Gender studies: women and girls Books

Book SynopsisFrom an early focus on rape, dowry, and sati - self-immolation - feminist struggles against violence to women in India have now moved to a wider terrain that includes issues rarely considered in the early days of the Indian feminist movement in the 1980s. In "Nine Degrees of Justice", second- and third-generation feminists shed light on these contemporary concerns, sharing their perspectives on violence against women through a series of thought-provoking essays. The contributors to "Nine Degrees of Justice" look specifically at whether the legal system has led to justice for women who have been the victims of violence. What does "justice" mean for an individual survivor? Among the topics discussed are issues of violence in public spaces and cyberspace, women in armed conflict, lesbian suicides, a woman's right to choose, and prostitution. Together, these essays make the case that justice for Indian women still has a long way to go.

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Book SynopsisHave you ever wondered how Eve experienced the new world God created at the beginning of time? Or what Hagar went through as a slave girl bearing the child of her owner? And how Martha felt when Jesus seemed to favour her lazy sister? This Bible study book is about women, written by women and for women. It is a tool to discover and apply the life lessons from women in the bible in our daily lives. Based on stories about women in the Bible, daily practical examples from African context and the discovery of biblical values, we hope that our sisters recognise themselves in it and that this may strengthen our faith, help in the struggles of everyday and above all that we may know we are valued by God.  

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Book SynopsisThis publication aims to facilitate the systematic integration of gender equality dimensions into value chain (VC) development programmes. It raises awareness about gender inequalities and discusses the importance of addressing these dimensions in VC development, while also building a common approach towards work on gender-sensitive VC development. Despite the many advantages of addressing social inequality, gender dimensions often remain overlooked in agricultural development programmes. VC development practitioners may find it challenging to mainstream gender within their work, either because they are unaware of the relevance of gender dynamics to VCs, or because they need technical support in translating gender equality objectives into concrete actions in the implementation of programmes. This framework, companion to the publication, Developing gender-sensitive value chains: Guidelines for practitioners, aims to respond to this gap by raising awareness, building a common approach, and providing concrete guiding principles.

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Book SynopsisSex Cells is a clear-eyed report on the still-pitched battle to get the scientific and medical world to recognize that women are not small men.   The idea that our biological sex impacts our health seems like such a simple concept. Unfortunately, it has proven to be anything but that. Phyllis Greenberger’s battle cry has been: Women/females need to be treated equitably in relationship to men/males. They are equal, but they are not the same.   It has been challenging to get individual researchers and practitioners to accept this, as well as research and medical institutions, and manufacturers of medications and devices. The journey towards equal treatment and the understanding of sex and gender differences in prevention, diagnosis and treatment is still unfolding. This book is the story of that journey—why it was, and still is, so important to do research specific to women/females.  Sex

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Book Synopsis"This outstanding collection makes available for the first time a remarkable range of primary sources that will enrich courses on women as well as Latin American history more broadly. Within these pages are captivating stories of enslaved African and indigenous women who protest abuse; of women who defend themselves from charges of witchcraft, cross-dressing, and infanticide; of women who travel throughout the empire or are left behind by the men in their lives; and of women’s strategies for making a living in a world of cross-cultural exchanges. Jaffary and Mangan's excellent Introduction and annotations provide context and guide readers to think critically about crucial issues related to the intersections of gender with conquest, religion, work, family, and the law." —Sarah Chambers, University of Minnesota

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Book SynopsisThe Biblical narrative is usually very terse and cryptic. Over the millennia, Jewish scholars often painted a patriarchal picture with women "in their place." Yes, ancient Middle Eastern society was patriarchal, but matriarchs had power as well. Yes, kings ruled, but the king’s mother had major influence over him. Powerless women existed, but so did female prophets and judges. The narrative describes real people, with human weaknesses as well as strengths. There are love stories and lust stories, as well as stories of the dangers of favoritism, greed, and envy. This book puts these women—some are role models—into the context of an ancient society, bringing them imaginatively from the sidelines onto center stage.Trade Review“Reguer fills her narrative with minute details of what life was like in the women’s respective historical periods, which helps well-trod biblical stories come to life… Onto Center Stage is written by an academic and published by an academic press, but these facts should not scare potential readers off. The prose is easy to read and engaging, making it accessible to a wide array of readers… Onto Center Stage is an enjoyable peek inside the lives and times of biblical-era women.”— Leah Grisham, Jewish Book CouncilTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Sara2. Rebecca3. Rahel and Leah4. Powerless Women: Dina and Tamar5. Miriam and Tzippora: Sisters-in-Law6. Deborah the Judge7. Ruth8. Chana9. David’s Wives: Michal, Avigayil, Bathsheba10. Esther11. Addendum: Reclaiming the Heroic Jewish Judith

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Book SynopsisAt a crumbling zoo, an elephant keeper, a security guard, and a newly hired media consultant have differing views over what should be done about the zoo''s main attraction, the aging Sri Lankan elephant Matara. Matara is deteriorating by the day following the loss of her companion elephant Cheerio and a petition is circulating to try to force the zoo''s management to move her to a sanctuary. Karen, Matara''s keeper, argues adamantly that the zoo is Matara''s home and family, and that she is not strong enough to travel. Romney, the enthusiastic but increasingly stressed media consultant, thinks more about donations and galas than Matara''s life, while Marcel the security guard and an international graduate student struggling in the last stages of his thesis, understands the perspective of the protestors even as he seeks to protect the zoo''s employees.Weaving between the perspectives of public relations, zoos as unique spaces of human animal interaction, and the question of whether or not zoos should exist at all, Conni Massing''s latest play takes inspiration from real life debates that surround Lucy, the lone elephant at the Edmonton Valley Zoo, asking poignant questions about our relationships with animals, and the power dynamics and instability that surround them.elephant keeper, argues that the zoo is Matara''s home now, after so long away from the wild, and that the elephant is too weak to travel. Romney, the enthusiastic (and stressed) consultant, thinks more about donations and galas rather than Matara''s life, while Marcel the security guard empathizes with the protestors even as he must protect the zoo''s employees from increasingly volatile protests. Weaving between the perspectives of public relations, the importance of allowing humans to experience animal encounters as well as whether zoos should even exist at all, Conni Massing''s latest play takes inspiration from real life debates on captive elephants to ask poignant questions about our relationships with animals and the power dynamics that surround them.

