Feminism and feminist theory Books

Book Synopsis''Part autobiography, part heartfelt plea to change the way we look at gender, Girls will be Girls is an excellent primer on feminist theory. Every teenage girl should be given a copy'' HOT PRESSBeing a woman is, largely, about performance - how we dress and modify our bodies, what we say, the roles we play, and how we conform to expectations. Gender stereotypes are still deeply embedded in our society, but Emer O''Toole is on a mission to re-write the old script and bend the rules of gender - and she shows how and why we should all be joining in.Exploring what it means to ''act like a girl'', Emer takes us on a hilarious and thought-provoking journey through her life (including singing ''Get Your Pits Out for the Lads'' on national TV after growing out her body hair). Cross-dressing, booty-shaking, sexual disasters, family dinners and full-body waxing are all lovingly dissected in search of wisdom.With game-changing ideas, academic intelligence and lTrade ReviewA fascinating exploration of how we 'do' gender. From the early labeling of infants to the ironclad enforcement of grooming and interpersonal behavior, gender expression is neither a matter of biological mandate nor individual choice. Emer O'Toole nimbly weaves philosophy and personal experience into a vivid depiction of gender identity as performance art. -- LISE ELIOT, author of PINK BRAIN, BLUE BRAINThe blogger and columnist, who is emerging as one of the leading lights of the new feminism, uses anecdotes from her own life - from 'cross-dressing to pube-growing and full-body waxing' - to illuminate some of the the dos and don'ts for women trying to set themself free from gender stereotypes. * THE GUARDIAN Unmissable books for 2015 *A witty, engaging appeal for everybody to stop conforming so rigidly to gender stereotypes.... As this thoughtful, funny book reminds us, being a girl can mean a lot of things. And with luck one day women will all get to decide for themselves what that is. * IRISH TIMES *An entertaining book that makes you question the conventions of gender. I expect it will attract comparisons with Caitlin Moran's How to be A Woman. Like Moran's work, I wish it could be handed out to every teenage girl as a self-esteem booster. -- Rosamund Urwin * EVENING STANDARD *What I love most about Emer's writing is that she is not only able to explain complex ideas about feminist theory in a way that is engaging and relatable, but it is also really funny. If you love reading feminism which is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, this book is the obvious next step up from Caitlin Moran. Get your hands on a copy. * abstractmag.com *The book is personal, in that it's her own story of playing a different role, and it's chatty and funny and likeable, much as the author herself seems to be. -- Eithne Tynan * IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY *Part autobiography, part heartfelt plea to change the way we look at gender, Girls will be Girls is an excellent primer on feminist theory. Every teenage girl should be given a copy. * HOT PRESS *As a possible fourth wave of Western feminism beckons, new titles on the subject are appearing with increasing regularity. O'Toole holds her own in a crowded space, albeit one in need of a greater diversity of female voices. Her accessible approach to theory, interwoven with her chatty, self-reflective style and gender insights from an Irish perspective creates a welcome addition to the current crop of popular feminist writing. -- Mary McGill * IRISH INDEPENDENT *In her excellent and eye-opening book Girls Will Be Girls, Emer O'Toole discusses the impact of the often stereotypical 'lenses' through which we see the world and the importance of examining those lenses in order to better understand our ingrained and normalised prejudice. In her book, How to Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran suggests that things would be easier if some pigeons would shit all over the glass ceiling, because we would then at least be able to see what we are dealing with. O'Toole's book performs a similar function... allowing us to see clearly the boundaries that are often invisible and unquestioned... A witty, pacy and exhilirating lesson in beginning to colour outside the lines. -- LAURA BATES * EVERYDAY SEXISM *Girls will be Girls is a funny and compelling read, combining fascinating, relatable storytelling with meticulous research and real practical advice for challenging patriarchal gender roles in your own small, large, thin, fat, feminine, masculine, hairy, unhairy way (and anything and everything in between!) -- Lusana Taylor * THE F WORD *O'Toole follows the personal example set by Caitlin Moran to such powerful effect, as she explores through anecdote and recollections from childhood and adolescence a powerful concept familiar to those who have studies feminist theory since the 1970s: the notion of one's gender as a performance, a construction that can be altered. * SUNDAY HERALD *A hilarious, honest and probing journey through what it means to be female, from haircutting to sexual discovery. * GRAZIA *Girls Will be Girls is bloody amazing, so go and read it right now. * WRITER'S LITTLE HELPER *Girls will be Girls is a funny and compelling read, combining fascinating, relatable storytelling with meticulous research and real practical advice for challenging patriarchal gender roles in your own small, large, thin, fat, feminine, masculine, hairy, unhairy way (and anything and everything in between!) -- Lusana Taylor * THE F WORD *O'Toole follows the personal example set by Caitlin Moran to such powerful effect, as she explores through anecdote and recollections from childhood and adolescence a powerful concept familiar to those who have studies feminist theory since the 1970s: the notion of one's gender as a performance, a construction that can be altered. * SUNDAY HERALD *

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Book SynopsisThis book presents MacKinnon’s powerful analysis of politics, sexuality, and the law from the perspective of women. Using the debate over Marxism and feminism as a point of departure, MacKinnon develops a theory of gender centered on sexual subordination and applies it to the state.Trade ReviewLooking at the female and male halves of the world equally transforms everything—and Toward a Feminist Theory of the State makes that clear with scholarship, courage, and wit. By exposing and correcting the patriarchal values underlying nationalism and justice, Catharine MacKinnon causes an earthquake of thinking that rearranges every part of our intellectual landscape. This book is a ‘must read.’ -- Gloria SteinemThe single most important book in the new jurisprudence… It is, in my opinion, the only book in legal theory produced in the twentieth century which can rank with H. L. A. Hart’s The Concept of Law (1961). Both change the framework arid transform the paradigm of the theoretical debate. All discourse within the framework of liberal legal theory has had to place itself in relationship to the ideas and theories of Hart. All feminist legal theory, likewise, must place itself in reference to the writings of MacKinnon. Her work, however, is much more significant than that of Hart, because her perspective has the potential of social revolution. * Canadian Bar Review *[MacKinnon] convincingly links sexuality and violence. But what I value in this book is the leap of faith to a search for practical remedies for women’s situation. -- Naomi Black * Globe and Mail *Table of ContentsPreface Part One: Feminism and Marxism 1. The Problem of Marxism and Feminism 2. A Feminist Critique of Marx and Engels 3. A Marxist Critique of Feminism 4. Attempts at Synthesis Part Two: Method 5. Consciousness Raising 6. Method and Politics 7. Sexuality Part Three: The State 8. The Liberal State 9. Rape: On Coercion and Consent 10. Abortion: On Public and Private 11. Pornography: On Morality and Politics 12. Sex Equality: On Difference and Dominance 13. Toward Feminist Jurisprudence Notes Credits Index

