

The rise of commercialized leisure coincided with the arrival of millions of immigrants to America's cities. Conflict was inevitable as older generations attempted to preserve their traditions, values, and ethnic identities, while the young sought out the cheap amusements and sexual freedom which the urban landscape offered. At immigrant picnics, social clubs, and urban dance halls, Randy McBee discovers distinct and highly contested gender lines, proving that the battle between the ages was also one between the sexes.
Free from their parents and their strict rules governing sexual conduct, working women took advantage of their time in dance halls to challenge conventional gender norms. They routinely passed certain men over for dances, refused escorts home, and embraced the sensual and physical side of dance to further accentuate their superior skills and ability on the dance floor. Most men felt threatened by women's displays of empowerment and took steps to thwart the changes taking place. Accustomed to street corners, poolrooms, saloons, and other all-male get-togethers, working men tried to transform the dance hall into something that resembled these familiar hangouts.
McBee also finds that men frequently abandoned the commercial dance hall for their own clubs, set up in the basements of tenement flats. In these hangouts, working men established rules governing intimacy and leisure that allowed them to regulate the behavior of the women who attended club events. The collective manner in which they behaved not only affected the organization of commercial leisure but also men and women's struggles with and against one another to define the meaning of leisure, sexuality, intimacy, and even masculinity.

In the United States, the question of women in the armed services has been continuously and hotly debated. Among feminists, two fundamentally differing views of women in the military have developed. Feminist antimilitarists tell us that militarism and patriarchy have together pressed women into second class citizenship. Meanwhile, feminist soldiers and their advocates regard martial service as women's right and responsibility and the ticket to first class citizenship.
Citizenship Rites investigates what is at stake for women in these debates. Exploring the perspectives of both feminist antimilitarists and feminist soldiers, Ilene Feinman situates the current combat controversy within the context of the sea change in United States politics since the 1970s-from ERA debates over drafting women to recent representations of military women such as the film GI Jane. Drawing on congressional testimony, court cases, feminist and antiracist political discourse, and antimilitarist activism, Feinman addresses our pressing need for an analysis of women's increasing inclusion in the armed forces while providing a provocative investigation of what this changing role means for women and society alike.

A groundbreaking anthology devoted to Asian/Pacific Islander American women and their experiences

Asian/Pacific Islander American Women is the first collection devoted to the historical study of A/PI women's diverse experiences in America. Covering a broad terrain from pre-large scale Asian emigration and Hawaii in its pre-Western contact period to the continental United States, the Philippines, and Guam at the end of the twentieth century, the text views women as historical subjects actively negotiating complex hierarchies of power.

The volume presents new findings about a range of groups, including recent immigrants to the U.S. and understudied communities. Comprised of original new work, it includes chapters on women who are Cambodian, Chamorro, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, South Asian, and Vietnamese Americans. It addresses a wide range of women's experiences-as immigrants, military brides, refugees, American born, lesbians, workers, mothers, beauty contestants, and community activists. There are also pieces on historiography and methodology, and bibliographic and video documentary resources.

This groundbreaking anthology is an important addition to the scholarship in Asian/Pacific American studies, ethnic studies, American studies, women's studies, and U.S. history, and is a valuable resource for scholars and students.
Contributors include: Xiaolan Bao, Sucheng Chan, Catherine Ceniza Choy, Vivian Loyola Dames, Jennifer Gee, Madhulika S. Khandelwal, Lili M. Kim, Nancy In Kyung Kim, Erika Lee, Shirley Jennifer Lim, Valerie Matsumoto, Sucheta Mazumdar, Davianna Pomaika'i McGregor, Trinity A. Ordona, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Amy Ku'uleialoha Stillman, Charlene Tung, Kathleen Uno, Linda Trinh Võ, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Ji-Yeon Yuh, and Judy Yung.

Reveals the different ways women navigate the traditionally masculine environment of the military

Drawing on surveys and interviews with almost 300 female military personnel, Melissa Herbert explores how women's everyday actions, such as choice of uniform, hobby, or social activity, involve the creation and re-creation of what it means to be a woman, and particularly a woman soldier. Do women feel pressured to be "more masculine," to convey that they are not a threat to men's jobs or status and to avoid being perceived as lesbians? She also examines the role of gender and sexuality in the maintenance of the male-defined military institution, proposing that, more than sexual harassment or individual discrimination, it is the military's masculine ideology--which views military service as the domain of men and as a mechanism for the achievement of manhood--which serves to limit women's participation in the military has increased dramatically.

In the wake of armed conflict involving female military personnel and several sexual misconduct scandals, much attention has focused on what life is like for women in the armed services. Few, however, have examined how these women negotiate an environment that has been structured and defined as masculine.

Mixing fiction, history, psychoanalysis, and personal fantasy, Teresa, My Love turns a past world into a modern marvel, following Sylvia Leclercq, a French psychoanalyst, academic, and incurable insomniac, as she falls for the sixteenth-century Saint Teresa of Avila and becomes consumed with charting her life. Traveling to Spain, Leclercq, Julia Kristeva's probing alter ego, visits the sites and embodiments of the famous mystic and awakens to her own desire for faith, connection, and rebellion.

