Gender studies: women and girls Books

Book SynopsisIn 1964, Patricia MacKay immigrated to Canada from England in search of the wild-open lands and cowboy culture that captivated her as a child. In the 1960s, the Wild West was still alive and kicking in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, although it had been tamed -- a little. Old-time hospitality and helping anyone in need was the acknowledged way of life. Pat learned the Cariboo-Chilcotin way of life first hand by spending her summers working on guest ranches and finding other jobs to keep her occupied during the winter. From learning how to cook on the job to kitchen disasters and successes, roundups, branding, square dances and falling in love, she slowly gained acceptance into the tight-knit communities of BC''s Interior. Ranching meant long hours, hard work, and a lifestyle all its own. Entertainment was home-made. There were rodeos, dances, and music around campfires in the summer and ice hockey, tobogganing, and parties in the winter. Sadly, that way of life is gradually disappearing, but this book relives the way things were between 1964 and 1976; it tells of a unique brand of people from a variety of backgrounds who made this part of the west their home.

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Book SynopsisForty years ago, droves of young women migrated away from urban settings and settled in rural areas across North America. Many settled on the north coast of British Columbia, on Haida Gwaii or around Prince Rupert. GUMBOOT GIRLS tells the stories of thirty-four women, through their own eyes, as they moved from their comfortable city-dwelling surroundings to the rugged north coast. Part back-to-the-land, part adventure, heartbreak and love, this collection of stories edited by Lou Allison and compiled by Jane Wilde was inspired by the book GIRLS LIKE US by Sheila Weller. Wilde, the creator of the collection, encouraged, prodded and cajoled her friends (and some of their friends) to tell the story of a generation of young women who flocked to the north coast of BC in the 1970s.

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Book SynopsisJosephine Caplin (Jo) was born into a world marred by maternal abandonment, alcoholism and traumatic epileptic seizures. In grade three, she was apprehended by child services and separated from her protective brother and her early caregivers, her father and uncle, who were kind men with drinking problems. Placed into many alienating and lonely foster homes, Jo would not see her family again until she was fourteen. Throughout her life Jo fought symptoms of fetal alcohol syndrome, abuse by sadistic men and the collective horror of generations of ancestors forced into residential schools, causing many to believe Jo was destined to repeat a hopeless cycle. Yet she did not surrender to others'' despairing expectations: against all odds, Jo fought to create her own cycle full of hope and growth. Born of a Métis-Canadian background, author Janet Romain delicately and proudly tells the story of her heroic friend and explores the tragic aftermath of Canada''s residential schools and the effects of colonization. Jo is a courageous woman who determined her own fate and reclaimed her life. NOT MY FATE: STORY OF A NISGA''A SURVIVOR is her struggle to move past a legacy of hardship toward a life of peace and forgiveness.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first-ever biography of Elisabeth Gilman, a largely forgotten Marylander born to privilege in the nineteenth century who became an irrepressible force for social justice in the twentieth. As the second daughter of Daniel Coit Gilman, founding president of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Elisabeth was raised in well-to-do, influential circles. Privately educated by tutors, she eventually earned a bachelors degree at Johns Hopkins. But unlike many who shared Elisabeths elevated station, she was possessed of a restless and critical spirit. As a strong devotee of the Social Gospel, she campaigned on behalf of the poor, African- Americans, women, and laborers exposed to harsh conditions. After her fathers death, Elisabeth joined the Socialist Party and was nominated as a candidate for governor of Maryland, United States senator, mayor of Baltimore, and even sheriff of Baltimore. Never married, Elisabeth fell under the spell of a charismatic, progressive Episcopal priest named Mercer Green Johnston, and followed him and his wife to Paris during World War I, where she helped to support homesick American doughboys under the aegis of the YMCA.

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Book SynopsisIranian women have been writing Persian poetry for over a thousand years, and in the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged once again as an outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise.In this expanded bilingual anthology encompassing both the most progressive and the most regressive eras for women in Iran, Mojdeh Bahar introduces readers to the poems of 104 Iranian women during the past sixty years. Focusing mainly on poets writing today, this expanded edition of Song of the Ground Jay engages with a very diverse array of Iranian women''s voices that includes the full spectrum of aesthetic sensibilities-with varying styles, tones, and themes, painting a dynamic and cohesive portrait of modern Persian poetry by women.For anyone who has wanted to try their hand at a conversation with contemporary Persian poetry by Iranian women but doesn''t know where to start, Song of the Ground Jay opens a door and invites you to walk in.