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Book SynopsisThe essays in Object-Oriented Feminism explore OOF: a feminist intervention into recent philosophical discourses—like speculative realism, object-oriented ontology (OOO), and new materialism—that take objects, things, stuff, and matter as primary. Object-oriented feminism approaches all objects from the inside-out position of being an object too, with all of its accompanying political and ethical potentials. This volume places OOF thought in a long history of ongoing feminist work in multiple disciplines. In particular, object-oriented feminism foregrounds three significant aspects of feminist thinking in the philosophy of things: politics, engaging with histories of treating certain humans (women, people of color, and the poor) as objects; erotics, employing humor to foment unseemly entanglements between things; and ethics, refusing to make grand philosophical truth claims, instead staking a modest ethical position that arrives at being “in the right” by being “wrong.”Seeking not to define object-oriented feminism but rather to enact it, the volume is interdisciplinary in approach, with contributors from a variety of fields, including sociology, anthropology, English, art, and philosophy. Topics are frequently provocative, engaging a wide range of theorists from Heidegger and Levinas to Irigaray and Haraway, and an intriguing diverse array of objects, including the female body as fetish object in Lolita subculture; birds made queer by endocrine disruptors; and truth claims arising in material relations in indigenous fiction and film. Intentionally, each essay can be seen as an “object” in relation to others in this collection. Contributors: Irina Aristarkhova, University of Michigan; Karen Gregory, University of Edinburgh; Marina Gržinić, Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts; Frenchy Lunning, Minneapolis College of Art and Design; Timothy Morton, Rice University; Anne Pollock, Georgia Tech; Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Columbia University; R. Joshua Scannell, CUNY Graduate Center; Adam Zaretsky, VASTAL.Trade Review"Taking on object-oriented ontologies and speculative realism, the authors of these essays are not shy in reestablishing feminist theory as a primary resource for thinking about objects, things and environments. The editor, Katherine Behar, offers a brilliant introduction to object-oriented feminism and the encounter it stages with current philosophical trends."—Patricia Ticineto Clough, author of Autoaffection and coeditor of Beyond Biopolitics"Object-Oriented Feminism will be of particular interest for readers in feminist theory, philosophy and poststructuralism as they intersect with curatorial and art practices, and thus also being interesting for artists, curators and cultural workers navigating their ways in the worlds of theory and philosophy."—Identities: Journal for Gender, Politics and CultureTable of ContentsContents An Introduction to OOF Katherine Behar 1. A Feminist Object Irina Aristarkhova 2. All Objects Are Deviant: Feminism and Ecological Intimacy Timothy Morton 3. Allure and Abjection: The Possible Potential of Severed Qualities Frenchy Lunning 4. The World is Flat and Other Super Weird Ideas Elizabeth A. Povinelli 5. Facing Necrophilia, or “Botox Ethics” Katherine Behar 6. OOPS: Object Oriented Psychopathia Sexualis Adam Zaretsky 7. Queering Endocrine Disruption Anne Pollock 8. Political Feminist Positioning in Neoliberal Global Capitalism Marina Gržinić 9. In the Cards: From Hearing “Things” to Human Capital Karen Gregory 10. Both a Cyborg and a Goddess: Deep Managerial Time and Informatic Governance R. Joshua Scannell Acknowledgments Notes Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisMakes key excerpts from Daly's work accessible to readers who are seeking to access the essence of her thought in a single volume. Outrageous, humorous, inflammatory, Amazonian, intellectual, provocative, controversial, and a discoverer of Feminist word-magic, Mary Daly's influence on Second Wave feminism was enormous. She burst through constraints to articulate new ways of being female and alive. This comprehensive reader offers a vital introduction to the core of Daly's work and the complexities secreted away in the pages of her books. Her major theoriesBio-philia, Be-ing as Verb, and the life force within wordsand major controversiesrelating to race, transgender identity, and separatismare all covered, and the editors have provided introductions to each selection for context. The text has been crafted to be accessible to a broad readership, without diluting Daly's witty but complicated vocabulary. Begun in collaboration with Daly while she was still alive, and completed after her Trade Review"In sum, this anthology is an intellectual gift to feminists everywhere. It reminds us to be fearlessly feminist, to uphold our diverse feminist intellectual traditions, and to collaborate with each other in ways that encourage feminist resistance to the technocratic, necrophilic, and neo-fascist threats, laws, and practice harming those performing as women." * Reading Religion *"She was a great trained philosopher, theologian, and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy -- or any idea that domination is natural -- in its most defended place, which is religion." -- Gloria Steinem * Boston Globe, January 2010 *""Brings us face to face with the radical, groundbreaking work of a feminist philosopher whose expectations for women were only exceeded by her commitment to them. I still vividly remember my first encounter with Mary Daly's work, the exhilaration of her wordsmithery, the sense of freedom and clarity that came from having the evils of the world named and condemned, and the ensuing commitment sparked to do something with these insights - to work to dismantle structures of injustice at the root. We need these kinds of transformative encounters today and this book is up to the task... This painstakingly crafted reader invites our engagement (new or continuing) with one of the sharpest thinkers of our time, challenging us to leap into Mary Daly's originally brilliant work and to transcend beyond it." " -- Xochitl Alvizo,California State University, Northridge"Tide-like, social and cultural movements flow and ebb—as do the reputations of their founders. This reader puts Daly on display in all of her life-long radical transformations, personal, theological, philosophical, rhetorical." * The Pomegranate *

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Book SynopsisBe guided and motivated by the world's most inspiring women with this creative set of oracle cards. Need advice on breaking the glass ceiling? Find out what Gloria Steinem would do. Juggling family and career? Ask Serena Williams. Need to change your attitude? Angela Davis is at hand. Pick a card and let 50 feminist gurus guide you through any dilemma.Shortlisted for the 2021 Gift of The Year Awards!

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Book SynopsisIn Willful Subjects Sara Ahmed explores willfulness as a charge often made by some against others. One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will and willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination.Trade Review"Willful Subjects is a rich, complex, wondrous archive of willfulness. The array of texts, voices, problems and approaches is both painstaking and playful, validating and challenging." -- Heather Rakes * xcphilosophy blog *“In Willful Subjects, cultural theorist Sara Ahmed provides a history of willfulness. Her study reveals some significant and fascinating aspects of this history, and points to areas of future scholarly enquiry. . . . The book offers a comprehensive and intellectually rigorous treatise on a topic that is more complex than it may initially appear. This text also provides further evidence of Ahmed’s scholarly nous. “ -- Jay Daniel Thompson * M/C Reviews *“Ahmed has produced an erudite archive of willfulness, tracing the ideas of the will and willfulness through Western thought since Augustine. Admonitory fairy tales and George Eliot’s novels serve as articulations of philosophy. Ahmed engages in a queer reading of willfulness, a reading that does not presume that willfulness is negative. . . . Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.” -- J. L. Croissant * Choice *“Ahmed effectively imitates the twisting together of thought, affect, memory, and insight, drawing connections between things that may appear disparate, and noticing disjunctions in what was previously knit together. … [B]y drawing widely and richly on works of philosophy, literature, film, and everydayness, Ahmed shows how in social life, one affect or action may be judged to be quite another. This allows us to attend not only to behaviors and orientations, but to how those are read by others, to why and in what ways certain actions and affects are felt and interpreted as problematic, as willful.” -- Anna Mudde * Hypatia *“Ahmed’s insights, as always, are both intellectually fertile and provocative; Willful Subjects will not disappoint.” -- Margrit Shildrick * Signs *“Willful Subjects is essential reading for those working in feminism, disability studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and/or phenomenology who reject the notion that a new world or a better one is simply tied to asserting the will to make it so. This is a book for those willing to slow down to queer the will and contemplate what we have been up to, willingly or not.” -- Tanya Titchkosky * Contemporary Women's Writing *“Without being too idealistic, this book should be in the collection of every activist and organiser working to create a different world. The last chapter in particular offers much that can reinforce and reinvigorate the willful when feeling isolated and downbeat. Followers of Sara Ahmed’s work will not be disappointed with her latest offering.” -- Lizzy Willmington * Feminist Legal Studies *"This rousing text remains a valuable assessment of historical and contemporary ideas of will and willfulness and a far-reaching exploration of potential new perspectives on our identification and evaluation of the willful subject." -- Hannah Simpson * College Literature *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: A Willfulness Archive 1 1. Willing Subjects 23 2. The Good Will 59 3. The General Will 97 4. Willfulness as a Style of Politics 133 Conclusion: A Call to Arms 173 Notes 205 References 257 Index 277

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Book SynopsisWomen are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women's desire is often slow to emerge. And men are keen to insist that they know what women-and their bodies-want. Meanwhile, sexual violence abounds. How can women, in this environment, possibly know what they want? And why do we expect them to?In this elegant, searching book-spanning science and popular culture; pornography and literature; debates on Me-Too, consent and feminism-Katherine Angel challenges our assumptions about women's desire. Why, she asks, should they be expected to know their desires? And how do we take sexual violence seriously, when not knowing what we want is key to both eroticism and personhood?In today's crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we remake our thinking about sex, pleasure, and autonomy without any illusions about perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we fulfil Michel Foucault's teasing promise, in 1976, that 'tomorrow sex will be good again'Trade ReviewThe real joy lies in the artfulness with which she uses these intimate episodes as a way of unwrapping the larger issue of what it means to be a woman, both object and subject of desire. -- Olivia Laing * The Guardian *Offers an arresting mix of diaristic experiences with her lover . . . and heady reflections from feminist thinkers like Susan Sontag and Virginia Woolf. A genre-busting nonfiction account that reads like poetry, revels in ambiguity, and intentionally defies definition, the book explores the slippery emotions of sex in fiery, collage-like scenes intended to reconcile the contradictory 'metaphors we love by.' * O Magazine *Ghostly and poetic . . . [A] thinking woman's meditation on sexual desire. * Publishers Weekly *Unconventional, deeply personal . . . often poetic. * The New Yorker *Angel embraces the impossibility of extricating fact from feeling. -- Julia Klein * The Boston Globe *One of the most insightful and articulate writers at work today. -- Lauren Elkin, author of Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, andIn this impressive and intelligent examination of the father figure, Angel expertly intersects the subject with feminism, mythology, Donald Winnicott, Brett Kavanaugh and more. Her unstinting eye and intellectual vigour make Daddy Issues an engaging interrogation. It feels utterly vital in the context of #MeToo and the political flux the world currently finds itself in. -- Sinead GleesonAn ardent, rigorous, nuanced investigation into the question of consent, at once illuminating and empowering. A truly vital guide to navigating the difficult waters of 21st century desire. -- Olivia LaingThought-provoking ... [Angel's] jargon-free prose and nuanced readings of popular culture and postmodern theory enlighten. Readers will value this lively and incisive inquiry into the sexual dynamics of the #MeToo era. * Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) *One of our most daring, exciting and nuanced writers on the complexities of female desire, pleasure, autonomy and imagination. -- Deborah Levy, author of The Cost of LivingA provocative counterargument to recent feminist dogma. ... Angel raises intriguing questions about commonly accepted assumptions, and she offers reassurance to female readers. * Kirkus Reviews *[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again] takes a taboo topic and removes the stigma by providing facts. Its titular refrain advocates for a better tomorrow. -- Ashley Holstrom * Foreword Reviews *[Angel] writes about complex questions with such clarity and elegance, and amid all the polarised spats that currently pass for considered debate, her work is a breath of fresh air. [Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again] is a provocative but clear-sighted analysis of female sexuality in the wake of #MeToo ... I'd urge anyone who cares about sexual ethics to read it. -- Bookseller (Editor's Choice) * Caroline Sanderson *Excellent -- Charlotte Higgins * The Guardian *[A] bible of modern sexuality and consent that all men and women should be reading * Evening Standard *She is reaching towards something else: a world where desire does not have to be known and fixed in advance to protect people from violence. -- Hettie O'Brien * Guardian *Tenderly inflected and meticulously argued, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again should be required reading * New Internationalist - Five Starred Review *A clear-eyed intervention in the crossfire of post-#MeToo sexual politics * TANK Magazine *Voyeuristically fascinating ... Angel dares to suggest that consent is not sexy . we should be aiming for something more complex -- Anna Leszkiewicz * New Statesman *Offers new ways of understanding the complexity of sexual relations . fresh and provoking * The F-Word *Exquisite ... A breathtaking, brilliant invitation not to turn away from complexity and vulnerability -- Hannah Dawson, editor of The Penguin Book of Feminist WritingThis nonfiction tour-de-force is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring themes of consent, power, sex, and the Me Too movement. This is the kind of book that seeks not to create dichotomous binaries, but to complicate the narrative. -- Rachel Krantz * The Millions *Eloquent and lucid -- Celia Walden * Telegraph *Succinct and thought-provoking -- Stephanie Merritt * Observer *Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again offers readers a blend of cultural criticism and provocative theory. -- Tobias Carroll * Inside Hook *Intriguing, philosophical. -- Laura Miller * Slate *One of the smartest, most nuanced and thought-provoking books I've read about sex in the post-#MeToo era. -- Moya Crockett * Stylist *[Angel] is right - consent as a yes/no dichotomy cannot be everything we want it to be. We must recognise that language cannot say everything, especially for women, who have not historically been given the chance to shape it according to their own needs and desires. * The Arts Desk *[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again is] a necessary contribution to the many conversations about sex and power we have all had since 2017, and Angel's prose, clear and lovely, nimbly navigates the complexities of her subject matter. -- Madeleine Watts * Bookforum *A vital and groundbreaking work that brings nuance to a thorny subject. -- Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett * Guardian *Angel has dissected much of what there is to know about consent, desire, arousal and vulnerability: the four cornerstones of sexuality. Resisting definitive and simplistic conclusions, Angel has been wide-reaching in her research -- Emily S Cooper * Irish Times *Angel not only asks key questions about what women want, but also how we can know what we want. -- Adele Walton * Dazed *