One of Kristeva's most passionate and transporting works, Teresa, My Love interchanges biography, autobiography, analysis, dramatic dialogue, musical scores, and images of paintings and sculpture to engage the reader in Leclercq's—and Kristeva's—journey. Born in 1515, Teresa of Avila outwitted the Spanish Inquisition and was a key reformer of the Carmelite Order. Her experience of ecstasy, which she intimately described in her writings, released her from her body and led to a complete realization of her consciousness, a state Kristeva explores in relation to present-day political failures, religious fundamentalism, and cultural malaise. Incorporating notes from her own psychoanalytic practice, as well as literary and philosophical references, Kristeva builds a fascinating dual diagnosis of contemporary society and the individual psyche while sharing unprecedented insights into her own character.

In a searching and powerful debut memoir, award-winning poet and literary translator Ani Gjika tells a different kind of origin story by writing about the ways a woman listens to her own body, intuition, and desire.

Ani Gjika was born in Albania and came of age just after the fall of Communism, a time when everyone had a secret to keep and young women were afraid to walk down the street alone. When her family immigrates to America, Gjika finds herself far from the grandmother who helped raise her, grappling with a new language, and isolated from aging parents who are trying in their own ways to survive. When she meets a young man whose mind leans toward writing, as hers does, Ani falls in love—at least, she thinks it’s love.

Set across Albania, Thailand, India, and the U.S., An Unruled Body is a young woman’s journey to selfhood through the lenses of language, sexuality, and identity, and how she learns to find freedom of expression on her own terms.

In a searching and powerful debut memoir, award-winning poet and literary translator Ani Gjika tells a different kind of origin story by writing about the ways a woman listens to her own body, intuition, and desire.

Ani Gjika was born in Albania and came of age just after the fall of Communism, a time when everyone had a secret to keep and young women were afraid to walk down the street alone. When her family immigrates to America, Gjika finds herself far from the grandmother who helped raise her, grappling with a new language, and isolated from aging parents who are trying in their own ways to survive. When she meets a young man whose mind leans toward writing, as hers does, Ani falls in love—at least, she thinks it’s love.

Set across Albania, Thailand, India, and the U.S., An Unruled Body is a young woman’s journey to selfhood through the lenses of language, sexuality, and identity, and how she learns to find freedom of expression on her own terms.

For centuries, the "great man" format and masculine discourse of biography and autobiography have eclipsed women. If we accept this history, we remain ignorant of "Lady Sarashina," a Japanese woman of the Han period, whose book survives from the 11th century. We overlook Margaret Cavendish and Dame Julian, two early English autobiographers. And we fail to consider sufficiently slave narratives, oral histories, or lesbian "coming out" stories.
Telling Women's Lives assesses existing traditions of autobiography and biography in search of a method capable of conveying the distinctive content of women's lives while retaining the tenor of feminine subjectivity. Drawing on feminist research methodologies of the past two decades as well as anthropology and sociology, Long paves the way for the formulation of an emergent feminist methodology for telling women's lives.
This highly original study seeks to revise and recreate the genre so as to accommodate a feminine discourse, narrator, reader, and subject. The "messiness" of women's lives-the daily work and detail that men have programmatically excluded-acquires new meaning as Long develops here an innovative theory of sociobiography.

This is the unusual and compelling story of Diana, a tantalizingly beautiful woman who sought love in the strange by-paths of Lesbos. Fearless and outspoken, it dares to reveal that hidden world where perfumed caresses and half-whispered endearments constitute the forbidden fruits in a Garden of Eden where men are never accepted.

This is how Diana: A Strange Autobiography was described when it was published in paperback in 1952. The original 1939 hardcover edition carried with it a Publisher's Note: This is the autobiography of a woman who tried to be normal.

In the book, Diana is presented as the unexceptional daughter of an unexceptional plutocratic family. During adolescence, she finds herself drawn with mysterious intensity to a girl friend. The narrative follows Diana's progress through college; a trial marriage that proves she is incapable of heterosexuality; intellectual and sexual education in Europe; and a series of lesbian relationships culminating in a final tormented triangular struggle with two other women for the individual salvation to be found in a happy couple.

In her introduction, Julie Abraham argues that Diana is not really an autobiography at all, but a deliberate synthesis of different archetypes of this confessional genre, echoing, as it does, more than a half-dozen novels. Hitting all the high and low points of the lesbian novel, the book, Abraham illustrates, offers a defense of lesbian relationships that was unprecedented in 1939 and radical for decades afterwards.

A selection of insights into the relationship between men and women

Have you wondered: Why women are more sympathetic than men toward O. J. Simpson? Why women were no more supportive of the Equal Rights Amendment than men? Why women are no more likely than men to support a female political candidate? Why women are no more likely than men to embrace feminism—a movement by, about, and for women? Why some women stay with men who abuse them? Loving to Survive addresses just these issues and poses a surprising answer. Likening women's situation to that of hostages, Dee L. R. Graham and her co- authors argue that women bond with men and adopt men's perspective in an effort to escape the threat of men's violence against them.

Dee Graham's announcement, in 1991, of her research on male-female bonding was immediately followed by a national firestorm of media interest. Her startling and provocative conclusion was covered in dozens of national newspapers and heatedly debated. In Loving to Survive, Graham provides us with a complete account of her remarkable insights into relationships between men and women.