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Book SynopsisShatter the glass ceiling in stilettos. In Tread Loudly, Kristine Cherek shares her experiences as a female professional in a male-dominated culture.

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Book Synopsis*ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF FALL: Esquire, Time, LitHub, The Every Girl, BookPage* “Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction—the kind that forces you to see something ordinary through completely new eyes.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022 So Far “One of the year’s most ingenious and eye-opening cultural studies.” —Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2022Whether we love them or hate them, think they’re sexy, think they’re strange, consider them too big, too small, or anywhere in between, humans have a complicated relationship with butts. It is a body part unique to humans, critical to our evolution and survival, and yet it has come to signify so much more: sex, desire, comedy, shame. A woman’s butt, in particular, is forever being assessed, criticized, and objectified, from anxious self-examinations trying on jeans in department store dressing rooms to enduring crass remarks while walking down a street or high school hallways. But why? In Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out. Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.” She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,” Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised. Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.Trade Review"Engaging, personal. . . . don't be fooled by the cheeky peach emoji." —The New York Times Book Review "Winning, cheeky, and illuminating. . . . What appears initially as a folly with a look-at-this cover and title becomes, thanks to Radke's intelligence and curiosity, something much meatier, entertaining, and wise. . . . Radke is an eager, inventive reporter...[and] an engaging storyteller." —The Washington Post “This crackling cultural history melds scholarship and pop culture to arrive at a comprehensive taxonomy of the female bottom. … Radke leaves no stone unturned… Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction—the kind that forces you to see something ordinary through completely new eyes.” —Esquire, Best Books of 2022 “Deeply reported and wildly entertaining… Radke takes readers through an absorbing cultural history that asks how this human body part came to be on the receiving end of so much attention.” —TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 “It is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read. I could go on and on and on about it. . . . It's astounding to me, the stuff that I learned." —Liberty Hardy, BookRiot's All the Books Podcast “Butts: A Backstory traces a complicated fascination from Empire-era spectacle to MTV. . . A contoured yet amply scaled study.” —Vanity Fair “An ambitious mash-up of pop culture, science, and history, this breakout debut from Radiolab reporter Radke tracks the evolution of attitudes toward women’s butts from the “Hottentot Venus” to Miley Cyrus. Along the way, Radke delves into eugenics, hip-hop aesthetics, the physiology of posteriors, and more. It adds up to one of the year’s most ingenious and eye-opening cultural studies.” —Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2022 “By all rights, this could have been an asinine bathroom book, full of paper-thin factoids and cheeky humor, but Heather Radke has a brain that just won’t quit. A funny and studious storyteller, the Radiolab reporter leads us on an eye-opening journey that starts in Kenya 1.9 million years ago, where 'the first known hominid with a butt' enters the fossil record, and marches through centuries of changing art, fashion, and cultural norms to the modern era where the dreams of Sir Mix-a-Lot are finally being realized. But what is a butt, biologically speaking? And how did it become such a hot-button issue in conversations about race, gender, and class? The butt, as it turns out, occupies a prominent space in the human story even though, as Radke points out, we rarely get a good look at our own.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “Fascinating and frank… [with] top- notch reportage, assured and respectful voice and invitation to butt-centric contemplation… [Radke] guides readers on an impressively well-researched tour of butts throughout history, beginning with a functional analysis (hominids and horses take center stage) and ultimately alighting in the present (twerking, social media and celebrity butts).” —BookPage (starred review) “Radke thoughtfully, and without judgment, addresses the complexities and contradictions that this body part evokes and delves into some surprising topics that may spark further curiosity in readers. Her captivating writing and witty approach to a taboo topic will appeal to a variety of nonfiction readers, particularly those interested in cultural history and gender studies. . . A fun, fascinating, and surprisingly empowering exploration of the history and cultural significance of the butt.