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Book SynopsisShould we become parents? This question forces us to reckon with what we love and fear most in ourselves, in our relationships, and in the world. When Gina Rushton considered this decision, the choice was less straightforward than she had assumed. Her search for an answer only uncovered more complexity. How do race, gender and class affect our experiences of pregnancy, birth, and parenthood? How do we address the paradox of creating new life on a planet facing catastrophic climate change? How do we navigate uncompromising workplace cultures and the pitfalls of excessive emotional labour? How does our own childhood impact how we choose to parent, if we do so at all? Drawing on a depth of knowledge gained through her extraordinary work as an award-winning journalist, as well as her personal experiences, Rushton wrote the book she and others needed to transform the discourse around the parenthood dilemma.Trade ReviewExtract: Why Would Anyone Want To Have Kids When It Feels Like The World Is Ending? -- Gina Rushton * Junkee *Review: The easiest—and hardest—decision -- Melody Tan * Mums at the Table *Review -- Rebecca Whitehead * Books + Publishing *Review: The Most Important Job In The World shows that parenting really can be a giant motherload! -- Natalie Salvo * The AU Review *Review -- Jackie Tang * Readings (ANZ) *When is the right time to freeze your eggs? * Harper's Bazaar Australia - syndicated to Harper's Bazaar Arabia *Interview: Gina Rushton on writing The Most Important Job in the World -- Sharon Green * She Defined *The case for not having kids: Why women are putting the conversation on ice -- Kelley Dennett * Stuff NZ *The question around having children: a nine month long study! * RNZ *Panel on The Drum with Ellen Fanning * ABC *Nature and grief, rethinking motherhood on Life Matters * ABC *Ten Terrifying Questions * Booktopia *Why the question 'do you want kids' tears women open like nothing else -- Gina Rushton * Body + Soul *The Millennial Anxiety Of Having Kids In A Climate Crisis -- Alex Bruce-Smith * Elle *What comes after guilt when family planning in a climate crisis? Anger. -- Gina Rushton * Sydney Morning Herald *Show Your Working: Gina Rushton -- Gina Rushton * Kill Your Darlings *The best Australian books out in April -- Donna Lu * The Guardian *As a science journalist I’m reconsidering having kids. I’m not the only one -- Donna Lu * The Guardian *The most anticipated books of 2022 -- Melanie Kembrey * Sydney Morning Herald *

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Book SynopsisIn Virgin Mary and the Neutrino, first published in French in 2006 and here appearing in English for the first time, Isabelle Stengers experiments with the possibility of addressing modern practices not as a block but through their divergence from each other. Drawing on thinkers ranging from John Dewey to Gilles Deleuze, she develops what she calls an ecology of practices into a capacious and heterogeneous perspective that is inclusive of cultural and political forces but not reducible to them. Stengers first advocates for an approach to sciences that would emphasize the way each should be situated by the kind of relationships demanded by what it attempts to address. This approach turns away from the disabling scientific/nonscientific binary-like the opposition between the neutrino and the Virgin Mary. An ecology of practices instead stimulates an appetite for thinking reality not as an arbiter but as what we can relate to through the generation of diverging concerns and obligations.Trade Review“Virgin Mary and the Neutrino is an extraordinary exploration of the events that have shaped the relationship between scientific practices and the public—the devastating effects of which we see today, especially in ecological situations. It is also the best introduction to Isabelle Stengers’s body of work, which is undoubtedly one of the most important and original in contemporary thought.” -- Didier Debaise, author of * Nature as Event: The Lure of the Possible *“Virgin Mary and the Neutrino counts among the contemporary classics written by one of the most creative and boldest philosophers of science. Isabelle Stengers’s proposals have the inevitable quality of inducing thought. This book will initiate anyone, no matter the stage of their career, who wants to become familiar with Stengers’s inspiring brilliance.” -- Marisol de la Cadena, author of * Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds *Table of ContentsTranslator’s Preface vii 1. Scientists in Trouble 1 2. The Force of Experimentation 17 3. Dissolving Amalgams 38 4. The Sciences in Their Milieus 61 5.Troubling the Public Order 86 Intermezzo: The Creation of Concepts 111 6. On the Same Plane? 119 7. We Are Not Alone in the World 144 8. Ecology of Practices 169 9. The Cosmopolitical Test 197 Appendix: The First Experimental Apparatus? 207 Notes 217 Bibliography 235 Index 241

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Book SynopsisIn this extraordinary essay, Virginia Woolf examines the limitations of womanhood in the early twentieth century. With the startling prose and poetic licence of a novelist, she makes a bid for freedom, emphasizing that the lack of an independent income, and the titular ‘room of one’s own’, prevents most women from reaching their full literary potential. As relevant in its insight and indignation today as it was when first delivered in those hallowed lecture theatres, A Room of One’s Own remains both a beautiful work of literature and an incisive analysis of women and their place in the world.Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf features an afterword by the British art historian Frances Spalding.

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Book SynopsisAt once a heart-wrenching personal narrative and a unique historical document, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt is the ultimate example of the personal as political.Eleanor Roosevelt stands as one of the world's greatest humanitarians, having dedicated her remarkable life to the liberty and equality of all people. In this sincere and frank self-portrait she recounts her childhood marked by the death of her mother and separation from the rest of her family at age seven her marriage to Franklin D. Roosevelt; and the challenges of motherhood, including the tragic death of her second son, all of which occurred before her twenty-fifth birthday.It wasn't till her thirties that Eleanor Roosevelt began the life for which she is known. A committed supporter of women's suffrage, architect of the welfare state, leader of the UN Commission on Human Rights and author of the Declaration of Human Rights, as well as being a prolific writer, diplomat, visionary, pacifist and commiTable of ContentsPreface Part I: This is My Story Part II: This I Remember Part III: On My Own Part IV: The Search for Understanding Afterword, Nancy Roosevelt Ireland Index

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Book SynopsisInnovative essays that explore how men perform femininity and what femininity looks like without womenWhat counts as male femininity? Is it simply men behaving in effeminate ways or is it the absence of masculinity? Male Femininities presents a nuanced, critical collection of essays that highlight the extent to which male femininities are neither an imitation of femaleness nor an emptying of masculinity. These innovative essays focus on both gay and straight men, and transmasculine and genderqueer people in their construction and performance of femininity, thereby revealing the possibilities that open up when we critically examine femininity without women. Male Femininities asks, What does femininity look like for men?The contributorshighly regarded scholars and rising starscover a range of topics, including drag queens, cosmetic enhancements, trans fertility, and gender-non-conforming childhoods. Male Femininities illuminates what happens wheTrade ReviewRigorously and playfully complicating its core concepts, Male Femininities takes a sociological tour through the spaces where male bodies and male subjectivities encounter, embrace, disavow, and inhabit the feminine. Expansive in its empirical and theoretical scope, this book is a must-have for scholars and students of gender studies. * Jane Ward, author of The Tragedy of Heterosexuality *Male Femininities explores the political potential of gender boundary crossing and encourages readers to see gender as distinct from sex and sexuality. Focusing on what happens when social rules are broken, each chapter reveals the variety of spaces in which gender can look different from what we might expect. * Kristen Barber, author of Styling Masculinity *Kudos to the editors for bringing together such engaging work – including compelling first-person narratives and theoretically- and historically-grounded ethnographic research – that illustrates a range of male femininities in action. * Wendy Simonds, author of Hospital Land USA *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the MLA''s 2016 Alan Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies How BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The Color of Kink explores black women''s representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power for black women. Based on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers, producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, criticTrade ReviewThe Color of Kink breaks entirely new ground in the study of pornography and sexual cultures. Prioritizing the depathologization of black female sexuality and kink cultural practices, this book is a refreshing breakthrough in black feminist and queer theories of sex. Ariane Cruz offers usable theories that unleash the imagination and lubricate the way we think about black sexual politics. -- Mireille Miller-Young,author of A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in PornographyAn exciting contribution to sexuality studies and a much-needed corrective to how we think about BDSM. With beautiful and sharp analysis, Ariane Cruz draws from a dazzling array of sources to parse out the pleasures of abjection that make BDSM an apt metaphor for thinking through black female sexuality. A wonderful, provocative book. -- Amber Jamilla Musser,author of Sensational Flesh: Race, Power, and Masochism