In 1973, three women and one man were held hostage in one of the largest banks in Stockholm by two ex-convicts. These two men threatened their lives, but also showed them kindness. Over the course of the long ordeal, the hostages came to identify with their captors, developing an emotional bond with them. They began to perceive the police, their prospective liberators, as their enemies, and their captors as their friends, as a source of security. This seemingly bizarre reaction to captivity, in which the hostages and captors mutually bond to one another, has been documented in other cases as well, and has become widely known as Stockholm Syndrome.

The authors of this book take this syndrome as their starting point to develop a new way of looking at male-female relationships. Loving to Survive considers men's violence against women as crucial to understanding women's current psychology. Men's violence creates ever-present, and therefore often unrecognized, terror in women. This terror is often experienced as a fear for any woman of rape by any man or as a fear of making any man angry. They propose that women's current psychology is actually a psychology of women under conditions of captivitythat is, under conditions of terror caused by male violence against women. Therefore, women's responses to men, and to male violence, resemble hostages' responses to captors.

Loving to Survive explores women's bonding to men as it relates to men's violence against women. It proposes that, like hostages who work to placate their captors lest they kill them, women work to please men, and from this springs women's femininity. Femininity describes a set of behaviors that please men because they communicate a woman's acceptance of her subordinate status. Thus, feminine behaviors are, in essence, survival strategies. Like hostages who bond to their captors, women bond to men in an effort to survive.

This is a book that will forever change the way we look at male-female relationships and women's lives.

Un recorrido por las vidas y el trabajo de mujeres que, aunque fueron ignoradas durante mucho tiempo, descubrieron las leyes fundamentales del universo, de la mano de la galardonada física cuántica Shohini Ghose.

Las mujeres físicas y astrónomas de todo el mundo han transformado la ciencia y también la sociedad, pero casi nunca se ha reconocido el decisivo papel que han desempeñado en sus respectivos campos. En Su espacio, su tiempo, la galardonada física cuántica Shohini Ghose reúne las historias de estas excepcionales científicas para celebrar sus contribuciones.

Ghose ahonda en cuestiones como el estudio del tiempo, la exploración espacial, las partículas subatómicas, el big bang, el calendario cósmico, los fundamentos del universo o el alunizaje, y destaca los descubrimientos de mujeres como Henrietta Leavitt, Margaret Burbidge, Mary Golda Ross, Marietta Blau, Hertha Wambacher y Bibha Chowdhuri, entre otras.

Con un estilo divulgativo y muy ameno, Su espacio, su tiempo es una historia colectiva de innovación científica, de liderazgos inspiradores y de superación en la que descubriremos las historias de las pioneras que iluminaron nuestra comprensión del universo.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

A journey through the lives and work of women who, despite being overlooked for a long time, discovered the fundamental laws of the universe—guided by award-winning quantum physicist Shohini Ghose.

Women physicists and astronomers from around the world have transformed science and society, yet their crucial contributions have rarely been recognized. In Her Space, Her Time, award-winning quantum physicist Shohini Ghose brings together the stories of these exceptional scientists to celebrate their achievements.

Ghose delves into topics such as the study of time, space exploration, subatomic particles, the Big Bang, the cosmic calendar, the foundations of the universe, and the moon landing, highlighting the discoveries of women like Henrietta Leavitt, Margaret Burbidge, Mary Golda Ross, Marietta Blau, Hertha Wambacher, and Bibha Chowdhuri, among others.

With a clear and engaging style, Her Space, Her Time is a collective story of scientific innovation, inspiring leadership, and perseverance, where we uncover the stories of pioneers who illuminated our understanding of the universe.

There are people dedicated to improving the way we eat, and people dedicated to improving the way we give birth. A Bun in the Oven is the first comparison of these two social movements. The food movement has seemingly exploded, but little has changed in the diet of most Americans. And while there’s talk of improving the childbirth experience, most births happen in large hospitals, about a third result in C-sections, and the US does not fare well in infant or maternal outcomes.
In A Bun in the Oven Barbara Katz Rothman traces the food and the birth movements through three major phases over the course of the 20th century in the United States: from the early 20th century era of scientific management; through to the consumerism of Post World War II with its ‘turn to the French’ in making things gracious; to the late 20th century counter-culture midwives and counter-cuisine cooks. The book explores the tension throughout all of these eras between the industrial demands of mass-management and profit-making, and the social movements—composed largely of women coming together from very different feminist sensibilities—which are working to expose the harmful consequences of industrialization, and make birth and food both meaningful and healthy.
Katz Rothman, an internationally recognized sociologist named ‘midwife to the movement’ by the Midwives Alliance of North America, turns her attention to the lessons to be learned from the food movement, and the parallel forces shaping both of these consumer-based social movements. In both movements, issues of the natural, the authentic, and the importance of ‘meaningful’ and ‘personal’ experiences get balanced against discussions of what is sensible, convenient and safe. And both movements operate in a context of commercial and corporate interests, which places profit and efficiency above individual experiences and outcomes. A Bun in the Oven brings new insight into the relationship between our most intimate, personal experiences, the industries that control them, and the social movements that resist the industrialization of life and seek to birth change.