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Whip-smart. . . Marked by Radke’s vivacious writing, candid self-reflections, and sophisticated cultural analyses, this is an essential study of ‘ideas and prejudices’ about the female body.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Heather Radke’s social history of female butts promises to be a deeply researched and thoroughly fascinating look (ogle?) at a body part that has long captured the cultural imagination. Radke talks to evolutionary biologists, models, and fitness gurus, and dives into the history of the racist objectification of women like Sarah Baartmann and Josephine Baker in an effort to understand our complex relationship with the butt.” —LitHub “Delving into this history, Radke provides fresh insights into why butts hold such sway over society—and what that says about our relationships to race, class, gender, and power.” —TIME Magazine “How did butts become both sexualized and mythologized? Why do certain body types fall in and out of fashion? Who even makes those decisions? In this cheeky (sorry) nonfiction debut, Radiolab reporter Heather Radke examines society’s obsession with derrieres and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.” —PureWow “Here comes a story on the evolution and sensationalization of, you guessed it, butts! Radke takes a deep dive into the most emphasized human body part, taking a look at its physical evolution in relation to survival, as well as the part it has played in popular culture throughout the years. And you know Sir Mix-a-Lot's name will come up a time or two.” —The Every Girl “Cheeky and entertaining.” —BookRiot “An ingenious cultural study.” —The Globe & Mail (Canada) “As women we have always been asked—been told—to lie about our bodies. Our culture subjects them to laws, myths, race bigotries, class pieties and sexual anxieties. With Butts: A Backstory, journalist and critic Heather Radke takes up these lies and takes them apart. The result is a bold and exuberant leap for womankind.” —Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of Negroland and Constructing a Nervous System “Heather Radke’s Butts: A Backstory is rigorous, generous, and utterly compelling. The range of its research is thrillingly expansive—from the deep origins of twerk to the sleek silhouettes of Coco Chanel, from the 'mono-bum' of the Victorian bustle to the brilliant subversions of drag—allowing Radke a range of fascinating vantage points from which to explore the histories our bodies hold. With humor, intelligence, outrage, and compassion, Radke excavates the social and historical forces that haunt our most ordinary moments. This fiercely intelligent, frequently witty 'backstory' is a journey through centuries of history that will transform how you think about the butt, and—quite possibly—how you consider the value of exploring those parts of ourselves we don’t take seriously enough.” —Leslie Jamison, bestselling author of Make It Scream Make It Burn and The Empathy Exams “From the first, I have been delighted and deeply informed by Heather Radke's writing. She has a mind like no other. This book contributes not only a great deal to the complicated discussion around women's bodies, it illuminates what unites us all: being human.” —Hilton Als, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of White Girls “Juicy and scholarly, Butts is a heck of a ride. At turns troubling, wild, painful, surprising and flat-out fun, Radke’s reporting unearths a set of largely overlooked historical figures with outsized effects on cultural evolutions, from the discovery of the first hominid butt, to the creation of the frightening statues Norm and Norma, to the gruesome tale behind the bustle, these gripping stories work together to elucidate the crushing web of cultural, commercial, and pseudoscientific forces shaping our very private senses of discomfort, envy, and belonging. Her book is teeming with rebels—drag queens and fat activists and twerkers—who flip supremacy the bird and offer another path through. Don’t let the cute cover fool you, inside is a serious feat of reporting and scholarship.” —Lulu Miller, bestselling author of Why Fish Don't Exist “A deeply thought, rigorously researched, and riveting history of human butts — Radke knows exactly when to approach her subject with levity and when with gravity. A pitch perfect debut.” —Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Girlhood and Body Work “Heather Radke takes a subject so familiar as to be practically invisible and trains a sharp reportorial eye on it, touring the reader through the centuries of cultural history that shape our feelings about what's filling out our jeans. She has amassed a trove of surprising and fascinating case studies, from bustles and the 'Hottentot Venus' to flappers, fit models, and Sir Mixalot. Butts is everything you want a piece of reportage to be: smart, creative, searching, deeply researched, political, and fun.” —Jordan Kisner, author of Thin Places