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Book SynopsisThis book aims to provide a history of twentieth-century labour in the British colony of Antigua and Barbuda. It documents the labour and class struggles between landowners and peasants both before and after the legalization and formation of trades and labour unions in 1940. It exposes the political and racial dynamics of British colonialism in the eastern Caribbean as never before. The racial dynamics are evident between white colonial administrators, landowners and mill and factory owners, as they struggled to maintain control over a black and coloured population in a changing world. The long overlooked history of the role of the British Trades Union Congress (TUC) in facilitating the end of British colonialism is one of the surprising stories of this book, as is the astonishing role of women. Despite their exclusion from labour and trade union history, oral sources show women played a key role as labour organizers who defied employers by planning meetings and actively recruiting union members. They were always there, as domestic workers in urban areas, in the fields and in the factories. They served as recruiters and organizers, carried the lights for outdoor meetings and encouraged and stood behind the union leaders. Despite their central role, they did not «jump out», and their stories became forgotten, overlooked even, in the history of Caribbean labour.Table of ContentsContents: Historical Overview: Labour and Social Conditions – Sugar Monoculture in Decline – Women in a Modern Colony – The Foundations of Trade Unionism – Local Level Leadership – Gender Exclusion – Politics and Labour Unions.

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Book Synopsis“A Mind Purified by Suffering": Evgenia Ginzburg’s "Whirlwind" Memoirs represents the first book on one of Russia’s most important classics of Gulag literature. Ginzburg’s memoirs of her eighteen-year ordeal through Stalinist concentration camps, Journey into the Whirlwind and Within the Whirlwind, place her in the company of Russian writers, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov. The contributors address Ginzburg’s Gulag experience through various vantage points, covering such topics as: memory, trauma, motherhood, love, survival strategies, and metafictional structures. The volume also provides a history of prison camp writings, capped with her biography, analysis of her correspondence with her son, Vasily Aksenov, and an interview with him. Trade Review“This collection is an essential contribution to the literature on Evgenia Ginzburg, Krutoi marshrut, and the Soviet Gulag. These chapters offer a fresh look at a classic text, seeking to deepen and broaden our understanding of one of the most influential works in the Gulag literary canon. The collection reminds us of Ginzburg’s importance while offering new and productive ways to understand the richness of her work, relationships, and legacies.”— Alan Barenberg, Texas Tech University, author of Gulag Town, Company Town: Forced Labor and its Legacy in Vorkuta and co-editor of Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies“A timely multi-faceted collection of intra- and interdisciplinary research papers on the memoirs of the Gulag veteran Evgenia Ginzburg. Placing Ginzburg’s narrative in a number of contexts, tracing the author’s emotional and ideological arc, and offering unexpected insights, this volume fills in a gap in the scholarship and provides a basis and a stimulus for further academic conversation about one of the most impressive and influential accounts of life under Stalinist terror.” — Leona Toker, author of Return from the Archipelago: Narratives of Gulag Survivors and of Gulag Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontextual Reading“Justifiably introduced by Barbara Heldt as comparable to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Evgenia Ginzburg’s landmark memoir of eighteen years in the Soviet Gulag system, Journey into the Whirlwind, has influenced generations of Gulag eyewitnesses as well as scholarship on Gulag writing, Soviet political repression, and the gendering of writing about repression. In this collection, Olga Cooke has brought together an impressive variety of approaches to Ginzburg’s and others’ writing by recognized scholars of Ginzburg’s work that will be required reading for future scholarship in the field. This thoroughly documented and elegantly edited volume serves the needs of both researcher and teacher, a welcome (and long-overdue) addition to our libraries.”— Diane Nemec Ignashev, Class of 1941 Professor of Russian & the Liberal Arts, Carleton College (Northfield, MN)Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsForewordBarbara HeldtIntroductionOlga M. CookeContributors1. A Cruel Journey of the Soul: the Initiation of Evgenia Ginzburg Dariusz Tołczyk2. Mimetic Resistance in Evgenia’s Ginzburg’s Krutoi marshrutNatasha Kolchevska 3. A Communist Woman in the Gulag: Gender, Ideology and Limit-Experience in Ginzburg and BudzyńskaAnna Artwińska4. My Son, My Self: Reevaluating a Culture of VulnerabilityKathryn Duda5. Vasily Aksenov and Evgenia Ginzburg in Magadan: Re-Conceiving Soviet Authorship through the Gulag ExperienceAnn Komaromi 6. The Survival of the Sublime in a Universe of Malice: Testimonies by Evgenia Ginzburg and Other Gulag WritersRimma Volynska7. “Up to Their Old Tricks Again? Taking Mothers from Their Children?” Evgenia Ginzburg as a Mother in the Stalinist Gulag Elaine MacKinnon8. Ethics, Play, and Poetry in the Interval: Evgenia Ginzburg’s Struggle to Survive in the WhirlwindOana Popescu-Sandu9. A Winter Coat for Vasya: The Evgenia Ginzburg-Vasily Aksenov Correspondence (1948–1976)Rimma Volynska 10. Evgenia Ginzburg at the End of Krutoi marshrutLev Kopelev and Raisa Orlova11. Interview with Vasily AksenovRimma Volynska and Olga M. CookeIndex

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Book SynopsisAn inspirational and empowering celebration of more than sixty women who are both dedicated mothers and successful entrepreneurs. Starting a business can be daunting, scary, and exciting, all at once; so too can starting a family. But they can coexist?as the incredible roster of women in this book demonstrate,entrepreneurship can be both a sustainable and fulfilling model for working motherhood. Each woman profiled here shares insights from her journey as well as powerful lessons and practical advice, including: How to plan for maternity leave The benefits of sharing financial informationwith your peers Key points to include when drafting a contract Creative ways to include your kids in your work The value of building support systems, from advisory boards to nanny shares Resources for securing grants and fellowships Tips for preparing taxes as a freelancer How to avoid the "mom guilt" trap Filled with first-person stories of designers, makers, CEOs, farmers, pastry chefs, artists, lawyers, educators, and more,Mother / Foundercaptures with unprecedented candor the unique challenges and joys of what it means to launch and run a business while being just as fiercely dedicated to raising children.

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Book SynopsisFrom humble beginnings wholesaling at a small tobacconist-hairdresser shop in 1915, the London Rubber Company rapidly became the UK's biggest postwar producer and exporter of disposable rubber condoms. Borge shows how aggressive business practices were successfully deployed to protect the monopoly and squash competition.Trade Review"Borge intervenes with a clear corporate and industrial focus. The London Rubber Company's growth from a backstreet wholesaler to a global contraceptive powerhouse is intrinsically engaging. Borge's tight focus creates a valuable look at a powerful company's methods and failures. Overall, Protective Practices is an appreciated addition to British contraceptive history from an in-depth business perspective." Enterprise and Society"Borge's study offers an important new economic perspective to histories of contraception and sexual practice. From the suggestive typography on the cover, to the stylish composition of the chapter headings, and the reproduction of twenty-six images and figures, Protective Practices has been beautifully produced by McGill-Queen's University Press and is a lovely object to read. It will be of interest to students and academics researching and teaching not only the history of sexuality, but the histories of technology, business, and manufacturing in Britain and beyond." Metascience"Protective Practices gives excellent detail to the early years of the London Rubber Company and its initial success and growth to market dominance, ... and is an excellent resource for a company that otherwise lacks a singular archive." Left History“This study is a valuable contribution as it delineates the changing condom industry and the London Rubber Company’s concerted efforts to maintain its market share. Recommended. All readers.” Choice“Borge’s careful (and often hilarious) explanations of London Rubber’s multifaceted situations make Protective Practices an accessible and enjoyable read. Her arguments are well evidenced, and the photographs of the factory and staff members add a tangible human presence to her story. Finally, this monograph will inspire its readers to reflect on the legacy of London Rubber’s condom industry, and how the company contributed to the easy access of contraception and the sexual freedoms in modern Britain that we can now enjoy today.” Cultural and Social History“As Borge writes, "In the 1970s, London Rubber had privately stated that it wished to avoid making any public connection with disease," so when Aids emerged, its silence was unsurprising. And, considering its prior tactics, neither was its reaction to upstart rivals.” Esquire