2021 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine

Shows how reproductive justice organizations' collaborative work across racial lines provides a compelling model for other groups to successfully influence change

Patricia Zavella experienced firsthand the trials and judgments imposed on a working professional mother of color: her own commitment to academia was questioned during her pregnancy, as she was shamed for having children "too young." And when she finally achieved her professorship, she felt out of place as one of the few female faculty members with children.

These experiences sparked Zavella’s interest in the movement for reproductive justice. In this book, she draws on five years of ethnographic research to explore collaborations among women of color engaged in reproductive justice activism. While there are numerous organizations focused on reproductive justice, most are racially specific, such as the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and Black Women for Wellness. Yet Zavella reveals that many of these organizations have built coalitions among themselves, sharing resources and supporting each other through different campaigns and struggles. While the coalitions are often regional—or even national—the organizations themselves remain racially or ethnically specific, presenting unique challenges and opportunities for the women involved.

Zavella argues that these organizations provide a compelling model for negotiating across differences within constituencies. In the context of the war on women's reproductive rights and its disproportionate effect on women of color, and increased legal violence toward immigrants, and now incorporating an updated preface addressing the Dobbs decision which struck down Roe v. Wade, The Movement for Reproductive Justice demonstrates that a truly intersectional movement built on grassroots organizing, culture shift work, and policy advocating can offer visions of strength, resiliency, and dignity for all.

A sweeping chronicle of women’s battles for reproductive freedom

Reproductive politics in the United States has always been about who has the power to decide—lawmakers, the courts, clergy, physicians, or the woman herself. Authorities have rarely put women’s needs and interests at the center of these debates. Instead, they have created reproductive laws and policies to solve a variety of social and political problems, with outcomes that affect the lives of different groups of women differently.

Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised “breeding” schemes, when the US government took indigenous children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressured Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the main plot lines of women’s reproductive lives, the leading historian Rickie Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time.

Revisiting these issues after more than a decade, this revised edition of Pregnancy and Power reveals how far the reproductive justice movement has come, and the renewed struggles it faces in the present moment. Even after nearly a half-century of “reproductive rights,” a cascade of new laws and policies limits access and prescribes punishments for many people trying to make their own reproductive decisions. In this edition, Solinger traces the contemporary rise of reproductive consumerism and the politics of “free market” health care as economic inequality continues to expand in the US, revealing the profound limits of “choice” and the continued need for the reproductive justice framework.

An interdisciplinary collection of critical, feminist reflections on interpersonal gender violence

Despite the growing interest in the subject of gender violence, surprisingly little has been written in recent years about the methodology behind this emerging field of research. This interdisciplinary collection seeks to fill this gap by empowering scholars to conduct gender violence research in ways that deconstruct rather than reinforce existing power structures and hierarchies.

The book argues for new approaches to research and activism on gender-based violence grounded in the intersectional realities of individuals and communities. Each chapter discusses the role of reflective methodologies to recognize institutional and intersectional inequalities, challenging the reader to contemplate ethical considerations of an embodied feminist methodology when researching gender-based violence. By centering these issues for applied scholars, practitioners, and academic activists, the book offers insights about where sociocultural notions of criminality and innocence might align across geographies of gender-based violence.

The volume encourages further thinking about embodied methodological creativity in and for the future of interpersonal gender-based violence research. A powerful tool for conducting productive scholarship, Researching Gender-Based Violence provides recommendations for interrogating, practicing, and collaborating across fields, disciplines, and lived realities.

An innovative anthology showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories

Our Voices, Our Histories brings together thirty-five Asian American and Pacific Islander authors in a single volume to explore the historical experiences, perspectives, and actions of Asian American and Pacific Islander women in the United States and beyond.

This volume is unique in exploring Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s lives along local, transnational, and global dimensions. The contributions present new research on diverse aspects of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s history, from the politics of language, to the role of food, to experiences as adoptees, mixed race, and second generation, while acknowledging shared experiences as women of color in the United States.

Our Voices, Our Histories showcases how new approaches in US history, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and Women’s and Gender studies inform research on Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Attending to the collective voices of the women themselves, the volume seeks to transform current understandings of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories.

Explores accountability as a framework for building movements to transform systemic oppression and violence

What does it take to build communities to stand up to injustice and create social change? How do we work together to transform, without reproducing, systems of violence and oppression?In an age when feminism has become increasingly mainstream, noted feminist scholar and activist Ann Russo asks feminists to consider the ways that our own behavior might contribute to the interlocking systems of oppression that we aim to dismantle.

Feminist Accountability offers an intersectional analysis of three main areas of feminism in practice: anti-racist work, community accountability and transformative justice, and US-based work in and about violence in the global south. Russo explores accountability as a set of frameworks and practices for community- and movement-building against oppression and violence. Rather than evading the ways that we are implicated, complicit, or actively engaged in harm, Russo shows us how we might cultivate accountability so that we can contribute to the feminist work of transforming oppression and violence.

Among many others, Russo brings up the example of the most prominent and funded feminist and LGBT antiviolence organizations, which have become mainstream in social service, advocacy, and policy reform projects. This means they often approach violence through a social service and criminal legal lens that understands violence as an individual and interpersonal issue, rather than a social and political one. As a result, they ally with, rather than significantly challenge, the state institutions, policies, and systems that underlie and contribute to endemic violence.