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Book SynopsisIn 2007, at the age of sixty, Betsy Warland finds herself single and without a sense of family. On an impulse, she decides to travel to London to celebrate her birthday, where she experiences an odd compulsion to see an exhibit on the invention of military camouflage. Within the first five minutes of her visit, her lifelong feeling of being aberrant reveals its source: she had never learned the art of camouflage. This marked the beginning of this book. Taking the name Oscar, she embarks on an intimate, nine-year quest by telling her story as a person of between. As Oscar, she is able to make sense of her self and the culture that shaped her. She traces this experience of in-betweenness from her childhood in the rural Midwest, through to her first queer kiss in 1978, divorce, coming out, writing life. In 1984, she and her lover wrote lesbian erotic love poetry collections in dialogue with one another, the first and only tandem collections on this subject in English Canada. After the two split, she experienced years of unacknowledged exclusion from a community in which she thought she belonged. In the process of writing Oscar''s story, Warland considers our culture''s rigid, even violent demarcations as she becomes at ease with never knowing what gender she will be addressed as: In Oscar''s daily life, when encountering someone, it goes like this: some address her as a male; some address her as a female; some begin with one and then switch (sometimes apologetically) to the other; some identify Oscar as lesbian and their faces harden, or open into a momentary glance of arousal; some know they don''t know and openly scrutinise; some decide female but stare perplexedly at her now-sans-breast chest; some are bemused by or drawn to or relate to her androgyny; and for some none of this matters. A contemporary Orlando, this book extends beyond the author''s personal narrative, pushing the boundaries of form, and by doing so, invents new ways to see ourselves.

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Book SynopsisThis mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghettis unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica learns the intimacy of the dinner table and the ritual of meals, along with the requirements of conformity both at the table and in life. Monica is thirteen when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes a mastectomy. When her mother dies three years later, Monica considers the existence of her own breasts and her emerging sexuality in the context of grief and the disintegration of her sense of family. As Monica becomes an adult, she discovers a part of her self that rebels against the rigours of her traditional upbringing. And as the layers of her sexuality are revealed she begins to understand that like herbs infusing a sauce with flavour, her differences add a delicious complexity to her life. But in coming to terms with her place in the margins of the margins, Monica must also face the challenge of coming out while living in a small town, years before same-sex marriage and amendments to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms created safer spaces for queers. Through risk, courage, and heartbreak, she ultimately redefines and recreates family and identity according to her own alternative vision.

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Book SynopsisThis book celebrates the history and evolution of Canadian literature and feminism with some of the most exciting and thought-provoking fiction, poetry, and essays the magazine has published since it was founded in 1975 as ROOM OF ONE''S OWN. This collection includes poems about men not to be fallen in love with, trans womanhood, the morning-after pill, the mind fuck of being raped by a romantic partner, and a tribute to the women who were murdered in the Montreal Massacre. In one story, a group of sexual assault survivors meet weekly and come up with an unique way to help police capture their assailant, while in another a dinner party turns to witty talk of racism, sexism, pornography, and time travel. One author recounts how she learned multiple languages in order to connect with her father, another reluctantly walks down the aisle in order to stay in Canada with the man she loves. For forty years, ROOM has created a space for diverse voices. As Amber Dawn says in her opening essay, There is Room. We do fit. Contributors include Carol Shields, Audrey Thomas, Marian Engel, M. NourbeSe Philip, Carmen Aguirre, Eden Robinson, Daphne Marlatt, Dorothy Livesay, Ayelet Tsabari, Ivan Coyote, Tracey Lindberg, Sina Queyras, Evelyn Lau, Jen Sookfong Lee, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, and more. With forewords by Eleanor Wachtel and Amber Dawn, interviews with four former ROOM editors, and an afterword by ROOM''s current publisher and managing editor.

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Book SynopsisThe German word zugunruhe translates as the stirring before moving. Its used to describe birds and herds of animals, like wildebeests, before the great migration. Though Jules Torti is neither German nor a wildebeest, she understands this marrow-deep anxiousness all too well; she is just someone looking for a home. This book is evidence of Tortis life-long commitment to feeling at home where it mattered most: within herself. At eighteen, with one thousand dollars in her bank account, she moved to the West Coast from Ontario to find her people. She headed specifically to Davie Street -- that is where all the gays were! Finding a girlfriend proved to be elusive, but she learned a lot of Pet Shop Boys lyrics and studied everything by Jane Rule and Chrystos for guidance. Torti continued searching. Whether prepping chimpanzees breakfast in the Congo, searching for her own breakfast in the dumpsters of Vancouvers back alleys or seeking a permanent address in Ontarios unforgiving real estate market -- with many other worldly adventures in between -- Torti found that homesickness took up its own residence in her identity. While she longed for a home of bricks and mortar (or log or stone), she knew her greatest sense of home was to be found in a person, the missing her. For many, the path to home is never linear. If Torti began her memoir in Amsterdam, you might not follow. If she began in Uganda, you might get it. If she started with her time spent in the soggy Costa Rican jungle, you would have a better understanding. But, if she scrolled back to her tomboy self at age six, then you would see. Logically, this is where she begins her memoir of emotional geography: on an unpaved countryside road in Southwestern Ontario, among the corn and tobacco-fringed fields of Mount Pleasant, where she grew up. At turns poignant, hilarious and uncannily familiar, Free to a Good Home explores what it means to call a place home when life oddly mirrors a choose-your-own-adventure storybook.