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Book Synopsis'Shocking, heartfelt and well-researched' New Statesman'A ground-shaping book that defines the edge of so many vital contemporary debates. Hers is a voice simultaneously behind and beyond the veil' Colum McCann'A fascinating, can't-look-away, whistle-stop tour of the Middle East' Daily Telegraph'Brave and impassioned . . . A shocking book, and one that will make anyone who has seen veiling as a cultural issue think very hard about what is really going on' Mail on SundayHeadscarves and Hymens explodes the myth that we should stand back and watch while women are disempowered and abused in the name of religion. In this laceratingly honest account, Eltahawy takes aim both at attitudes in the Middle East and at the western liberals who mistake misogyny for cultural difference. Her argument is clear: unless political revolution in the Arab world is accompanied by social and sexual revolution, no progress will be made.Headscarves and Hymens is the book the world has been crying out for: a powerful, fearless account of what it really means to be a woman in the Muslim world. 'A fascinating, can't-look-away, whistle-stop tour of the Middle East' Daily Telegraph'Brave and impassioned . . . A shocking book, and one that will make anyone who has seen veiling as a cultural issue think very hard about what is really going on' Mail on Sunday Trade ReviewSo we have a winner for book-title of 2015 @monaeltahawy's 'Headscarves & Hymens - Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution.' BRAVO -- Caitlin MoranNow Eltahawy has written this fearless roar-to-arms, which sets her own experiences - including how she was groped while on Hajj in Mecca - alongside those of dozens of other women. She illustrates the misogynistic and sometimes downright barbaric attitudes towards women in the Arab world; from the Hobson's Choice of the hijab and the Saudi cleric who declared that women shouldn't drive because it damages their ovaries; to FGM and Rawan, the eight-year-old Yemeni "bride", who died of internal bleeding after being violently penetrated on her "wedding night". Sometimes we need books that will make us angry enough to want to change things. This book will certainly disturb you, and possibly make you very angry indeed - but you must read it. -- Caroline Sanderson * THE BOOKSELLER - Editor's Choice Book of the Month *Shocking, heartfelt and well-researched * NEW STATESMAN *This feisty Egyptian lady made headlines after she was arrested by police, beaten and sexually assaulted in 2011 during the Egyptian revolution. Her subsequent article for Foreign Policy magazine, Why Do They Hate Us?, was a no-holds barred attack on the treatment of women in many Arab countries. "When it comes to the status of women in the Middle East," she wrote, "it's not better than you think. It is much, much worse" -- Camilla Cavendish * SUNDAY TIMES *'Headscarves and Hymens is an impassioned, deeply felt and affecting memoir that confronts a very real problem. -- Tahmima Anim * THE TIMES *Brave and impassioned . . . A shocking book, and one that will make anyone who has seen veiling as a cultural issue think very hard about what is really going on * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Inequality, state brutality, resentment, sexual frustration, religious indoctrination, shame culture and struggle for power . . . Eltahawy holds a match to this combustible mix . . . A brave call for gender equality * GUARDIAN *(What are you currently reading?) Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy. I was lucky enough to interview Mona recently and she is enormously inspiring and very, very funny. -- Laura Bates * THE INDEPENDENT *This is a fascinating, can't-look-away, whistle-stop tour of the Middle East through the eyes of an angry but lucid observer. Eltahawy is brave as well as perceptive: her reports cause outrage and controversy. She blames the West as much as Middle Eastern attitudes for the lack of change, especially Western liberals who criticise imperialism and yet turn a blind eye to the cultural imperialism that doesn't push misogyny to the fore, as if there might time to sort that out later when more important matters have been "fixed". -- Viv Groskop * DAILY TELEGRAPH *This a call to arms against misogyny in the Arab world is furiously plain-speaking. -- Viv Groskop * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *To Eltahawy, the root of this inequality is clear: "a toxic mix of culture and religion", particularly Islam, and more particularly the spread of its ultra-conservative Saudi-style interpretation. -- Rachel Aspden * THE GUARDIAN *Overall, however, it is the oscillation between the personal and the political that makes Headscarves and Hymens a tour de force...Sometimes we need books that will make us angry enough to want to change things. This courageous book will certainly disturb you, and may make you very angry indeed. But you still must read it. -- Caroline Sanderson * MSLEXIA *Headscarves and Hymens is less a call to arms and more a protracted bellow for equality, progress and common sense. -- Anakana Schofield * IRISH TIMES *This book should be made compulsory reading in all those schools where British Muslim girls are being groomed to go abroad to be Islamic State brides. Eltahawy is laceratingly honest about how hard it has been for her as an Arab Muslim woman to confront the institutional misogyny of her culture, to free herself of the "taboos and silence". Only when there has been a revolution in the relations between the sexes, she insists, will there ever be genuine political change in the Middle East. -- Daisy Goodwin * MAIL ON SUNDAY *Headscarves and Hymens is useful for those who are new to the situation in the Middle East, as it's a good overview of the main social issues affecting the region. * NEW INTERNATIONALIST *This is a timely and provocative call to action for gender equality in the Middle East * PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY (USA) *Eltahawy's passionately argued case is irrefutable. But how to harness this rage to achieve real political change remains the unanswered question. * SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) *In her debut book, Egyptian-American journalist and commentator Eltahawy mounts an angry indictment of the treatment of women throughout the Arab world. * KIRKUS REVIEWS (USA) *This is a ground-shaping book that defines the edge of so many vital contemporary debates. Hers is a voice simultaneously behind and beyond the veil. -- Colum McCannThis a powerful global feminist demand for equal rights. -- Vanessa Bush * BOOKLIST (USA) *Headscarves and Hymens is a call to arms by a woman who's plainly proud of her justified rage. She brings to mind those angry, outspoken women in the 1970s who were branded "strident" feminists - the ones who yelled, who offended, but who generated change. "It is the job of a revolution to shock, to provoke, and to upset," Eltahawy writes, "not to behave or be polite." Mission accomplished. -- Marcia Kaye * TORONTO STAR (Canada) *Mona Eltahawy brings a journalist's keen eye, a revolutionary's prophetic courage, and a feminist's incendiary intellect to this work, demolishing the last cultural relativist myths. And she writes so well that it's hard to put down this audacious, information-packed treasure about the half of the Arab world that's female. Miss this book-the real key to the Middle East-at your peril. -- Robin MorganHeadscarves and Hymens is timely, important and much needed. It should be translated into many languages, especially those spoken in the Middle East. Eltahawy encourages the girls of the Middle East and North Africa to be "immodest, rebel and disobey" and know they are entitled to be free. Her book deserves to be widely read, discussed and acclaimed. -- Elif Shafak * LITERARY REVIEW *A passionate and brilliantly argued polemic....When I put down Eltahawy's deeply affecting book, I felt that a bit more Enlightenment universalism is in order. Instead of bellyaching when some idiotic man calls a woman "dear" or a hideous professor sends his student a creepy email, feminists should wake up and recognise the cruel, systematic violence that millions of women still face throughout the world. -- Jane O'Grady * THE TABLET *Informative and engaging, a brave and much needed insight into suffering which is rarely talked about openly. * THE F WORD *

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Book SynopsisA prodigiously brilliant thinker who sharply challenged the beliefs of his age, the political and social radical John Stuart Mill was the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century. Regarded as one of the sacred texts of liberalism, his great work On Liberty argues lucidly that any democracy risks becoming a ''tyranny of opinion'' in which minority views are suppressed if they do not conform with those of the majority. Written in the same period as On Liberty, shortly after the death of Mill''s beloved wife and fellow-thinker Harriet, The Subjection of Women stresses the importance of equality for the sexes. Together, the works provide a fascinating testimony to the hopes and anxieties of mid-Victorian England, and offer a compelling consideration of what it truly means to be free.Trade ReviewOn Liberty remains a classic. . . . The present world would be better than it is if [MillÆs] principles were more respected. (Bertrand Russell)

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Book SynopsisMedieval Douai left an enormous archive of documents. This text reveals how these documents were produced in an effort to regulate property and gender relations. At the centre was a shift to a property regime based on contract. The book explores why the law changed and assesses its effects.