Grounded in theories, analyses, and politics developed by feminists of color and transnational feminists of the global south, with her own thirty plus years of participation in community building, organizing, and activism, Russo provides insider expertise and critical reflection on leveraging frameworks of accountability to upend inequitable divides and the culture that supports them.

A blueprint for the next generation of feminist activists

Fight Like a Girl offers a vision of the past, present, and future of feminism. With an eye toward what it takes to create actual change and a deep understanding of women’s history and the key issues facing girls and young women today, Megan Seely offers a pragmatic introduction to feminism. Written in an upbeat and personal style, Fight Like a Girl offers an overview of feminism, including historical roots, myths and meanings, triumphs and shortcomings.

Sharing personal stories from her own experience as a young activist, as a mother, and as a teacher, Seely offers a practical guide to getting involved, taking action, and waging successful events and campaigns. The second edition addresses more themes and topics than before, including gender and sexuality, self-esteem, reproductive health, sexual violence, body image and acceptance, motherhood and family, and intersections of identities, such as race, gender, class, and sexualities.

Fight Like a Girl is an invaluable introduction to both feminism and activism, defining the core tenets of feminism, the key challenges both within and outside the feminist movement, and the steps we can take to create a more socially just world.

As the Victorian era drew to a close, American culture experienced a vast transformation. In many ways, the culture changed even more rapidly and profoundly for women. The "new woman," the "new freedom," and the "sexual revolution" all referred to women moving out of the Victorian home and into the public realm that men had long claimed as their own.
Modern middle-class women made a distinction between emotional styles that they considered Victorian and those they considered modern. They expected fulfillment in marriage, companionship, and career, and actively sought up-to-date versions of love and happiness, relieved that they lived in an age free from taboo and prudery.
Drawing on the diaries, letters, and memoirs of women from a wide range of backgrounds and geographic regions, this volume offers insights into middle-class women's experiences of American culture in this age of transition. It documents the ways in which that culture--including new technologies, advertising, and movies--shaped women's emotional lives and how these women appropriated the new messages and ideals. In addition, the authors describe the difficulties that women encountered when emotional experiences failed to match cultural expectations.

Rise celebrates the uplifting and inspiring stories of 100 remarkable women of colour. From the entrepreneur with a homemade marmalade business who went on to found Women World Banking, to the educator who built the first university in the world; and from the athlete who fled civil war on a sinking boat and then swam in the Olympics, to the first Black female astronaut, these trailblazers have risen above challenges to reach dizzying heights.

These scientists, entertainers, sportswomen, leaders, artists and activists hail from more than 40 countries. Past and present, famous and forgotten, they have worked both behind the scenes and under public scrutiny to make our world a better place.

Featuring stunning portrait illustrations by acclaimed artist Maliha Abidi, Rise reveals the creativity, resilience and bravery of these pioneers; essential reading for all.

What
kind of woman dances naked for money? Bernadette Barton takes us inside
countless strip bars and clubs, from upscale to back road as well as those that
specialize in lap dancing, table dancing, topless only, and peep shows, to
reveal the startling lives of exotic dancers.

Originally published in 2006, the product of years of first-hand research in strip clubs around the country, Stripped is a classic portrait of what it’s like for those who choose to strip as a profession. Barton explores why women begin stripping, the initial excitement and financial rewards of the work, the dangers of the life—namely, drugs and prostitution—and, inevitably, the difficulties in staying in the business over time, especially for their relationships, sexuality and self-esteem.

In this completely revised and updated edition, Barton returns to the strip clubs she originally studied to observe the major changes in the industry that have occurred over the last decade. She examines how “raunch culture” affects exotic dancers’ treatment by their clientele, who are now accustomed to seeing nudity and sexualized performance in accessible, R and X -rated media from a variety of outlets, particularly the Internet. Barton explores how new media has transformed exotic dancing, allowing dancers to build an online brand, but also introducing possibilities for customers to take unauthorized nude photos and videos of the entertainers.. And finally, Barton speaks to new dancers as well as dancers she interviewed in the previous edition, examining how the toll of stripping still impacts the lives of exotic dancers in a changing industry. Incorporating new scholarship, new observations, and increased awareness of emerging media technology, Barton brings a fresh and important perspective on the challenges that women face working in the still-thriving world of exotic dancing.

Winner, 2021 PROSE Award in the Cultural Anthropology & Sociology Category

Finalist, 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies

A troubling account of heterosexual desire in the era of #MeToo

Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on relationship coaches, seduction boot camps, and couple’s therapy in a search for happiness.

In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward smartly explores what, exactly, is wrong with heterosexuality in the twenty-first century, and what straight people can do to fix it for good. She shows how straight women, and to a lesser extent straight men, have tried to mend a fraught patriarchal system in which intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and mutual respect are expected to coexist alongside enduring forms of inequality, alienation, and violence in straight relationships.

Ward also takes an intriguing look at the multi-billion-dollar self-help industry, which markets goods and services to help heterosexual couples without addressing the root of their problems. Ultimately, she encourages straight men and women to take a page out of queer culture, reminding them “about the human capacity to desire, fuck, and show respect at the same time.”