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Book SynopsisAfter the extraordinary success of Gumboot Girls comes the sequel anthology, Dancing in Gumboots. Having relocated to Comox, Jane encountered a new group of women who travelled to the Comox Valley in the 1970s. Fascinated by their stories, Lou Allison and Jane Wilde return to their dynamic partnership to bring us an anthology that shines a light on these trailblazing women and their unique stories. The 1970s was a time of intense cultural shifts for women all over North America. Freedom from traditional gender roles and expectations encouraged widespread relocation of young women seeking adventure and meaning, often migrating from urban to rural locations. The agricultural area of the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island offered a unique opportunity to these young women. Dancing in Gumboots collects the stories of thirty-two women who traveled from around North America to Vancouver Island, eventually settling in and around the Comox Valley. The young women who chose the agricultural Vancouver Island area to make their homes, showcase the personal challenges and struggles arising from such radical change.

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Book SynopsisBody & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers is a spiritual journey through experiences that can be liberating but also awkward and sometimes even dangerous, because women are so often excluded from conversations about spirituality. Liberation comes with breaking that age-old code of silence to talk about the messiness of faith, practice, religion and ceremony, to confess our sublimely unconventional modes of spiritual yearning. The writers in this volume, including Sharon Bala, Carleigh Baker, Eufemia Fantetti, Sue Goyette, K.D. Miller, Zarqa Nawaz, Alison Pick, Sigal Samuel, Ayelet Tsabari, Betsy Warland and others, many from marginalized or misunderstood communities, are speaking out so that others will speak up. Enough of fear. Enough of hiding out, tongue-tied. Its time for joy, humanity and frankness. Its time to step up and leadnot by running after answers, but by asking caring, daring questions. Its time for body and soul.

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Book SynopsisOwning Land, Being Women enquires into the processes that establish inheritance as a unique form of property relation in law and society. It focuses on India, examining the legislative processes that led to the 2005 amendment of the Hindu Succession Act 1956, along with several interconnected welfare policies. Scholars have understood these Acts as a response to growing concerns about women’s property rights in developing countries. In re-reading these Acts and exploring the wider nexus of Indian society in which the legislation was drafted, this study considers how questions of family structure and property rights contribute to the creation of legal subjects and demonstrates the significance of the politico-economic context of rights formulation. On the basis of an ethnography of a village in West Bengal, this book brings the moral axis of inheritance into sharp focus, elucidating the interwoven dynamics of bequest, distribution of family wealth and reciprocity of care work that are integral to the logic of inheritance. It explains why inheritance rights based on the notion of individual property rights are inadequate to account for practices of inheritance. Mondal shows that inheritance includes normative structures of affective attachment and expectations, i.e., evaluatively-charged imaginaries of the future that coordinate present practices. These insights pose questions of the dominant resource-based conceptualisation of inherited property in the debate on women’s empowerment. In doing so, this work opens up a line of investigation that brings feminist rights discourse into conversation with ethics, enriching the liberal theory of gender justice.

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Book SynopsisIn the late 1960s, the feminist scholar Kate Millet broadly defined "politics" as arrangements of power which enable individuals collectively to assert authority over others. Taking this definition, case studies by scholars from Europe, Israel and the United States explore the gendered professional in the 20th century as she navigated arrangements of power including organised religion, emancipation movements, cultural norms and shifting forms of government to practice architecture. Additional contributions reflect upon power structures in contemporary architectural education, practice and history to propose other means of architectural knowledge, representation and professional activity.