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Book SynopsisWhen Chris Kraus, an unsuccessful artist pushing 40, spends an evening with a rogue academic named Dick, she falls madly and inexplicably in love, enlisting her husband in her haunted pursuit. Dick proposes a kind of game between them, but when he fails to answer their letters Chris continues alone, transforming an adolescent infatuation into a new form of philosophy. Blurring the lines of fiction, essay and memoir, Chris Kraus's novel was a literary sensation when it was first published in 1997. Widely considered to be the most important feminist novel of the past two decades, I Love Dick is still essential reading; as relevant, fierce and funny as ever.Trade ReviewI know there was a time before I read Chris Kraus's I Love Dick (in fact, that time was only five years ago), but it's hard to imagine; some works of art do this to you. They tear down so many assumptions about what the form can handle (in this case, what the form of the novel can handle) that there is no way to re-create your mind before your encounter with them -- Sheila HetiThe intelligence and honesty and total originality of Chris Kraus make her work not just great but indispensable - especially now, when everything is so confusing, so full of despair. I read everything Chris Kraus writes; she softens despair with her brightness, and with incredible humor, too. -- Rachel KushnerI Love Dick is a classic. Here pain is the aphrodisiac and distance is the muse. Unrequited love is transformed into a fascinating book of ideas. -- Zoe PilgerEver since I read I Love Dick, I have revered it as one of the most explosive, revealing, lacerating and unusual memoirs ever committed to the page ... I Love Dick is never a comfortable read, and it is by turns exasperating, horrifying, and lurid, but it is never less than genuine, and often completely illuminating about the life of the mind. -- Rick MoodyI Love Dick is written in a clear prose capable of theoretical clarity, descriptive delicacy, articulate rage and melancholic longing * White Review *Tart, brazen and funny ... a cautionary tale, I Love Dick raises disturbing but compelling questions about female social behavior, power, control * Nation *For years before I read it, I kept hearing about Chris Kraus's I Love Dick. I mainly heard about it from smart women who liked to talk about their feelings ... I didn't understand exactly what it was, but it had an allure, like whispers about a dance club that only opened under the full moon, or an underground bar you needed a password to get into ... then I read it. I was nearly two decades late to the party - I Love Dick came out in 1997 - but I loved the party anyway. I was finally part of it, and it made me feel even more part of it - part of something ... I was holding white-hot text in my hands -- Leslie Jamison * New Yorker *I Love Dick is one of the most important books about being a woman ... Friends speak of Kraus's work in the same breathless and conspiratorial way they discuss Elena Ferrante's novels of female friendship set in Naples. The clandestine clubbishness that envelopes women who've read and immersed themselves in the texts shows how little female desire, anger and vulnerability is accurately and confidently explored in literature and culture ... the book reveals far deeper truths than standard and uncomplicated love plots tend to. -- Dawn Foster * Independent *This is the most important book written about men and women written in the last century... why is this revolutionary 18-year-old book finding its biggest audience only now? The answer lies in its own pages, when Kraus writes that "who gets to speak, and why, is the only question". In the last half a decade, women have been permitted to speak in a different way than before; women artists who use details of their own lives in their work are not as easily dismissed as they once were. The internet enables hordes of frightened, anonymous men to try to silence women via harassment and shaming, but it has also enabled our voices to be heard on a grander scale, with fewer intermediaries, than ever before. We are able to write our own letters to Dick now, and to publish them widely: to tell Dick exactly what we think of him, whether he likes it or not.This book will only become more relevant. Its time is now - and now, and now, for the rest of eternity. -- Emily Gould * Guardian *This book comes with a reputation, though it's not the one you might expect from the title, which leaps from the gorgeous, faux-innocent cover. Chris Kraus's "novel" was first published in the US in 1997 and has become recognised as both an influential feminist text and a key intervention in the debate over where life-writing ends and fiction begins ... What remains so brilliant about the book is the real, useful thought that Kraus builds out of her romantic fantasy ... You can call it a novel, then, but it's as a philosophical and cultural critique that I Love Dick bites hardest. -- Jonathan Gibbs * Independent *Read this on the bus - we dare you * Sunday Times Style *One of the most important feminist novels of the past two decades - -- Eva Wiseman * Observer Magazine *A joyful riposte to all those stories in which clever women fall victim to the pressures of convention - from The Yellow Wallpaper to The Bell Jar and beyond - and also to the countless books by men in which women are crushed by romantic encounters: from Madame Bovary to Anna Karenina to Laclos's epistolatory Les Liaisons Dangereuses and André Breton's autofiction, Nadja ... What makes now the right moment to publish Kraus's debut novel for the first time in the UK, after 18 years? There is a hint of retrospective gratitude: without Kraus, we might not have had the philosophers in high heels of Zoe Pilger's Eat My Heart Out, or Susana Medina's Philosophical Toys. Without her challenge to what she called "the 'serious' contemporary hetero-male novel ... a thinly veiled Story of Me", Sheila Heti might never have asked How Should a Person Be?, and Ben Lerner might never have written Leaving the Atocha Station. A whole generation of writers owes her ... You can get high on the book's passion, its humour, on the creation of a still-fresh style that not only says new things about female experience, but is able simultaneously to comment, tongue-in-cheek, on how this experience has been written, filmed and made into art. Kraus writes with an elegance that includes enough rough edges to make I Love Dick a game for real. - -- Joanna Walsh * Guardian *A literary must-have accessory, a relentlessly clever-clever book at fits neatly into the radical space recently opened up by semi-autobiographical novelists such as Nell Zink and Elena Ferrante ... It has some hugely arresting things to say about women's relationships with creative self-determination. -- Claire Allfree * Metro *The skill of the book allows the reader to enter into the fantasy (the one sex scene is torturous, but hot) while knowing it's destructive and one-sided. Chris recognises how vulnerable - ridiculous even - infatuation has made her. But she glories in the surrender ... This is a brilliant, experimental rollercoaster of a book ... there's something radical about a woman who pushes herself to the edge, finally to recover. -- Liz Hoggard * Observer *Genre-defying and dare I say it seminal ... It has possibly even more to tell us now than it did on first publication - or perhaps we're just more ready to hear it ... I Love Dick is one of the most important books about the limited ways in which women are permitted to speak. -- Lauren Elkin * TLS *I Love Dick is a wonderful catalogue of contradiction and desire, which benefits from the flexible and imaginative excess of its starting point: infatuation. It's also extremely funny and frantically absorbing. -- Anakana Schofield * Irish Times *A formidable novel of ideas * New Statesman *As important as Mrs Dalloway or The Bell Jar * Elle *What I Love Dick is really about is chaotic female sexuality and the ethics of using your life in your work ... it is soaked in feminist rage -- Hadley Freeman * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisVintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short formWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY NATALIE HAYNESWhen this book was first published in 1949 it was to outrage and scandal. Never before had the case for female liberty been so forcefully and successfully argued. De Beauvoir’s belief that ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman’ switched on light bulbs in the heads of a generation of women and began a fight for greater equality and economic independence. These pages contain the key passages of the book that changed perceptions of women forever.TRANSLATED BY CONSTANCE BORDE AND SHEILA MALOVANY-CHEVALLIERANNOTATED AND INTRODUCED BY MARTINE REIDTrade ReviewA masterpiece * Vogue *Discovering The Second Sex was like an explosion in my skull, shattering illusions bred in a conventional fifties childhood...Re-reading the book now I realise how much of it is still entirely relevant, and that (despite advances) women are as much in need of liberation as ever -- Bel MooneyDe Beauvoir was not just a genius as a theorist. She dared to live it. Challenging conventional marriage and sexual practice, she used her own experience to explore the emotional costs of jealousy, attachment, monogamy, bohemianism, sexuality, of love -- Susie OrbachA fine piece of work, a lucid translation * Independent *A fresh, much expanded, more intelligible book which repays re-reading by adherents of the old version, and cries out for attention from young women who have not been exposed to this most powerful of feminist thinkers * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisVintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short formWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOREvery day, women around the world are confronted with a dilemma – how to look. In a society embroiled in a cult of female beauty and youthfulness, pressure on women to conform physically is constant and all-pervading. In this shortened edition you will find the essence of Wolf’s groundbreaking book. It is a radical, gripping and frank exposé of the tyranny of the beauty myth, its oppressive function and the destructive obsession it engenders.Trade ReviewA smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it -- Gloria SteinemPowerful... No other work has...so honestly depicted the confusion of accomplished women who feel emotionally and physically tortured by the need to look like movie stars * New York Times *The most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch -- Germaine GreerA brilliant, bracing book...The world has changed - a bit - over the past decade and a half, but not enough: this remains essential reading * Guardian *Essential reading * Fay Weldon *