Honorable Mention for the 2023 Francis Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize

2023 Judy Grahn Award-Publishing Triangle Finalist

Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women’s right to vote

The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public.

Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women’s suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices.

While widely acknowledged as the world's oldest profession, and often glamorized or demonized in the media, prostitution is a critical part of American culture and its economy, as well as a social problem in need of an updated public policy.
In Prostitution Policy, Lenore Kuo combines feminist social research and legal studies to tackle issues raised by heterosexual prostitution in the U.S. Through the lens of feminist theory, Kuo examines the milieu of prostitutes and the role of prostitution in contemporary society, and how the interplay of those two works itself out in practice.
Moving beyond theoretical analysis of prostitution, Prostitution Policy turns to the complicated problem of formulating a reasonable legal policy that minimizes harm. Kuo discusss criminalization, legalization, and decriminalization as possible approaches, ultimately arguing for a unique form of decriminalization including detailed legal oversight and mandatory social services.

Offers a developmental explanation for girlfighting and pathways to build girl allies

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women and girls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage “girls will be girls”—gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing— and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviews with over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
2009 Association of American University Presses Award for Jacket Design

The stories of 70 women living in the aftermath of breast cancer

Chemo brain. Fatigue. Chronic pain. Insomnia. Depression. These are just a few of the ongoing, debilitating symptoms that plague some breast-cancer survivors long after their treatments have officially ended. While there are hundreds of books about breast cancer, ranging from practical medical advice to inspirational stories of survivors, what has been missing until now is testimony from the thousands of women who continue to struggle with persistent health problems.

After the Cure is a compelling read filled with fascinating portraits of more than seventy women who are living with the aftermath of breast cancer. Emily K. Abel is one of these women. She and her colleague, Saskia K. Subramanian, whose mother died of cancer, interviewed more than seventy breast cancer survivors who have suffered from post-treatment symptoms. Having heard repeatedly that “the problems are all in your head,” many don't know where to turn for help. The doctors who now refuse to validate their symptoms are often the very ones they depended on to provide life-saving treatments. Sometimes family members who provided essential support through months of chemotherapy and radiation don't believe them. Their work lives, already disrupted by both cancer and its treatment, are further undermined by the lingering symptoms. And every symptom serves as a constant reminder of the trauma of diagnosis, the ordeal of treatment, and the specter of recurrence.

Most narratives about surviving breast cancer end with the conclusion of chemotherapy and radiation, painting stereotypical portraits of triumphantly healthy survivors, women who not only survive but emerge better and stronger than before. Here, at last, survivors step out of the shadows and speak compellingly about their “real” stories, giving voice to the complicated, often painful realities of life after the cure.
This book received funding from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The story of a group of Jewish women who risked their bodies to fight racism

Many people today know that the 1964 murder in Mississippi of two Jewish men—Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman—and their Black colleague, James Chaney, marked one of the most wrenching episodes of the civil rights movement. Yet very few realize that Andrew Goodman had been in Mississippi for one day when he was killed; Rita Schwerner, Mickey's wife, had been organizing in Mississippi for six difficult months.

Organized around a rich blend of oral histories, Going South followsa group of Jewish women—come of age in the shadow of the Holocaust and deeply committed to social justice—who put their bodies and lives on the line to fight racism. Actively rejecting the post-war idyll of suburban, Jewish, middle-class life, these women were deeply influenced by Jewish notions of morality and social justice. Many thus perceived the call of the movement as positively irresistible.

Representing a link between the sensibilities of the early civil rights era and contemporary efforts to move beyond the limits of identity politics, the book provides a resource for all who are interested in anti-racism, the civil rights movement, social justice, Jewish activism and radical women's traditions.

Winner, Next Generation Indie Book Awards - Women's Nonfiction

Best Book of 2020, National Law Journal

The inspiring and previously untold history of the women considered—but not selected—for the US Supreme Court

In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court after centuries of male appointments, a watershed moment in the long struggle for gender equality. Yet few know about the remarkable women considered in the decades before her triumph.

Shortlisted tells the overlooked stories of nine extraordinary women—a cohort large enough to seat the entire Supreme Court—who appeared on presidential lists dating back to the 1930s. Florence Allen, the first female judge on the highest court in Ohio, was named repeatedly in those early years. Eight more followed, including Amalya Kearse, a federal appellate judge who was the first African American woman viewed as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Award-winning scholars Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson cleverly weave together long-forgotten materials from presidential libraries and private archives to reveal the professional and personal lives of these accomplished women.

In addition to filling a notable historical gap, the book exposes the tragedy of the shortlist. Listing and bypassing qualified female candidates creates a false appearance of diversity that preserves the status quo, a fate all too familiar for women, especially minorities. Shortlisted offers a roadmap to combat enduring bias and discrimination. It is a must-read for those seeking positions of power as well as for the powerful who select them in the legal profession and beyond.

The first female. African American vice president, first U.S. senator, the 83rd U.S. Attorney General, and first black state legislator in Alaska. The first time a black woman and a white band shared the same stage; the first black woman writer to win a Pulitzer Prize; and the first black prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera Company. Black women have accomplished incredible things throughout American history.