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Book SynopsisAmnesty International's (AI) focus on civil and political rights has marked their work with a gender bias from the outset. In the first comprehensive look at AI's work on women's rights, Miriam Ganzfried illustrates the development of their activities regarding women's rights issues over twenty years. Through interviews with staff members and activists and unprecedented access to archive material from the Swiss and the German AI sections, she shows how women activists strategized to make AI increase its work on women's rights. Additionally, the book demonstrates that, despite the leadership's commitment to the Stop Violence Against Women campaign, internal resistance hampered the integration of women's rights into the organization's overall work.Trade Review"The book is a humbling reminder of how difficult it has been to arrive at an agreement that women's rights are human rights. It will no doubt serve as a key reference for tracking progress on the integration of women's rights within AI and in human rights discourse more broadly in the years to come." Elisabeth Prügl, Swiss Political Science Association, 25.01.2022

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Book SynopsisFeminist organizing and theorizing from the Americas have provided some of the most innovative, visible, and all-encompassing spaces of resistance against sexism and sexualised violence, misogyny, racism, homo- and transphobia, coloniality, extractivism, climate change, and neoliberal capitalist exploitation. Current feminist movements address different axes of oppression and thereby represent, practice, and theorize a truly "intersectional" politics. The contributors bring together a wide variety of perspectives, ranging from Black and decolonial feminist voices, LGBTQI/queer perspectives to ecofeminist approaches and indigenous women's mobilizations to inspire future feminist practices and inform social and cohabitation projects.

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Book SynopsisThis engaging and insightful book is the first historical study in English portraying the lives and fates of Czech women. The seven life stories, ranging from the late 19th century to the present day, expose the often cruel political history of Bohemia (19th century), the Czech lands in Czechoslovakia (20th century), and the Czech Republic (20th-21st century) through the eyes of prominent women whose acts and deeds on behalf of their fellow citizens remain unforgotten in the Czech collective mind. The three chapters and four oral history interviews offer a captivating insight into how the situation of Czech women in society has changed during a most eventful period of history. This book has been preceded by a first volume on Slovak women (ISBN 9783838206387) whose lives have been of the same singular importance for Slovakia as their Czech counterparts were for their country. The two volumes are separate entities in their own right, but together provide the reader with a comprehensive picture of women's lives in the Czech lands and Slovakia, stressing the distinct political circumstances Czech and Slovak women have faced in recent history.

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Book SynopsisThis is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan. Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance. A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.Trade Review"Memory is Our Home is an important book for many reasons, not the least of which is that our Holocaust survivors, older and more fragile as the years go by, soon will no longer be with us. As one historian starkly reminds us, the twenty-year old who survived Auschwitz is now nearly ninety. This means that for us Jews specifically and for humanity in general, we are about to lose our eye-witnesses, something that could reduce the memory of the Holocaust to the back pages of history. That's why Suzanna Eibuszyc's efforts at not only recounting her mother's story but her determination to share it with the world are so vitally important. In the vast library of Holocaust literature, several books hold our attention and Memory is Our Home is one of them. Ms. Eibuszyc tells her mother's story with words that touch our hearts and create an indelible album of what happened to one family and how Nazi horrors shaped their lives. As our survivors pass on, Memory is Our Home will live in our hearts, reviving the spirit of those who suffered so while superbly maintaining Holocaust literature in the place of prominence it deserves". -- Rabbi Barbara Aiello, Serrastretta, Calabria, Italy"This is an important autobiography, the kind one seldom finds nowadays. It is a rare intellectual treat how Roma eloquently intertwines her personal and family history with the prevailing general, socio-political conditions and popular workers` movements of the Jews in Poland. We learn in minute details, without them becoming dull or boring, what life was like for her poor working-class family with a widowed, single mother who together with one son became the main breadwinners. Her descriptions are so vivid that one can actually touch the poverty and feel her immense loss when her mother dies-twice. Roma Talaszowic-Ejbuszyc has written a most compelling and illuminating memoir. In her straightforward style, she encompasses life in its totality. It is highly recommended." -- Judy Weissenberg Cohen, editor of Women and the holocaust"This Memoir fascinates from the early paragraphs. Rarely has a book been written that pencils so bleak a portrait of the Poland that had been cloaked in the secrecy of life under Germany`s iron fist. Even for those who lived those years in the rest of occupied Europe it presents an unfamiliar, stark black and white vision of hell." -- Rudy Rosenberg, author of "And Somehow We Survive""This book is such a tremendous accomplishment. The small details of Eibuszyc's mother s survival constantly amazed me. Powerful in its simplicity, the pages are all about the smallest things-the details about finding shelter, surviving cold and hunger, and how much a person can take. The importance of not forgetting, or ensuring that the Jewish legacy survives, that the Jewish culture and contribution to Poland are not erased." -- Marcy Dermansky, Author of the "Bad Marie""SUZANNA EIBUSZYES BOOK IS A DEEPLY MOVING AND POIGNANT memoir written by a daughter based on her mothers diaries. The book is an example of life writing at its finest. It situates the horrificexperiences of a family in the broader historical context and recovers the continuity of a biographical narrative of the family and community, ensuring that the memories of the unspeakably tragic past are not forgotten...Memory is Our Home underscores the importance of remembering and giving voice to victims in order to restore their dignity by validating their memories. The book powerfully conveys the need and responsibility to preserve ones identity and heritage and to tell the story of a once-vibrant cultural life destroyed in the course of the Holocaust. Equally important, it also calls upon readers to keep the memory of past atrocities alive as a way of preventing future injustices." - Tanya Narozhna, University of Winnipeg, Europe-Asia Studies 69/7