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Book SynopsisFor the first generations of university women, higher education was a transformative experience, but these opportunities would narrow in the decades that followed. Examining the period between 1870 and 1930, University Women explores the processes of integration and separation that marked women’s contested entrance into higher education.Trade Review"A book on the entrance of women into institutions of higher education in Canada is long overdue and this will become the definitive work on the topic for many years to come." Catherine Gidney, St Thomas University and author of A Long Eclipse: The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970

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Book SynopsisThe celebrated author of Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon receives much-deserved additional consideration in L.M. Montgomery and Gender. Nineteen contributors take a variety of critical and theoretical positions, from historical analyses of the White Feather campaign and discussions of adoption to medical discourses of death and disease, explorations of Montgomery's use of humour, and the author's rewriting of masculinist traditions.The essays span Montgomery's writing, exploring her famous Anne and Emily books as well as her short fiction, her comic journal composed with her friend Nora Lefurgey, and less-studied novels such as Magic for Marigold and The Blue Castle. Dividing the chapters into five sections on masculinities and femininities, domestic space, humour, intertexts, and being in time L.M. Montgomery and Gender addresses the degree to which Montgomery's work engages and exposes, reflects and challenges the genderTrade Review"A book-length study on this author's rich and complex relationship with gender norms and expectations, and her myriad depictions of gender, is overdue. Because modern understanding of gender identity and contemporary awareness of gender issues are increasingly prominent in cultural discussions, this book, with its many perspectives on gender in Montgomery's work, is extraordinarily timely." Caroline Jones, Austin Community College

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Book SynopsisThis collection employs biography, botanical data, herbaria specimens, archival sources, letters, institutional records, book history, and artwork to reconstruct plant work by figures ranging from elite women involved in imperial botanical projects in British North America to settler-colonial women in mid- and late-century Ontario and Australia.Trade Review“Refreshingly interdisciplinary, Flora’s Fieldworkers is replete with new information and insights, even on known figures like Dalhousie and Traill. The volume offers innovative perspectives on women’s involvement in botany and plant culture, making strides in the historiography on science in Canada and the fields of women, gender, and science.” Donald L. Opitz, DePaul University“[Flora’s Fieldworkers] challenges the equation of ‘amateur’ with ‘unskilled’ and ‘insignificant’ and brings women botanists out of the shadows, giving their rigorous investigations the scientific credibility they deserve. This fascinating gathering of academic essays shows women collectors as astute observers and appreciators of plants in the wild.” Literary Review of Canada“Flora’s Fieldworkers is a richly stimulating collection of studies looking at specific 19th-century Canadian (and Australian) women from a wide variety of situations who were engaged with the plant world in a wide variety of ways, and often under- or even unappreciated. It provides welcome views into Canadian botanical, cultural, and social history.” Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries“Flora’s Fieldworkers is an ambitious collection of new scholarship on women’s botanical labor in nineteenth century Canada. Excitingly interdisciplinary and broadly accessible, this new volume is a significant contribution to the study of gender, identity, and class in early histories of women and science.” Isis

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Book SynopsisKaren Pastorello''s pathbreaking biography of Bessie Abramowitz Hillman places this remarkable labor leader and Progressive Era activist at the center of the founding of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Bridging the gap between Progressive social feminism and the labor feminists of the post-World War II period, Hillman worked to end race and class injustice and improve the quality of life for working women, even as she was overshadowed by her husband, union leader Sidney Hillman. Interweaving Hillman''s experiences as an Eastern European Jewish immigrant with a rich historical account of the founding and development of a key garment union, Pastorello reveals the prominent role of women labor activists in both the workplace and union leadership.Trade Review"The book is written with such craft that it reads almost like entertaining historical fiction. . . . A great resource for labor history and women's studies collections. Highly recommended."--Choice “Valuable in its focus on a figure underappreciated even in other literature on the ACWA. . . . A real contribution to the scholarship on the struggle of labor women to merge class and gender identities in finding meaningful work and building productive lives.”--American Jewish History"A lively account of the life of Bessie Hillman, a woman who has previously not received enough attention given the important role she played in improving rights for women, immigrants, African Americans, and the working class in the United States."--Labour/Le Travail"A carefully researched and engaging biography that makes vivid the many changes affecting union women in the twentieth century."--Enterprise and Society"Pastorello's vigorous chronicle of the tumultuous, eventful life of Bessie Abramowitz Hillman recognizes Hillman as a major contributor to American social reform and restores her to her rightful place in the historical narrative. Readers will be captivated by Pastorello's skillful rendering of the exhilarating world of Chicago Hull-House social reformers; the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America campaigns to organize Philadelphia sweatshops, teenagers in rural Pennsylvania shirt factories, and African American laundry workers in New York; the restiveness of working-class women in the post-World War II decades; and the emergence of labor feminism on the national stage."--Dorothy Sue Cobble, author of The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America"This compelling life story of an immigrant woman factory worker adds to our understanding of the founding and development of an important union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and illuminates the emerging concept of labor feminism."--Brigid O'Farrell, coeditor of Rocking the Boat: Union Women's Voices, 1915-1975