An important book, Originals! Barrier-breaking Black Women profiles the lives and successes of such notable and iconic women as abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph, mathematician Katherine Johnson, organizer and politician Stacy Adams Stacey Abrams, astronaut Mae Jemison, jazz legend Billie Holiday, ballerina Misty Copeland, Vice President Kamala Harris, and also the accomplishments of hundreds of less-famous and lesser-known women. This fascinating read recounts 1,400 achievements, including …  

The most complete and affordable single-volume reference on women’s history available today, The American Women’s Almanac: 500 Years of Vitality, Triumph and Excellence is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating the moving and often lost history of women in America. It is a fascinating mix of biographies, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs and illustrations. Honoring and celebrating achievements from the First Nations women and the French Huguenot Women of Fort Caroline to the unprecedented number of ethnically diverse women running for modern office, it provides insights on the long-ignored influence, inspiration, and impact of women on U.S. society and culture.

From the first indigenous women in North America and the dangers and hardships of the 15th, 16th, and 17th century journeys to the New World to the continual push against patriarchal political, military, corporate, and societal systems and expectations, this essential book illustrates the important events and figures surrounding the suffrage movement; literature, art, and music; business leaders and breakthroughs; political history and office holders; advances in science and medicine; and other vital topics. Learn about the Nineteenth Amendment; Title IX; the legalization of birth control in 1966; the dramatic increase in women attending colleges and universities in the United States; the limitations of 19th-century women’s fashion on athletes; and so much more.

The most illustrious figures, as well as less-known stars, are revealed in The American Women’s Almanac, including Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Asawa, Clara Barton, Sara Blakely, Nellie Bly, Tarana Burke, Annie Jump Cannon, Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Carrie Chapman Catt, Bessie Coleman, Rebecca Harding Davis, Maya Deren, Amelia Earhart, Sarah Emma Edmonds, Carly Fiorina, Dian Fossey, Helen Frankenthaler, Aretha Franklin, Temple Grandin, Mia Hamm, Anna Mae Hays, Grace Hopper, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller, Julie Krone, Juliette Gordon Low, Dolley Madison, Maria Montoya Martinez, Lucretia Mott, Sara Nelson, Lynn Nottage, Sandra Day O’Connor, Pocahontas, Letty Cotton Pogrebin, E. Annie Proulx, Sally Ride, Sacagawea, Bernice Sandler, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem, Lucy Stone, Pat Summitt, Amy Tan, Martha Washington, Randi Weingarten, Gladys West, Susan Wojcicki, Kristi Yamaguchi, and approximately 350 others.

This important reference also has a helpful bibliography, an extensive index, a timeline, and 550 photos, adding to its usefulness. Commemorating and honoring the achievements, people, and essential influence of women in American history, The American Women’s Almanac brings to light all there is to admire and discover about these incredible women.

The first female. African American vice president, first U.S. senator, the 83rd U.S. Attorney General, and first black state legislator in Alaska. The first time a black woman and a white band shared the same stage; the first black woman writer to win a Pulitzer Prize; and the first black prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera Company. Black women have accomplished incredible things throughout American history.

An important book, Originals! Barrier-breaking Black Women profiles the lives and successes of such notable and iconic women as abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph, mathematician Katherine Johnson, organizer and politician Stacy Adams Stacey Abrams, astronaut Mae Jemison, jazz legend Billie Holiday, ballerina Misty Copeland, Vice President Kamala Harris, and also the accomplishments of hundreds of less-famous and lesser-known women. This fascinating read recounts 1,400 achievements, including …  

The most complete and affordable single-volume reference on women’s history available today, The American Women’s Almanac: 500 Years of Vitality, Triumph and Excellence is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating the moving and often lost history of women in America. It is a fascinating mix of biographies, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs and illustrations. Honoring and celebrating achievements from the First Nations women and the French Huguenot Women of Fort Caroline to the unprecedented number of ethnically diverse women running for modern office, it provides insights on the long-ignored influence, inspiration, and impact of women on U.S. society and culture.

From the first indigenous women in North America and the dangers and hardships of the 15th, 16th, and 17th century journeys to the New World to the continual push against patriarchal political, military, corporate, and societal systems and expectations, this essential book illustrates the important events and figures surrounding the suffrage movement; literature, art, and music; business leaders and breakthroughs; political history and office holders; advances in science and medicine; and other vital topics. Learn about the Nineteenth Amendment; Title IX; the legalization of birth control in 1966; the dramatic increase in women attending colleges and universities in the United States; the limitations of 19th-century women’s fashion on athletes; and so much more.

The most illustrious figures, as well as less-known stars, are revealed in The American Women’s Almanac, including Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Asawa, Clara Barton, Sara Blakely, Nellie Bly, Tarana Burke, Annie Jump Cannon, Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Carrie Chapman Catt, Bessie Coleman, Rebecca Harding Davis, Maya Deren, Amelia Earhart, Sarah Emma Edmonds, Carly Fiorina, Dian Fossey, Helen Frankenthaler, Aretha Franklin, Temple Grandin, Mia Hamm, Anna Mae Hays, Grace Hopper, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller, Julie Krone, Juliette Gordon Low, Dolley Madison, Maria Montoya Martinez, Lucretia Mott, Sara Nelson, Lynn Nottage, Sandra Day O’Connor, Pocahontas, Letty Cotton Pogrebin, E. Annie Proulx, Sally Ride, Sacagawea, Bernice Sandler, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem, Lucy Stone, Pat Summitt, Amy Tan, Martha Washington, Randi Weingarten, Gladys West, Susan Wojcicki, Kristi Yamaguchi, and approximately 350 others.