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Book SynopsisIn 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume wrote Male Daughters, Female Husbands, to critical acclaim. This compelling and highly original book frees the subject position of 'husband' from its affiliation with men, and goes on to do the same for other masculine attributes, dislocating sex, gender and sexual orientation. Boldly arguing that the notion of gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference, Male Daughters, Female Husbands examines the structures in African society that enabled people to achieve power, showing that roles were not rigidly masculinized nor feminized. At a time when gender and queer theory are viewed by some as being stuck in an identity-politics rut, this outstanding study not only warns against the danger of projecting a very specific, Western notion of difference onto other cultures, but calls us to question the very concept of gender itself.Trade ReviewMeticulously researched... An extremely important contribution. * Africa *Ifi Amadiume, a Nigerian sociologist, has stepped out of the academic sidelines to tackle head on the issue of racist social anthropology. * Africa Events *Required reading in a cross-cultural women's studies course... A book well researched, clearly written, with a good bibliography, and efficiently produced one that can be depended upon to provoke lively discussion. * Choice Magazine *Essential reading for anyone interested in fundamental thinking about the issues of gender and sex in pre-colonial societies. * Guardian, Nigeria *Male Daughters and Female Husbands is a brilliant inspiration to open up gender theory to the originality of African philosophies of being, social life and power. Amadiume argues, from detailed evidence, that new potential emerges when we search past "suppressed and fragmented information", to find Africa's own concepts and practices of matricentricity and genderlessness, and the social history of women's movements. * Jane I Guyer, Johns Hopkins University *Male Daughters, Female Husbands is a groundbreaking work in the study of gender in Africa. It presents a subtle, honest and clear portrait of gendered roles that upsets both the usual Western assumptions about how human societies can be organized and several propagandistic treatments of gender in Africa that have been published in the intervening years. This new edition of Amadiume's magnum opus deserves to be widely read. * Professor J. Lorand Matory, Duke University *This is a text that should be read widely and includes women's studies, social sciences and history. It will surely be an important statement in the catalogue of anti-colonialist historiography. * West Africa *Table of ContentsForeword to the Critique Influence Change Edition Preface to the Critique Influence Change Edition Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: The 19th Century 1. Gender and Economy 2. Women, Wealth, Titles and power 3. Gender and Political Organization 4. The Politics of Motherhood: Women and the Ideology-Making Process 5. The Ideology of Gender 6. Ritual and Gender Part II: The Colonial Period 7. Colonialism and the Erosion of Women's Power 8. The Erosion of Women's Power Part III: The Post-Independence Period 9. The Marginalisation of women's Position 10. Wealth, Titles and Motherhood 11. The Female Element in Other Igbo Societies 12. Gender, Class and Female Solidarity 13. Conclusion Appendixes Bibliography Glossary Index

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Book SynopsisContains essays that feature feminist social theory and female body experience. This book discusses female movement, pregnancy, clothing, and the breasted body.

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Book SynopsisRace, ethnicity, and the American New WomanTrade Review"Beyond the Gibson Girl is an interesting, important, and highly readable study defining the New Woman, a figure of enduring importance to both cultural and literary history. Martha Patterson looks wisely beyond any fixed perspective to show how differently this figure is conceived depending on the perspectives from which she is viewed, and the effects on this image of issues of region, race, ethnicity, and social class."--Elsa Nettels, professor of English, emeritus, College of William and Mary"Patterson's work is insightful, penetrating, and highly readable. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice"Patterson is to be lauded for problematizing the figure of the New Woman in literature and popular culture beyond what has been done in any previous studies, especially in the way she examines the competing and conflicting claims, constraints, and possibilities for women."--Journal of American History"An engaging and thought-provoking analysis of the Gibson Girl. . . . As cultural history and as literary analysis, the book succeeds in deepening our understanding of a potent American icon."--American Historical Review"Beyond the Gibson Girl reveals the great benefits of an interdisciplinary study of American culture. . . . Patterson draws heavily on literary analysis as well as on a wide variety of social commentaries, on social scientific and evolutionary theories of the period, and on contemporary visual theory. This combination of sources places what may have been perceived to be a rather simplistic ideal into a complex cultural framework that includes many of the significant issues of the period."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society"In her richly archival study, Martha Patterson . . . productively complicates the American New Woman's literary and cultural history."--Modernism/modernity"Martha Patterson's Beyond the Gibson Girl has given us perfectly conceived, cogent, and insightful arguments about the role of context and geography in the development of the New Womanhood. It is high time for a book like this to appear."--Dale M. Bauer, professor of English, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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Book SynopsisIn her powerful debut work Lean Out, acclaimed journalist Dawn Foster unpicks how the purportedly feminist message of Sandberg's book neatly exempts patriarchy, capitalism and business from any responsibility for changing the position of women in contemporary culture. It looks at the rise of a corporate '1% feminism', and at how feminism has been defanged and depoliticised at a time when women have borne the brunt of the financial crash and the gap between rich and poor is widening faster than ever. Surveying business, media, culture and politics, Foster asks whether this 'trickledown' feminism offers any material gain for women collectively, or acts as mere window-dressing PR for the corporations who caused the financial crash. She concludes that 'leaning out' of the corporate model is a more effective way of securing change than leaning in.Trade Review“Rarely does ‘essential reading’ really mean that you urgently need to read a book. But Lean Out is different: the argument that a society that promotes ‘aspiration’ must rely on outliers is just one of its many gems. There is a danger that corporate feminism will enter academia and will not be recognised for the aberration that it is.Lean Out is the antidote. Just 87 pages long, it is well worth the many hours it takes to read and absorb.”- Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder professor of geography, University of Oxford"A very important, much-needed and well-researched book that isn’t afraid to ask the right questions and demand answers. It is a straight-talking, timely call to arms” - Independent on Sunday "Vigorous…trenchant…a robust critique…it’s conclusion is both inevitable and startling” - Shahidha Bari, Times Higher Education “Excellent…forward-looking” - Sarah Leonard, Bookforum “...much more than just a riposte to the popular business manifesto for women. Fascinating, thought-provoking and at times outrage-inducing, Lean Out elucidates the many ways in which women are being subjugated by corporations and the government, and encourages us to take direct action to address these inequalities.” - Ariane Sherine, Huffington Post

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Book Synopsis"Girls are powerful": the ?70s feminist posters of See Red Women?s WorkshopA feminist silkscreen poster collective founded in London in 1974 by three former art students, the See Red Women?s Workshop grew out of a shared desire to combat sexist images of women and to create positive and challenging alternatives. Women from different backgrounds came together to make posters and calendars that tackled issues of sexuality, identity and oppression. With humor and bold, colorful graphics, See Red expressed the personal experiences of women as well as their role in wider struggles for change.Written by See Red members, detailing the group?s history up until the closure of the workshop in 1990, and with a foreword by celebrated feminist historian Sheila Rowbotham, See Red Women?s Workshop features all of the collective?s original screenprints and posters. Confronting negative stereotypes, questioning the role of women in society, and promoting women?s self-determination, the power and energy of these images reflect an important and dynamic era of women?s liberation?with continued relevance for today.

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Book SynopsisA novel, that was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. It is partially based on the author's own life and descent into mental illness. It presents a portrait of the 1950s society.

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Book SynopsisA Defense of Ignorance develops new ideas in feminist epistemology by exploring diverse and sometimes positive roles for ignorance. Cynthia Townley argues that epistemic values cannot simply be reduced to the value of increasing knowledge and that ignorance is not merely inescapable for epistemic agents, but, rather, is valuable. Townley shows that ignorance-friendly epistemology offers a better descriptive and normative account of human epistemic practices. This interpretation challenges the traditional assumption that increasing knowledge is the definitive epistemic goal. The book makes a major contribution to revisionary epistemology and to the expanding fields of social epistemology and feminist epistemology. All social scientists stand to benefit from Townley''s analysis, most of all those interested in knowledge and in feminist scholarship.Trade ReviewThis book makes a valuable contribution to feminist, anti-racist, and 'mainstream' debates in epistemology. It is especially pertinent to discussions set in motion by ground-breaking work on epistemologies of ignorance, and by feminist work in virtue epistemology which centres on issues of responsible epistemic conduct, both individual and collective. -- Lorraine Code, York University, TorontoCynthia Townley's crisply argued book offers an indispensable guide to the indispensable place of ignorance in the complex mix of goals and achievements of epistemic agents. A most welcome and inviting addition to the changing landscape in epistemology. -- Elizabeth Spelman, Smith CollegeTable of ContentsChapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction: Ignorance Matters Chapter 3 Chapter 1. Epistemic Dependence: Beyond Facts Chapter 4 Chapter 2. Trust and Ignorance Chapter 5 Chapter 3. Institutional Epistemic Dependence Chapter 6 Chapter 4. Ignorance, Arrogance and Pluralism

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Book SynopsisDiscussing a variety of postcolonial narratives written by women, Lionnet offers a comparative feminist approach that can provide common ground for debates on such issues as multiculturalism, universalism, and relativism.