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Book SynopsisTrailblazing women working in digital arts media and education established the Midwest as an international center for the artistic and digital revolution in the 1980s and beyond. Foundational events at the University of Illinois and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago created an authentic, community-driven atmosphere of creative expression, innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration that crossed gender lines and introduced artistically informed approaches to advanced research. Interweaving historical research with interviews and full-color illustrations, New Media Futures captures the spirit and contributions of twenty-two women working within emergent media as diverse as digital games, virtual reality, medicine, supercomputing visualization, and browser-based art. The editors and contributors give voice as creators integral to the development of these new media and place their works at the forefront of social change and artistic inquiry. What emerges is the dramatic story Trade Review"This is a book that can be picked up and opened to any area to explore. If you do, you will come away a little bit wiser, certainly more informed and totally impressed with what these women have done." --Illinois Times"This important anthology offers riveting testimonials to the tangible contributions of women during the dawn of the digital era. Concentrated in the Midwest, these scientists, inventors, designers and artists faced down gender bias to shape the global future of technology and culture."--Sara Diamond, President, OCAD University"It was one of the formative periods in my life to be associated with many of the creative women in this book. It was a magic period, when these women helped transform the world as we knew it. I am so happy to see their innovative work is finally getting "New Media Futures will be a rewarding read and a prized possession for scholars interested in the experimental, creative spaces for art carved out by women working between the coasts. . . . The many images from the artists’ own collections, and stories told in their own words make this lively and engaging volume a welcome addition to the literatures on women’s history, the histories of computing, and the digital media arts." --Platypus"This is a fascinating and important book. It will appeal to scientists, technologists, artists and the general public. It tells wonderfully exciting stories of creative, risk-taking women (and men) that will inspire present and future generations. These stories demonstrate that the creative spark that drives scientists and artists knows no disciplinary boundaries. And it is simply a delightful read."--Walter E. Massey, Chancellor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago"New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Arts is poised to become a valuable study tool for those interested in the intersection between art, women artists, and technology." --Hyperallergic“A very necessary book that all daughters should read." --Shannon Jackson, Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts and Design, University of California, Berkeley"New Media Futures is an important and interesting work not only because it seeks to create a history of largely undocumented subject, the importance of women and the Midwest to digital arts, but also because of the approach the editors take to the work. . . . Anyone from a casual reader to an artist, scientist, or academic may learn from and appreciate this work." --Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society"New Media Futures will be a rewarding read and a prized possession for scholars interested in the experimental, creative spaces for art carved out by women working between the coasts. . . . The many images from the artists’ own collections, and stories told in their own words make this lively and engaging volume a welcome addition to the literatures on women’s history, the histories of computing, and the digital media arts." --Platypus "It was one of the formative periods in my life to be associated with many of the creative women in this book. It was a magic period, when these women helped transform the world as we knew it. I am so happy to see their innovative work is finally getting the attention it deserves."--Larry Smarr, Founding Director, Calit2 and NCSA

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed since its original publication, Coming on Strong has become a much-cited touchstone in scholarship on women and sports. In this new edition, Susan K. Cahn updates her detailed history of women''s sport and the struggles over gender, sexuality, race, class, and policy that have often defined it. A new chapter explores the impact of Title IX and how the opportunities and interest in sports it helped create reshaped women''s lives even as the legislation itself came under sustained attack.Trade Review"Coming on Strong has long been the go-to book for the history of women in sport. Now it moves boldly into the twenty-first century. Assessing the enormous changes that have reshaped the sports landscape since the 1970s, it reminds us that the playing field is still far from level and challenges us to make the ongoing quest for gender equity in sport part of the larger struggle for social change." --Susan Ware, author of Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Modern Language Association (MLA)'s William Sanders Scarborough Prize From Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, and Bessie Head, to Zanele Muholi, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Missy Elliott, Black women writers and artists across the African Diaspora have developed nuanced and complex creative forms. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ventures into the unexplored spaces of black women's queer creative theorizing to learn its languages and read the textures of its forms. Moving beyond fixed notions, Sullivan points to a space of queer imagination where black women invent new languages, spaces, and genres to speak the many names of difference. Black women's literary cultures have long theorized the complexities surrounding nation and class, the indeterminacy of gender and race, and the multiple meanings of sexuality. Yet their ideas and work remain obscure in the face of indifference from Western scholarship. Innovative and timely, The Poetics of Difference illuminates understudied queer contours oTrade Review"Dr. Sullivan provides expert analysis of the complex queer creativities of Black women and their (re)inventions and (re)imaginings of meaning-making in vast literary forms. " --Ms. Magazine "This book is a vital, gorgeous thing. Sullivan's thinking elegantly explores the ways black women writers use genre as a queer practice of difference. The argument here is stunning--transcendently so--and it is not an exaggeration to say that this book will become canonical."--Kevin Quashie, author of Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being "This luminous book lovingly parses the poetics of difference that forms and informs the continued life of black queer feminist thought in many genres. The work is brilliant and bracing."--Jennifer DeVere Brody, author of Punctuation: Art, Politics, and PlayTable of ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction. Black Queer Feminist Poetics: Rereading the IntersectionChapter One. Biomythic Times: Voice, Genre, and the Invention of Black/Queer HistoryChapter Two. “walkin on the edges of the galaxy”: Queer Choreopoetic Thought in the African DiasporaChapter Three. Feeling Colors and Seeing Speech: Body/Language and Black Women’s Diasporas ofChapter Four. “Languages of Love”: “TALK” of Sex: Interstitial Idioms of Body and DesireCoda. Speech between Silence: Distance, Difference, and the Queer Poetics of Blackwoman LivingNotesWorks CitedIndexBack cover