This important reference also has a helpful bibliography, an extensive index, a timeline, and 550 photos, adding to its usefulness. Commemorating and honoring the achievements, people, and essential influence of women in American history, The American Women’s Almanac brings to light all there is to admire and discover about these incredible women.

The first female. African American vice president, first U.S. senator, the 83rd U.S. Attorney General, and first black state legislator in Alaska. The first time a black woman and a white band shared the same stage; the first black woman writer to win a Pulitzer Prize; and the first black prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera Company. Black women have accomplished incredible things throughout American history.

An important book, Originals! Barrier-breaking Black Women profiles the lives and successes of such notable and iconic women as abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph, mathematician Katherine Johnson, organizer and politician Stacy Adams Stacey Abrams, astronaut Mae Jemison, jazz legend Billie Holiday, ballerina Misty Copeland, Vice President Kamala Harris, and also the accomplishments of hundreds of less-famous and lesser-known women. This fascinating read recounts 1,400 achievements, including … 

The most complete and affordable single-volume reference on women’s history available today, The American Women’s Almanac: 500 Years of Vitality, Triumph and Excellence is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating the moving and often lost history of women in America. It is a fascinating mix of biographies, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs and illustrations. Honoring and celebrating achievements from the First Nations women and the French Huguenot Women of Fort Caroline to the unprecedented number of ethnically diverse women running for modern office, it provides insights on the long-ignored influence, inspiration, and impact of women on U.S. society and culture.

From the first indigenous women in North America and the dangers and hardships of the 15th, 16th, and 17th century journeys to the New World to the continual push against patriarchal political, military, corporate, and societal systems and expectations, this essential book illustrates the important events and figures surrounding the suffrage movement; literature, art, and music; business leaders and breakthroughs; political history and office holders; advances in science and medicine; and other vital topics. Learn about the Nineteenth Amendment; Title IX; the legalization of birth control in 1966; the dramatic increase in women attending colleges and universities in the United States; the limitations of 19th-century women’s fashion on athletes; and so much more.

The most illustrious figures, as well as less-known stars, are revealed in The American Women’s Almanac, including Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Asawa, Clara Barton, Sara Blakely, Nellie Bly, Tarana Burke, Annie Jump Cannon, Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Carrie Chapman Catt, Bessie Coleman, Rebecca Harding Davis, Maya Deren, Amelia Earhart, Sarah Emma Edmonds, Carly Fiorina, Dian Fossey, Helen Frankenthaler, Aretha Franklin, Temple Grandin, Mia Hamm, Anna Mae Hays, Grace Hopper, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller, Julie Krone, Juliette Gordon Low, Dolley Madison, Maria Montoya Martinez, Lucretia Mott, Sara Nelson, Lynn Nottage, Sandra Day O’Connor, Pocahontas, Letty Cotton Pogrebin, E. Annie Proulx, Sally Ride, Sacagawea, Bernice Sandler, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem, Lucy Stone, Pat Summitt, Amy Tan, Martha Washington, Randi Weingarten, Gladys West, Susan Wojcicki, Kristi Yamaguchi, and approximately 350 others.

This important reference also has a helpful bibliography, an extensive index, a timeline, and 550 photos, adding to its usefulness. Commemorating and honoring the achievements, people, and essential influence of women in American history, The American Women’s Almanac brings to light all there is to admire and discover about these incredible women.

Examines the role of the American Revolution in the everyday lives of women

Patriarchal forces of law, finance, and social custom restricted women’s rights and agency in revolutionary America. Yet women in this period exploited these confines, transforming constraints into vehicles of female empowerment. Through a close reading of thousands of legislative, judicial, and institutional pleas across seventy years of history in three urban centers, Jacqueline Beatty illustrates the ways in which women in the revolutionary era asserted their status as dependents, demanding the protections owed to them as the assumed subordinates of men. In so doing, they claimed various forms of aid and assistance, won divorce suits, and defended themselves and their female friends in the face of patriarchal assumptions about their powerlessness. Ultimately, women in the revolutionary era were able to advocate for themselves and express a relative degree of power not in spite of their dependent status, but because of it.

Their varying degrees of success in using these methods, however, was contingent on their race, class, and socio-economic status, and the degree to which their language and behavior conformed to assumptions of Anglo-American femininity. In Dependence thus exposes the central paradoxes inherent in American women’s social, legal, and economic positions of dependence in the Revolutionary era, complicating binary understandings of power and weakness, of agency and impotence, and of independence and dependence. Significantly, the American Revolution provided some women with the language and opportunities in which to claim old rights—the rights of dependents—in new ways. Most importantly, In Dependence shows how women’s coming to consciousness as rights-bearing individuals laid the groundwork for the activism and collective petitioning efforts of later generations of American feminists.