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Book SynopsisSurrogate motherhood is expanding all over the world. Debates rage over how public policy should consider the signing away of the parental rights of birth mothers in favor of a 'commissioning' couple or an individual. In this book, Daniela Danna describes the situation in English-speaking countries and worldwide, from California to Greece, presenting the legal alternatives regulating (or not) these peculiar exchanges. Should surrogacy remain a private agreement? Should it be treated as an enforceable contract? Are surrogate mothers workers? What happens inside the countries that have chosen different ways of handling this new and controversial matter? And, the most important question of all: How can we live in this era of new techno-medical possibilities and try to stay human? Can we resist commodification in the field of human relations concerning procreation? Contract Children discusses the different ways available to obtain a child through surrogate motherhood. It is fundamental reading for anyone wanting to be involved in the surrogacy process. It gives prospective surrogate mothers and infertile couples the background information necessary for their own informed decision. It is also an essential instrument for policy makers and activists in the field of women's rights, social justice, and children's rights. The question of how to publicly deal with surrogate motherhood touches upon our social vision of motherhood, ultimately marking the position of women in contemporary society.Trade Review"Reading this book is like climbing to the top of a mountain and surveying the landscape beneath. It clearly outlines the difficult and interconnected debates surrounding surrogacy." --Stefania Doglioli, President of the Centro Studi sul Pensiero Femminile and of the Associazione XXD"Intelligent, compelling and highly readable, Contract Children challenges us to rethink the meanings of motherhood, care, and markets before making judgments about the ethics of surrogacy. This is a powerful and original contribution to debates on surrogate motherhood." -- Julia O'Connell Davidson, Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham"Daniela Danna has given us a truly global and rich analysis of what is called 'surrogacy', and what she more accurately calls 'contract children'. She traces the practice of selling 'gestational services' or 'renting wombs' from its creation in the United States in the 1970's to its growth as a global industry, showing us the varied legal and social meanings around the world of turning pregnancy into paid labor - and often very poorly paid labor indeed. What would it mean to value, as she argues we should value, pregnancy and motherhood as the basic social tie, the relationship within which all human life begins?" -- Barbara Katz Rothman, Professor of Sociology at CUNY