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Book SynopsisIn July 1995, the Army of the Serbian Republic killed some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenicathe largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. Surviving the Bosnian Genocide is based on the testimonies of 60 female survivors of the massacre who were interviewed by Dutch historian Selma Leydesdorff. The women, many of whom still live in refugee camps, talk about their lives before the Bosnian war, the events of the massacre, and the ways they have tried to cope with their fate. Though fragmented by trauma, the women tell of life and survival under extreme conditions, while recalling a time before the war when Muslims, Croats, and Serbs lived together peaceably. By giving them a voice, this book looks beyond the rapes, murders, and atrocities of that dark time to show the agency of these women during and after the war and their fight to uncover the truth of what happened at Srebrenica and why.Trade ReviewWith sensitivity and compassion, Leydesdorff . . . interviews about 50 female survivors of the Srebrenica massacre . . . in this valuable oral history. 6/21/2011 * Publishers Weekly *Surviving the Bosnian Genocide provides a clear, concise analysis of conditions in Srebrenica and the genocidal massacre in Potocari. As an author, Leydesdorff manages to organize excerpts from dozens of interviewees in a manner that allows their words to carry the weight of the experience, while interjecting herself only to provide the necessary historical perspective to maintain its readability. Ultimately, this collection of experiences succeeds at placing the human toll of mass atrocities in the forefront of the historical discussion in a way that preserves the emotional scars such events leave in their wake. * Oral History Review *Leydesdorff's book focuses on the notorious selective massacre in July 1995 of 8,100 disarmed Bosnian Muslim men by Serb nationalist forces under the comand of General Ratko Mladic, in the area around the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia . . . The women speak of the shock, in the early days of the war, of seeing trusted Serb neighbors turn into rapists and murderers; of their own fathers, husbands, and sons forced to take up arms; of weeks spent living rough with their children in the forests to avoid slaughter; of hunger, homelssness, and virtual imprisonment in the enclave; and of the bitter moment of escape that was simultaneously the moment of loss, the last glimpse of a husband or son. They also spoke (reluctantly and elliptically) of rape and described surviving brutal attacks by Serb men. The memories of these victimized women are the 'little' sorrows of war, Leydesdorff says, seldom deemed worth listening to, neglected in the political histories.Jan. 2012 * Women's Review of Books *A book of remarkable integrity that gives the victims voices, faces, families, and lives. . . . The author succeeds in creating an honest and sensitive picture from the jumble of stories, emotions, and reminiscences. . . . A work of great social relevance. * Internationale Spectator *Surviving the Bosnian Genocide . . . meaningfully adds to an endless bibliography on the war, cultural trauma, and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina through a gendered perspective. To this end, both cultural literacy and sensitivity interpenetrate this study admirably. * Human Rights Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsOn the Publication of the English EditionList of abbreviationsPreface: What Happened BeforeSabaheta's Story1. Farewell: The Desolation, the Women2. An Orphaned World: Life before the War3. War is Coming4. Living on the Run, Living in Danger5. A Human Shooting Gallery—Srebrenica 1992-19956. Violence7. Departure without ArrivalNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis beautifully rendered ethnography makes visible the haunting social challenge of infertility for Indian women, and especially Muslim minority women, whose reproduction is always suspect. Stories of women's secret but valiant attempts to conceive animate the pages of this book, which is essential reading for scholars of gender, kinship, and religion in South Asia, as well as those interested in reproductive justice in the Global South. -- Marcia C. Inhorn, author of Cosmopolitan Conceptions: IVF Sojourns in Global DubaiBy focusing on infertility, this book fills a huge gap in the study of reproduction in India. Bringing together material from Indian films, literature, extensive ethnography, and her own experiences as a daughter-in-law in India, Holly Donahue Singh weaves an anthropologically informed and fascinating account of people's reproductive desires framed by the real world of inequalities and lack of reproductive justice. Yet, it is not all doom and gloom as people forge their way out of difficulties or find new paths outside of reproductive mandates. -- Ravinder Kaur, Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Indian Institute of Technology DelhiWhile the story of female reproductive systems has multiple dimensions, Holly Donahue Singh's narrative introduces us to a fascinating picture of how such dimensions find expressions in everyday life and popular cultures. With an in-depth understanding of vernacular symbols, metaphorization, and narrative strategies, this book moves the reader closer to a setting where the ordinariness of life emerges as an intriguing space to rethink various complex processes. In addition, this book provides a gendered lens to translate multilayered theoretical aspects. Singh's sensibilities and careful observations make this work more accessible as well. -- Afsar Mohammad, author of The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South IndiaTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Hiding Reproduction1. Aulad: Reproductive Desires2. Preludes to Aulad: Making Mothers3. Clinical Dreams: Measuring Hope4. Reproductive Realities: Managing Inequality5. Quietly Planning Families: Misdirecting ConventionConclusion: Reproductive Openings and Reproductive Justice in Contemporary IndiaAfterword: Family Plans, Or, Waiting for AuladGlossaryBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA daring reassessment of Louise Nevelson, an icon of twentieth-century art whose innovative procedures relate to gendered, classed, and racialized forms of makingTrade Review“[Bryan-Wilson] shows why Nevelson’s sculpture matters today, and that art history can be a tool for responding to what is happening now.”—Sophie Oliver, Times Literary Supplement“Boldly conceived, Julia Bryan-Wilson’s far-reaching study gives us a multidirectional understanding of Louise Nevelson’s intersectional abstraction that renders the artist strikingly contemporary.”—Kobena Mercer, author of Travel & See: Black Diaspora Art Practices since the 1980s“Julia Bryan-Wilson’s Louise Nevelson is exceptional in its innovative framing, physical structure, and above all, brilliantly original weaving of personal experience, material analysis, and art historical methodologies.”—Jo Applin, author of Lee Lozano: Not Working“Bryan-Wilson brings world-class critical, feminist, and social-historical skills to bear on Nevelson’s sculpture and public persona. The result is that we see Nevelson’s radiant intelligence in a new light.”—Richard Meyer, author of Master of the Two Left Feet: Morris Hirshfield Rediscovered“From the multicomponent design to the conceptual approaches therein, Bryan-Wilson has crafted an innovative and engaging look at Louise Nevelson. Further, she offers a queered, critical methodology that changes the game.”—Bridget R. Cooks, author of Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum

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Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanying the first ever exhibition dedicated to Julie Manet

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive look at the nearly seven-decades-long career of contemporary Mexican American artist Virginia Jaramillo