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Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging collection examines the historical roles of Indigenous women, their intellectual and activist work, and the relevance of contemporary literature, art, and performance for an emerging Indigenous feminist project.Trade ReviewA pioneering text…Indigenous Women and Feminism: Politics, Activism, Culture is a comprehensive, inclusive, heterogeneous, and valuable collection for anyone studying Indigenous issues or histories, feminisms, cultural studies and criticism, decolonization, or literary studies. -- Patricia Miranda Barkaskas, The Goose, Issue 10, 2012Table of ContentsIndigenous Feminism: Theorizing the Issues / Shari M. Huhndorf and Cheryl SuzackPart 1: Politics1 From the Tundra to the Boardroom to Everywhere in Between: Politics and the Changing Roles of Inuit Women in the Arctic / Minnie Grey2 Native Women and Leadership: An Ethics of Culture and Relationship / Rebecca Tsosie3 “But we are your mothers, you are our sons”: Gender, Sovereignty, and the Nation in Early Cherokee Women’s Writing / Laura E. Donaldson4 Indigenous Feminism: The Project / Patricia Penn Hilden and Leece M. LeePart 2: Activism5 Affirmations of an Indigenous Feminist / Kim Anderson6 Indigenous Women and Feminism on the Cusp of Contact / Jean Barman7 Reaching Toward a Red-Black Coalition Feminism: Anna Julia Cooper’s “Woman versus the Indian” / Teresa Zackodnik8 Emotion Before the Law / Cheryl Suzack9 Beyond Feminism: Indigenous Ainu Women and Narratives of Empowerment in Japan / ann-elise lewallenPart 3: Culture10 Indigenous Feminism, Performance, and the Politics of Memory in the Plays of Monique Mojica / Shari M. Huhndorf11 “Memory Alive”: An Inquiry into the Uses of Memory by Marilyn Dumont, Jeannette Armstrong, Louise Halfe, and Joy Harjo / Jeanne Perreault12 To Spirit Walk the Letter and the Law: Gender, Race, and Representational Violence in Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson’s Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman / Julia Emberley13 Painting the Archive: The Art of Jane Ash Poitras / Pamela McCallum14 “Our Lives Will Be Different Now”: The Indigenous Feminist Performances of Spiderwoman Theater / Katherine Young Evans15 Bordering on Feminism: Space, Solidarity, and Transnationalism in Rebecca Belmore’s Vigil / Elizabeth Kalbfleisch16 Location, Dislocation, Relocation: Shooting Back with Cameras / Patricia DemersIndex

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Book SynopsisSheryl Sandberg is Chief Operating Officer at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google. She previously served as Chief of Staff for the United States Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton.Trade ReviewIf you loved Sheryl Sandberg’s incredible TEDTalk on why we have too few women leaders, or simply believe as I do that we need equality in the boardroom, then this book is for you. As Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg has first-hand experience of why having more women in leadership roles is good for business as well as society. Lean In is essential reading for anyone interested in righting the injustice of this inequality * Sir Richard Branson, Chairman, the Virgin Group *Sheryl provides practical suggestions for managing and overcoming the challenges that arise on the “jungle gym” of career advancement. I nodded my head in agreement and laughed out loud as I read these pages. Lean In is a superb, witty, candid, and meaningful read for women (and men) of all generations * Condoleezza Rice, Former U.S. Secretary of State *Sheryl Sandberg brilliantly explains how she believes women must put themselves forward if the gender gap is ever to be closed – I agree, but I would add women should not only lean in, but also stand up and cheer. * Martha Lane Fox *Eleanor Roosevelt once said, ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.’ With stories from her own life and data carefully researched, Sheryl Sandberg reminds women that they have to believe in themselves and reach for opportunities. More women than men may need that advice, but I'd bet that both genders would profit from this very well-done book * Marjorie Scardino, Former CEO, Pearson PLC *For the past five years, I've sat at a desk next to Sheryl and I've learned something from her almost every day. She has a remarkable intelligence that can cut through complex processes and find solutions to the hardest problems. Lean In combines Sheryl's ability to synthesize information with her understanding of how to get the best out of people. The book is smart and honest and funny. Her words will help all readers—especially men—to become better and more effective leaders * Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO, Facebook *

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Book SynopsisPost-Borderlandia examines why gender variance is such a core theme in contemporary Chicana and Chicanx narratives. Cuevas explores how a new generation of Chicanx writers, performers, and filmmakers are drawing on a rich tradition of challenging heteropatriarchal norms to offer new directions for Chicana feminist theory. Trade Review"Cuevas’s invigorating appraisal and persuasive readings of under-examined yet pivotal texts and writers, refreshing refusal to adhere to the sex/gender binary, and stunning ability to link history with critical theory breathes new life into Chicano/a literary and queer studies." -- Richard T. Rodríguez * author of Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics *"Building on and moving beyond the work of Gloria Anzaldua, Post-Borderlandia interrogates the queer Chicana literary archive through the lens of gender variant critique. Arguing that gender non-conformity shapes understandings of queerness in Chicanx literary texts, this original and provocative book theorizes a movement beyond the binaries of white lesbianism and heteronormative Chicanidad, examining the normative projects of borderlands theory and queer of color critique to claim post-borderlandia as a site where gender variance opens up new potentialities for Chicanx subjectivity. A beautifully written, challenging, and ground-breaking text." -- Chandra Talpade Mohanty * author of Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity *"Spring Arts 2018 Books: Fact, fiction and beyond" by Will Owen * Washington Blade *"New Scholarly Books: Weekly Book List, May 25, 2018" by Nina C. Ayoub * Chronicle of Higher Education *"Post-Borderlandia indeed creates an archive showing that gender variance is central to Chicana literature. Further, it shows that such intersectional non-normativity is, in the words of Rosario Castellanos quoted by Cuevas, “Otro modo de ser humano y libre” ‘Another way of being human and free’" * Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature *"Post-Borderlandia is a necessary read for scholars of both Latinx literature and queer/trans studies, offering exciting new takes on classic texts and drawing attention to lesser-known cultural artifacts." * MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. *"Post-Borderlandia is a valuable book for scholars in the fields of Hispanic and Chicanx cultures and those who study gender and queer theory; this work combines all in a way that is both insightful and fascinating for the reader....Cuevas takes Anzaldua’s work and expands upon it beautifully, bringing her ground-breaking work of the 1980s into a more contemporary context that will be of interest to many scholars." * Hispanic Research Journal *"Cuevas makes a critical intervention into the body of scholarship concerning Chicana/o/x LBGTQ literature....Readers will certainly find value in Cuevas’s analytical acumen [and] some may wonder which other Chicanx texts could have been brought under this lens: how might a gender variant critique be marshalled to examine Chicanx and non-Chicanx characters and open new possibilities within Chicana/o/x cultural productions? In this way, Cuevas has done the significant work of illuminating what had long been ignored." * Feministas Unidas *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Gender Variance and the Post-Borderlands 1 Chicana Masculinities 2 Ambiguous Chicanx Bodies 3 Transing Chicanidad 4 Brokeback Rancho Conclusion: From a Long Line of Marimachas Notes Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisA ground-breaking exploration of feminism's most buzzy topic.

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Book SynopsisBorn to Jewish radical parents in Chicago in 1939, Judy Cohen grew up to be Judy Chicagoone of the most daring and controversial artists of her generation. Her works, once disparaged and misunderstood by the critics, have become icons of the feminist movement, earning her a place among the most influential artists of her time. In Becoming Judy Chicago, Gail Levin gives us a biography of uncommon intimacy and depth, revealing the artist as a person and a woman of extraordinary energy and purpose. Drawing upon Chicago's personal letters and diaries, her published and unpublished writings, and more than 250 interviews with her friends, family, admirers, and critics, Levin presents a richly detailed and moving chronicle of the artist's unique journey from obscurity to fame, including the story of how she found her audience outside of the art establishment. Chicago revolutionized the way we view art made by and for women and fundamentally changed our understanding of women's contributions to art and to society. Influential and bold, The Dinner Party has become a cultural monument. Becoming Judy Chicago tells the story of a great artist, a leader of the women's movement, a tireless crusader for equal rights, and a complicated, vital woman who dared to express her own sexuality in her art and demand recognition from a male-dominated culture.Trade Review"The sections of the book covering Chicago’s artistic feminist awakening. . .are the best kind of biography—both juicy and educational, full of social and historical context, but also just a dash of gossip (open marriages, feuds with other artists, affairs)." * Hyperallergic *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"These are crucial manifestos that changed the discourse and clarified our situation in the postmodern in stunning and beautiful ways. That we are animal and machine and human and full of potential is Donna Haraway’s enduring and inspirational message."—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Aurora and the Mars trilogy "Here Donna Haraway’s manifestos are marvelously composted in the rich humus of reflection, erudition, and reasons for laughter that makes thinking with other people so generative. The brilliance that sparks between Cary Wolfe and Haraway illuminates everything that is between, around, underneath, and beside two most profound moments in critical thought."—Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge "Donna Haraway’s essays are invitations to scientists, artists, and everyone-who-must-improvise for respectful play with chimeras, hybrids, cyborgs, GMOs, holobionts, mosaics, allies, and fusions. They are invitations to generate new creative relationships for flourishing during and after the Anthropocene. As always, when presented with essays by Haraway, accept the invitation at the risk of becoming a different person."—Scott F. Gilbert, Swarthmore College"The social relations of science was a whole movement in the 1930s...It did not survive the cold war purges of intellectual life. Science studies has reinvented many of its themes and in many ways improved upon them. Yet perhaps, as Haraway once noted in passing, the “liberal mystification that all started with Thomas Kuhn…” has erased a little too much of its radical past. We are very fortunate that Donna Haraway and her kith reinvented it."—Public Seminar"Unusual and exciting. Every word adds a new detail, facet, nuance, reflection, to an infinitely detailed, faceted, nuanced reality."—London Review of Books"Manifestly Haraway is a timely and necessary publication in response to our own political moment if we are to link up with past failures, and explore new affinities for the future."—Arcadia"Widely influential."—Science Fiction Studies"Important, feminist, bio-political work."—Annals of Science "Manifestly Haraway is illuminating and engaging. Donna Haraway contextualizes the manifestos and considers how some of these early ideas are developing alongside fresh concepts and influences." —SociologyTable of ContentsContentsIntroduction Cary WolfeThe ManifestosA Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant OthernessCompanions in ConversationDonna J. Haraway and Cary WolfeAcknowledgmentsIndex