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThe landmark case Roe v. Wade redefined family: it is now commonplace for Americans to treat having children as a choice. But the historic decision also coincided with widening inequality, an ongoing trend that continues to make choice more myth than reality. In this new and timely history, Matthiesen shows how the effects of incarceration, for-profit healthcare, disease, and poverty have been worsened by state neglect, forcing most to work harder to maintain a family. Trade Review"Reproduction Reconceived is an urgent reminder that a renewed fight for the right to choose must do more than restore legal access to abortion." * Chicago Review *"Reproduction Reconceived is based on extensive research. . . .Its arguments and conclusions shed new light on the harsh conditions that encumber so many women’s efforts at family-making, call for a change in values that fully appreciate and support the essential work of private and public caregiving, and insist that making reproductive choice a reality demands the elimination of inequities based on gender, race, class and sexuality.' * Society for U.S. Intellectual History *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Labor of Illegibility: Lesbian and Single Motherhood According to the Law 2. The Labor of Captivity: Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children 3. The Labor of Survival: Racism, Poverty, and the Uses of Infant Mortality Rates 4. The Labor of Risk: Or, How to Have a Family in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic 5. The Labor of "Choice": Navigating the Abortion Debate and Lifelines of Last Resort Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisUnderstanding the social history and urgent social implications of gendered compulsory birth control, an unbalanced and unjust approach to pregnancy prevention. The average person concerned about becoming pregnant spends approximately thirty years trying to prevent conception. People largely do so alone using prescription birth control, a situation often taken for granted in the United States as natural and beneficial. In Just Get on the Pill, a keenly researched and incisive examination, Krystale Littlejohn investigates how birth control becomes a fundamentally unbalanced and gendered responsibility. She uncovers how parents, peers, partners, and providers draw on narratives of male and female birth control methods to socialize cisgender women into sex and ultimately into shouldering the burden for preventing pregnancy. Littlejohn draws on extensive interviews to document this gendered compulsory birth controla phenomenon in which people who give birth are held accountable for preventing and resolving pregnancies in gender-constrained ways. She shows how this gendered approach encroaches on reproductive autonomy and poses obstacles for preventing disease. While diverse cisgender women are the focus, Littlejohn shows that they are not the only ones harmed by this dynamic. Indeed, gendered approaches to birth control also negatively impact trans, intersex, and gender nonconforming people in overlooked ways. In tracing the divisive politics of pregnancy prevention, Littlejohn demonstrates that the gendered division of labor in birth control is not natural. It is unjust.Trade Review“‘Contraceptive failures,’ Littlejohn shows, occur for reasons of health, misinformation and finances, yes, but equally because of gendered motives and interactions that aren’t discussed in classrooms or bedrooms.” * Times Literary Supplement *"Krystale E. Littlejohn shows how birth control hasn't been as empowering as society first hailed it to be, especially for marginalized populations. . . . A powerful read." * Mashable *"This is a well-researched and much-needed historical and contemporary exploration of the unjust (cis)gendered aspects of birth control, pregnancy and reproductive autonomy." * Ms. Magazine * "Far from being emancipatory, liberating technologies, this book shows how contraception can be stressful, painful, a bone of contention between sexual partners, and a burden. . . . An important account of the challenges women face in using contraception, the need to pay attention to the specific contexts in which people try to avoid pregnancy and disease, and the problems of gendering birth control." * Gender, Place and Culture *“Littlejohn provides much food for thought in this short but interesting book on the unintended consequences of the expansion of birth control technology. . . . Engaging and deliberately controversial, this book should prove useful for stimulating debate.” * CHOICE *"In this important book, Littlejohn offers a powerful argument for understanding gendered compulsory birth control as a significant dynamic in the ongoing undermining of women’s reproductive liberty." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 His Condom 2 Her Birth Control 3 Don't Be a Bitch 4 Selective Selection Conclusion: Something Better Acknowledgments Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRuth Bader Ginsburg's last book is a curation of her own legacy, tracing the long history of her work for gender equality and a more perfect Union. In the fall of 2019, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited the University of California, Berkeley School of Law to deliver the first annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture in honor of her friend, the late Herma Hill Kay, with whom Ginsburg had coauthored the very first casebook on sex-based discrimination in 1974. Justice, Justice Thou ShaltPursue is the result of a period of collaboration between Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk. During Justice Ginsburg's visit to Berkeley, she told her life story inconversation with Tyler. In this collection, the two bring together that conversation and other materialsmany previously unpublishedthat share details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career. These include notable briefs and oral arguments, some of Ginsburg's last speeches, and her favorite opinions that she wrote as a Supreme Court Justice (many in dissent), along with the statements that she read from the bench in those important cases. Each document was chosen by Ginsburg and Tyler to tell the story of the litigation strategy and optimistic vision that were at the heart of Ginsburg's unwavering commitment to the achievement of a more perfect Union. In a decades-long career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an advocate and jurist for gender equality and for ensuring that the United States Constitution leaves no person behind. Her work transformed not just the American legal landscape, but American society more generally. Ginsburg labored tirelessly to promote a Constitution that is ever more inclusive and that allows every individual to achieve their full human potential. As revealed in these pages, in the area of gender rights, Ginsburg dismantled long-entrenched systems of discrimination based on outdated stereotypes by showing how such laws hold back both genders. And as also shown in the materials brought together here, Justice Ginsburg had a special ability to appreciate how the decisions of the high court impact the lived experiences of everyday Americans. The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020as this book was heading into production was met with a public outpouring of grief. With her death, the country lost a hero and national treasure whose incredible life and legacy made the United States a more just society and one in which We the People, for whom the Constitution is written, includes everyone.Trade Review"Even if you've read Ginsburg's memoir or seen the biopic On the Basis of Sex, this book will offer new insight into her storied career—and its lingering impact on the American legal system. . . . As Ginsburg said, 'Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.' We'll be joining her, once again, in the pages of this book." * O, The Oprah Magazine *"Anyone needing more reasons to admire Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020) will find them in this inspiring collection of speeches (all previously unpublished), briefs, oral arguments, dissenting opinions, and a candid conversation with Tyler, a professor at the Berkeley School of Law who served as Ginsburg’s law clerk during the 1999 term. . . . An informative perspective on a tireless advocate for fairness and equity." * Kirkus Reviews *“Because each of Ginsburg’s words is so meaningful, this volume feels like a final gift. . . . Ginsburg inscribed herself into American history with the shining conviction of her vision of a more perfect union, expressed in her powerfully and deliberately chosen words. Working until the very end, she was determined to leave us this final anthology, and all of her words are significant.” -- Jeffrey Rosen, * Washington Post *Table of ContentsPreface: Amanda L. Tyler Acknowledgments Introduction: Amanda L. Tyler Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture Ruth Bader Ginsburg the Advocate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Recent Speeches Afterword: Amanda L. Tyler Timeline: The Life of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Book SynopsisThis collection presents six essays by one of France’s most remarkable contemporary authors. A notoriously playful stylist, Cixous here explores how the problematics of the sexes—viewed as a paradigm for all difference, which is the organizing principle behind identity and meaning—manifest themselves, write themselves, in texts.Trade ReviewHélène Cixous is today, in my view, the greatest writer in what I will call my language, the French language if you like. And I am weighing my words as I say that. For a great writer must be a poet-thinker, very much a poet and a very thinking poet. -- Jacques DerridaDeborah Jenson judiciously selects from Cixous’s output between 1976–89: ‘Coming to Writing,’ ‘Clarice Lispector: The Approach,’ ‘Tancredi Continues,’ ‘The Last Painting or the Portrait of God,’ ‘By the Light of an Apple,’ and ‘The Author in Truth.’ Her perceptive closing essay, together with Susan Suleiman’s introduction…trace the umbilical links between Cixous’s end-stopped poetic-philosophic prose and her roots which anchor her perilously between two holocausts, Jewish and colonial, and two tongues, German and the classical French… These essays highlight a wealth of disparate inspiration…[in] an ideal guide to Cixous. -- Elizabeth Moles * Times Higher Education Supplement *Cixous, important as she is as a feminist theorist and activist, is equally important as an accurate emotional sounding board for women everywhere. As such, her articulation of powerful, if delicate, perceptions in lucid prose/poetry compels the attention of European and American readers… The power of her prose is philosophically sound. * Choice *The tradition of Cixous’s interest in feminine writing and talent at manipulating words continues in this collection. [In one essay] she describes vividly how she was overcome by the intoxication of writing… Other essays explore the influence of music and gender on writing…and painting. In all cases the language is visual and jewel-like, sparkling with color. * Library Journal *

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Book SynopsisIn 2004, the French government instituted a ban on the wearing of 'conspicuous signs' of religious affiliation in public schools. Though the ban applies to everyone, it is aimed at Muslim girls wearing headscarves. This book argues that the law is symptomatic of France's failure to integrate its former colonial subjects as full citizens.Trade Review"Scott does a good job of conveying the hysteria that surrounded the foulard debate in France...Scott's broad and exhaustive research makes for a bracing account of the debate."--Laila Lalami, The Nation "Veil-bashing is suddenly socially acceptable among not merely tabloid-reading Little Englanders, but also metropolitan sophisticates...Why should a bit of cloth so threaten the French republic? That is the central question posed by [this] subtle new study...Many French commentators cast the debate about the veil as an issue about Muslims, Islam and integration. Scott, a distinguished historian at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, shows that it revealed rather more about the French themselves."--Carla Power, New Statesman "This book is a powerful denunciation of the French government and people whom Scott labels as racist, discriminatory, and intolerant of Muslim immigrants primarily from North Africa. In instituting a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools, the author claims that France has gone too far in its policies of strict secularism and adherence to the values of republicanism in which citizenship is conceived of as an individual matter devoid of ethnic and religious content... [A] fascinating piece of scholarship."--S. Majstorovic, Choice "It is difficult to do justice to the rigour and subtlety of this important book, written by a distinguished historian with previous works on gender and democratic politics. It should be read not only by those interested in the French situation but also by anyone who is concerned by the hysteria surrounding Muslims in Europe. It clarifies the ideas behind current debates on multiculturalism, assimilation and integration, and points the way towards a solution."--Mary Hossain, Journal of Islamic Studies "The Politics of the Veil is a propitious contribution to the exploration and analysis of the complex meanings and purported meanings of these phenomena that have come to symbolise for Turkey and France the struggle to defend the foundations of their Republic against forces that allegedly undermine all that is glorious and good about these 'singular' or 'exceptional' states."-- Elif Aydyn, The Muslim News "[I]t is important to remember the lessons of the headscarf ban, to understand the politics that lay behind it and its racist implications. This book is a useful reminder of both."--Sadie Robinson, International Socialism "Scott's book is a wonderful discussion about how well and how badly societies respond to religious challenges. I strongly recommend it."--Iva Ellen Deutchman, Politics and Religion "This book will undoubtedly rank as one of the best Anglo-American critical commentaries on the affaire du foulard and the 2004 law banning religious signs in schools...[Scott] succeeds in providing a magisterial demonstration of the power of discourse--of the ways in which abstract ideas, when mediated through a vibrant political culture, can influence collective thinking and practice."--Cecile Laborde, La Vie Des Idees "Joan Scott authoritatively rejects many of the arguments that are often used in favor of totally excluding Islam from the public sphere. In doing so she has provided much food for thought and has written a book that is equally valuable to scholars and to students in a graduate or upper level undergraduate course."--Hootan Shambayati, Law and Politics Book Review "The Politics of the Veil is written in clear and accessible prose, and its provocative yet succinct chapters are thought provoking and user friendly at the same time... [T]he book can be easily divided up and read over two or three class periods or it can be comfortably assigned as a whole. Because its subject matter is so pertinent to so many disciplines, the book can be used in history, sociology, anthropology, political science, gender studies, European Studies, religion, or any courses in the humanities or social sciences examining contemporary French politics and society."--Kristen Ghodsee, Women's Studies International Forum "The Politics of the Veil ... challenges the traditions of detached scholarship, yet Scott's careful use of specific evidence adheres to scholarly methods and demonstrates how historians can contribute critical insights to the public debates of our own time."--Lloyd Kramer, Journal of Modern History "This is a very important and ... welcome book... [T]his sharp and insightful study is undoubtedly a must for any student on not only French society, but of questions regarding secular ideology, gender, and 'deterritorialized' Islam in general."--Per-Erik Nilsson, Evironment and Planning "Scott succeeds in revealing how the inability of French government's failure to address the issue of the veil meaningfully underlines its current inability to create a country where the co-existence of differences, rather than celebration of what is common or the same, is the basis of community."--Irmak Ertuna, Darkmatter "Scott unfolds excellent and detailed analyses of the construction of the citizen in the French nation state, of French racism and Algeria, and of the prominent news events in the French veiling controversy."--Virginia Corvid, Feminist CollectionsTable of ContentsForeword vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Headscarf Controversies 21 Chapter 2: Racism 42 Chapter 3: Secularism 90 Chapter 4: Individualism 124 Chapter 5: Sexuality 151 Conclusion 175 Notes 185 Index 199

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Book SynopsisIn this pathbreaking study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Mill, Susan Moller Okin turns to the tradition of political philosophy that pervades Western culture and its institutions to understand why the gap between formal and real gender equality persists. Our philosophical heritage, Okin argues, largely rests on the assumption of tTrade Review"Okin has written an engaging, serious, careful, and important work that raises the issues of women and politics in their most elemental and pertinent form... A pioneering book."--Benjamin R. Barber, New Republic "A brilliant, clear, sustained drive through the murky history of men's ideas about what they wished women to do into the terra incognita of what women can be... [A] major contribution to political thought."--Christina Robb, Boston Globe "Excellent... Given the generations of scholars who have ignored the obvious, Okin's contribution is tantamount to the child declaring the emperor to be without clothes. Her language is calm, clear, simple, and strong."--Vivian Gornick, Washington Post "Okin's impressive book makes clear that whatever we may have been taught, we cannot read the great political theorists as though 'mankind' means all of us."--Nannerl Keohane, EthicsTable of ContentsIntroduction to the 2013 Edition ix Acknowledgements xix Introduction 3 PART I. PLATO 1. Plato and the Greek Tradition of Misogyny 15 2. Philosopher Queens and Private Wives 28 3. Female Nature and Social Structure 51 PART II. ARISTOTLE 4. Woman's Place and Nature in a Functionalist World 73 PART III. ROUSSEAU 5. Rosseau and the Modern Patriarchal Tradition 99 6. The Natural Woman and Her Role 106 7. Equality and Freedom - for Men 140 8. The Fate of Rosseau's Heroines 167 PART IV. MILL 9. John Stuart Mill, Liberal Feminist 197 PART V. FUNCTIONALISM, FEMINISM AND THE FAMILY 10. Women and Functionalism, Past and Present 233 11. Persons, Women, and the Law 247 12. Conclusions 274 Appendix to Chapter 2 305 Afterword to the 1992 edition 309 Notes 341 Bibliography 387 Index 399