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Book SynopsisAnecdote and theory have diametrically opposed connotations: humorous versus serious, specific versus general, trivial versus overarching, short versus grand. This title cuts through these oppositions to produce theory with a sense of humor, theorizing which honors the uncanny detail of lived experience.Trade Review“Gallop is our foremost comic theorist. Anecdotal theory, as she observes, is theory with a better sense of humor. Gallop shows us how to be smart and rigorous precisely by refusing to ‘get serious,’ explaining how that imperative in fact makes literary critics relinquish what we do best. Lightening up without in any way producing theory ’lite’: this is one formulation of Gallop’s goal and considerable accomplishment, both here and throughout her career.”—Joseph Litvak, author of Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory, and the Novel“Jane Gallop’s essays are lucid, bold, and timely: she gives us our time through a series of brilliant lenses. I’m always grateful for the intelligence, the edge, and the generosity of her vision. We would all be more lost without her.”—Judith Butler, author of Gender Trouble"[Gallop's] explorations resonate for us all. . . . [Anectodal Theory] interrogates its own narrative with . . . formidable wit and intellectual rigor . . . . Moving and provocative . . . ." -- Cora Kaplan * Women's Review of Books *Table of ContentsAnecdotal Theory; I The Incident; The Teacher's Breasts; The lecherous Professor: A Reading; The Personal and the Professional: Walking the Line; Resisting Reasonableness; II The Stories; A Tales of Two Jacques; Knot a Love Story; Dating Derrida in the Nineties; Castration Anxiety and the Unemployed PhD; Econstructing Sisterhood; Afterwords

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Book SynopsisLily O’Farrell started drawing cartoons as a way of making sense of the everyday sexism she encountered as a young woman, and her Instagram feed has now grown to over 225,000 followers. In Kyle Theory, Lily addresses the pressing issues of the day through hilarious and relatable cartoons, from #MeToo and the patriarchy, to racism, internet culture and how to deal with trolls. Feminism is for everybody, and so is this book.Trade ReviewGRL Talk with Lily O’Farrell: On Getting To Know Incels, Her New Book & Why Empathy Is Her Superpower -- Chloe Laws * FGRLS CLUB *Why I Hide My Instagram Fame From My Dating App Profile -- Lily O'Farrell * ELLE UK *How a south London cartoonist went undercover with incels after being trolled online -- Matthew Dunne-Miles * London World *Cartoonist Lily O’Farrell on being trolled by incels: ‘I saw so many lost boys failed by the system’ -- Sophie Gallagher * The i *‘I was told feminism was just for people who went to university – it’s not’ -- Lily O'Farrell * Metro *

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Book SynopsisFrom the Author of WOMEN, RACE AND CLASS, this is a timely provocation that examines the concept of attaining freedom in light of our current world conflictsIn these newly collected essays, interviews and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality and prison abolitionism for today''s struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyses today''s struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that ''Freedom is a constant struggle.''Trade ReviewAngela Davis new book made me think of what Dear Nelson Mandela kept reminding us, that we must be willing to embrace that long walk to freedom. Understanding what it takes to really be free, to have no fear, is the first and most important step one has to make before undertaking this journey. Angela is the living proof that this arduous challenge can also be an exhilarating and beautiful one -- Archbishop Desmond TutuIncisive, urgent, and comprehensive . . . These essays take us back in history to the founders of revolutionary and anti-racist struggle, but they also take us toward the possibility of ongoing intersectional solidarity and struggle. Angela Davis gathers in her lucid words our luminous history and the most promising future of freedom -- Judith ButlerWhether you've grown up with the courage and conscience of Angela Davis, or are discovering her for the first time, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle is a small book that will be a huge help in daily life and action . . . [Davis] exposes facts and makes connections, but also leads in the most important way by example -- Gloria Steinem

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Book Synopsis''Rich, complex and witty'' ROSE GEORGE, SPECTATOR''Devastating and clever'' BEL MOONEY, DAILY MAIL''Could not be more necessary'' RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVERWhat is about women in their forties and beyond that seems to enrage - almost everyone? In the last few years, as identity politics have taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings: the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused. In Hags, Victoria Smith asks why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme - care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex - and explores it in relation to middle-aged women''s beliefs, bodies, histories and choices. Smith traces the attitudes she describes through history, and explores the very specific reasons why this type of misogyny is so very now. The result is a book that is absorbing, insightful, witty and bang on time.Trade ReviewHer book traces the hatred and fear of the middle-aged woman back through history . . . The greatest joy of Hags is its lively erudition . . . This eloquent, clever and devastating book describes the last remaining acceptable prejudice, one that is now even posited as progress: the loathing of older women -- Janice Turner * The Times *My polemic of the year . . . a book that could not be more necessary (a sword and a shield) in the current climate -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Riveting, vital and impossible to read without rage -- Lissa Evans, author of Old BaggageHags is rich and complex and witty and cleverer than I am. (You'd never get a male reviewer saying that.) I hope it won't be read only in an echo chamber, by the women who are, as Smith was once called to her delight, 'a batshit Mumsnet thread made flesh'. I hope it will also be read by young women who think me and the author terrible Terfs and bigots for believing in single-sex spaces; by young anyones; by the middle-aged and the elderly; by any man born of a mother; and by all those who agree with Smith when she writes: 'I am not frightened of change. I am frightened of things staying the same.' -- Rose George * Spectator *Devastating and clever -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail *Smith makes an impassioned, powerful case . . . Hags can't come soon enough' * Mail on Sunday *Deftly illustrates how ageist misogyny remains an acceptable prejudice and, in laying out the ignominies visited upon middle-aged women, feels justifiably livid -- Fiona Sturges * Guardian *A brilliantly witty, engaging and insightful book; a righteous polemic which examines and questions why so much hatred is directed towards middle-aged women - and, crucially, what this means for women today . . . a punchy, thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read -- Eleanor Fleming * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisIn this eloquent and blistering rejection of surrogacy, a range of international activists and experts in the field outline the fundamental human rights abuses that occur when surrogacy is legalised and reject neoliberal notions that the commodification of women’s bodies can ever be about the ‘choices’ women make. Yoshie Yanagihara shows how feminist ideas have been twisted to extend men’s freedom and their rights to access surrogacy. Catherine Lynch rails against surrogacy as the creation of babies for the express purpose of removal from their mothers, outlining the tragic outcomes for adopted people. Phyllis Chesler argues that commercial surrogacy is matricidal, “slicing and dicing biological motherhood” into egg donor, ‘gestational’ mother and adoptive mother. Melissa Farley debunks the myth of ‘choice’ in surrogacy, arguing that in a male-dominated and racist system, the exploitative sale of women in surrogacy, like in prostitution, is inherently harmful —rich women do not make the choice to become surrogates or prostitutes. Other contributors to this book, which is published in conjunction with the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood, are Gena Corea, Renate Klein, Gary Powell, Rita Banerji, Marie-Josèphe Devillers, Laura Isabel Gómez García, Alexandra Clément-Saby, Taina Bien-Aimé, Silvia Guerini, Laura Nuño Gómez and Eva Maria Bachinger.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Melding blistering humor with razor-sharp insight, The Teller of Secrets heralds a marvel of a writer, one capable of deftly balancing questions of sexuality, politics, and feminism in a novel that is a pure joy to read. This book is impossible to put down. What an exciting, masterful novel by an uncommonly gifted writer.” — Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize “Bisi Adjapon writes with incredible vividness and clarity. Her similes and attention to all of the senses are really extraordinary.” — Dave Eggers, publisher of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius “Bisi Adjapon’s The Teller of Secrets unfolds with grace, and a quiet spellbinding beauty to reveal the fascinating journey of Esi to self-discovery through family drama, betrayal and passion. A poignant, witty and delightful read delivered by a storyteller of note. — Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, author of Season of Crimson Blossoms, Winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature “Sharp, observant, and often bitingly funny, Adjapon’s novel captures a country divided by class, ethnicity, and political loyalty and a character who might have a chance to soar on the winds of social change. This is a winner.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Bisi Adjapon has written a deeply compelling, humorous coming-of-age story. Esi Agyekum is brave, perceptive, and precocious; traits she needs to survive the oftentimes perilous journey that most African girls must take on their way to full womanhood. It is a testament to Adjapon’s skill as a writer that the story is told with such vulnerability and sensitivity. An utterly captivating and entertaining read!” — Ama Ata Aidoo, author of Our Sister Killjoy and Changes, Winner of the Commonwealth Prize Award for Best Book "Breathtaking...Esi ultimately takes control of her body, her mind, and her whole being in ways that will merit a fist pump among feminists everywhere." — Booklist (starred review) "Adjapon is a masterful storyteller who has created the best friend I wish I had when I was growing up. In Esi, she gives readers a hero who will 'ignite their fires.' This is a feminist manifesto in the form of a novel. Watch Esi as she navigates secrets and sexism, and thank Adjapon for her skill at unpacking patriarchal hypocrisy with clear-eyed gusto" — Mona Eltahawy, author of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls "There's nothing like a coming-of-age story to reminds us of how connected we all are. You'll both cry and cheer as Esi learns the hard lesson that not all secrets are worth keeping." — Essence

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