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Book SynopsisAmazons--fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world--were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman generalTrade ReviewWinner of the 2016 Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology, Association for the Study of Women & Mythology 2015 Silver Medal Winner in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, World History category Selected for The New York Times Book Review's "The Year in Reading" 2016 Shortlisted for the 2014 London Hellenic Prize One of Foreign Affairs' Best Military, Scientific, and Technological Books of 2015 Selected for American Scientist's Science Book Gift Guide 2014 "In her quest to separate reality from mythology, Mayor left few stones unturned, even examining the graves of women with war wounds and mummified tattoos. She skillfully presents her findings with wit and conviction in this superbly illustrated book"--Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affiars "Fluidly written and exhaustively researched, this fascinating book lit up my mind and my sense of humanity, not just with women in it, but under it, above it, flinging out constellations and atoms; carving out grand canyons hand-in-hand with men and beasts and glaciers, too."--Neko Case, singer-songwriter, New York Times Book Review "The Amazons is elegantly written, nicely illustrated and will no doubt excite a lot of attention."--Simon Goldhill, Times Literary Supplement "Mayor specializes in connecting artifacts--paintings, sculptures, coins, bones, weapons, clothing, fossils--with the more diffuse evidence found in literature, lore and legend ... in order to illuminate the lives of the ancient warrior women... Impressive investigative work ... fascinating."--James Romm, London Review of Books "[A] fascinatingly detailed account."--Emily Wilson, Wall Street Journal "Mayor (The Poison King) looks at ancient writings and archeological evidence to argue that yes, 'Amazons' were based on real nomadic women, though much different from the way ancient Greeks or contemporary audiences imagine them... Mayor speculates on the origin of such misconceptions in ancient writings and art, smartly suggesting that, though Amazons are usually depicted heroically in Greek art and mythology, the male-centric Greeks perhaps struggled to understand a society based on equality between the sexes... Her expertise shines throughout."--Publishers Weekly "An encyclopedic study of the barbarian warrior women of Western Asia, revealing how new archaeological discoveries uphold the long-held myths and legends. The famed female archers on horseback from the lands the ancient Greeks called Scythia appeared throughout Greek and Roman legend. Mayor tailors her scholarly work to lay readers, providing a fascinating exploration into the factual identity underpinning the fanciful legends surrounding these wondrous Amazons... Mayor clears away much of the man-hating myths around these redoubtable warriors. Thanks to Mayor's scholarship, these fearsome fighters are attaining their historical respectability."--Kirkus Reviews "A must-read for anyone interested in either Amazonian myth or history."--Fred Poling, Library Journal "No one before has ever marshalled the full sweep of evidence as Mayor does here... The result is a book as erudite as it riveting, one that is surely destined to serve as the definitive work on the subject."--Tom Holland, Literary Review "There are myriad myths surrounding the Amazons, but which are based on truth? ... This is the question which Adrienne Mayor seeks to answer in her hugely informative and entertaining Encyclopaedia Amazonica."--Natalie Haynes, Independent "[A] lively and engaging exploration ... vivid, compelling and detailed ... a rich compendium."--Lloyd Llewellyn Jones, Times Higher Education "A beautiful book... The Amazons by Adrienne Mayor is required reading."--Anna Meldolesi, Corriere della Sera "Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic."--Peter Konieczny, History of the Ancient World blog "Mayor writes elegant, jargon free, frequently witty prose."--Barry Baldwin, Fortean Times "If Adrienne Mayor had merely applied her rigorous scholarship and poetic charm to documenting the shifting image of Amazons in classical, medieval and post-Renaissance European culture, she would have written an important contribution to ancient history. But she has achieved much more. By painstaking research ... she has broken down the often impenetrable walls dividing western cultural history from its eastern equivalents... Mayor opens up new horizons in world storytelling and feminist iconography... There may not be Amazon dolls in today's toyshops, but a good substitute would be to read this wonderful book with your children and show them its pictures."--Edith Hall, New Statesman "For anyone who thinks Amazons were as mythical as centaurs or sphinxes, this pleasurable book proves that misconception is wondrously wrong... Mayor's beautifully illustrated book, truly encyclopedic on all things Amazonian, reclaims the historic image of these dauntless figures in the heroic frame they deserve."--Fran Willing, Bust.com "Mayor's book is popular history at its best. Much of her archaeological evidence is new -- such as her descriptions of 'Scythian' female graves with horses and weapons. She chooses wonderful illustrations which makes the book enjoyable and easy to read."--Zenobia blog "Clearly, with this clever, systematic and engaging work by Mayor, Amazons got their classic book. And it is a riveting read, too."--Ephraim Nissan, Fabula "Mayor's fascinatingly readable book convincingly argues that many of their characteristics may have derived from real nomadic womenwarriors of antiquity... It represents a remarkable scholarly breakthrough: no one will ever be able to discuss the Amazon myths again without taking into account the historical evidence she provides."--Tassos A. Kaplanis, Journal of Historical Geography "Adrienne Mayor has written an ambitious 'Encyclopedia Amazonica' as she calls her book, a kind of compendium of information about the Amazons... Her charming and seamless style can certainly provoke a reader's interest in the still distant and unknown terra incognita of the Black Sea and Caucasus regions and their nomadic life."--Eleni Boliaki, Bryn Mawr Classical Review "I can't ... begin to say how great it is to have a book like this, because it's exactly the kind of book I like. Not one that just dismisses old stories as being too tall or made up, but really gives them the benefit of the doubt and tries to correlate and reconcile them with hard evidence. This is brilliantly achieved in Amazons... This in many ways is an exhaustive study, every facet that could be thought of has been included, and very little left out."--Adventures in Historyland "Mayor writes well, and not without dry humour, and although hardly given to the sensational, the sheer depth and breadth of her research and discoveries carry you along. You won't devour this in a sitting, just as you wouldn't eat a whole gooey gateau at once, but each slice of book is appetising enough to keep you coming back for more."--Lynn Picknett, Magonia Review of BooksTable of ContentsIllustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii Prologue: Atalanta, the Greek Amazon 1 Part 1 Who Were the Amazons? 1 Ancient Puzzles and Modern Myths 17 2 Scythia, Amazon Homeland 34 3 Sarmatians, a Love Story 52 Part 2 Historical Women Warriors and Classical Traditions 4 Bones: Archaeology of Amazons 63 5 Breasts: One or Two? 84 6 Skin: Tattooed Amazons 95 7 Naked Amazons 117 8 Sex and Love 129 9 Drugs, Dance, and Music 142 10 The Amazon Way 155 11 Horses, Dogs, and Eagles 170 12 Who Invented Trousers? 191 13 Armed and Dangerous: Weapons and Warfare 209 14 Amazon Languages and Names 234 Part 3 Amazons in Greek and Roman Myth, Legend, and History 15 Hippolyte and Heracles 249 16 Antiope and Theseus 259 17 Battle for Athens 271 18 Penthesilea and Achilles at Troy 287 19 Amazons at Sea 305 20 Thalestris and Alexander the Great 319 21 Hypsicratea, King Mithradates, and Pompey's Amazons 339 Part 4 Beyond the Greek World 22 Caucasia, Crossroads of Eurasia 357 23 Persia, Egypt, North Africa, Arabia 377 24 Amazonistan: Central Asia 395 25 China 411 Appendix: Names of Amazons and Warrior Women in Ancient Literature and Art from the Mediterranean to China 431 Notes 439 Bibliography 485 Index 503

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2017"

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Book SynopsisA cross-national account of working mothers' daily lives--and the revolution in public policy and culture needed to improve them.Trade Review"Co-Winner of the William J. Goode Book Award, Family Section of the American Sociological Association""Winner of the PROSE Award in Anthropology, Criminology, and Sociology, Association of American Publishers""Winner of the Bronze Medal in Women / Minorities in Business, Axiom Business Book Awards"

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