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Book SynopsisSurrogate motherhood is expanding all over the world. Debates rage over how public policy should consider the signing away of the parental rights of birth mothers in favor of a 'commissioning' couple or an individual. In this book, Daniela Danna describes the situation in English-speaking countries and worldwide, from California to Greece, presenting the legal alternatives regulating (or not) these peculiar exchanges. Should surrogacy remain a private agreement? Should it be treated as an enforceable contract? Are surrogate mothers workers? What happens inside the countries that have chosen different ways of handling this new and controversial matter? And, the most important question of all: How can we live in this era of new techno-medical possibilities and try to stay human? Can we resist commodification in the field of human relations concerning procreation? Contract Children discusses the different ways available to obtain a child through surrogate motherhood. It is fundamental reading for anyone wanting to be involved in the surrogacy process. It gives prospective surrogate mothers and infertile couples the background information necessary for their own informed decision. It is also an essential instrument for policy makers and activists in the field of women's rights, social justice, and children's rights. The question of how to publicly deal with surrogate motherhood touches upon our social vision of motherhood, ultimately marking the position of women in contemporary society.Trade Review"Reading this book is like climbing to the top of a mountain and surveying the landscape beneath. It clearly outlines the difficult and interconnected debates surrounding surrogacy." -- Stefania Doglioli, President of the Centro Studi sul Pensiero Femminile and of the Associazione XXD"Intelligent, compelling and highly readable, Contract Children challenges us to rethink the meanings of motherhood, care, and markets before making judgments about the ethics of surrogacy. This is a powerful and original contribution to debates on surrogate motherhood." -- Julia O'Connell Davidson, Professor of Sociology, University of NottinghamTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Familial Constellations2. From Conception to the Baby3. Baby and the Law4. Mothers and OthersConclusion: Ethical SurrogacyReferences

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Book SynopsisThe special issue offers an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the questions of agency of less mainstream groups in protest movements in patriarchal and authoritarian societies. The themes covered include the place of feminist and gender equality movements in democratically restricted environments, intersections between feminism and nationalism and citizenship, possibilities of right-wing feminism and pop-feminism, the role of gender in high politics and the relationship between nationality and sexuality in the context of protest movements. The journal features contributions by scholars, human rights and gender equality activists, and journalists, and facilitates a constructive and wide-ranging discussion of the recent and ongoing protest movements in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.Trade ReviewThe real strength of Gender, Nationalism, and Citizenship in Anti-Authoritarian Protests in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine...remains the sincere and ultimately academic handling of topics too often overlooked in Slavic Studies. -- Jeanine Pfahlert, Oakland Community College * Slavic and East European Journal, 61.2 *Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Olesya Khromeychuk Articles Negotiating Protest Spaces on the Maidan: A Gender Perspective, by Olesya Khromeychuk Sexuality and Revolution in Post-Soviet Ukraine: Human Rights for the LGBT Community in the Euromaidan Protests of 2013-2014, by Tamara Martsenyuk Ethical Concerns in Activist Ethnography: The Case of Ukrainian Protest Activism in London and a Russian Female Researcher, by Darya Malyutina Between Being Witty and Being Pretty: Paradoxes of Female Political Participation in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe, by Evgenia Ivanova "I'm a Feminist, Therefore...:" The Art of Gender and Sexual Dissent in 2010s Ukraine and Russia, by Olenka Dmytryk Perspectives & Reflections Feminist Art in Russia in 2014-15: The Problem of the "Turn to the Right", by Nadia Plungian "Wait a Minute, You're a Woman!" Interview with Maria Berlins'ka, by Olesya Khromeychuk Review Article: East Europe's Women in World War II, by Iryna Kosovs'ka Reviews Francesca Stella, Lesbian Lives in Soviet and Post?Soviet Russia: Post/Socialism and Gendered Sexualities, by Cai Wilkinson Jenny Kaminer, Women with a Thirst for Destruction: The Bad Mother in Russian Culture, by Katherine Bowers Stephen Amico, Roll Over, Tchaikovsky! Russian Popular Music and Post?Soviet Homosexuality, by Catherine Baker Irina Mukhina, Women and the Birth of Russian Capitalism: A History of Shuttle Trade, by Laura A. Dean Marian J. Rubchak (ed.), New Imaginaries: Youthful Reinvention of Ukraine's Cultural Paradigm, by Dafna Rachok Russell Scott Valentino, The Woman in the Window: Commerce, Consensual Fantasy, and the Quest for Masculine Virtue in the Russian Novel, by Connor Doak Valerie Sperling, Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia, by Rustam Gadzhiev Jennifer Utrata, Women without Men: Single Mothers and Family Change in the New Russia, by Anna Shadrina Steven Lee Myers, The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, by Anders Aslund Thomas W Simons, Jr (ed.), Islam in Eurasia: A Policy Volume, by Shahram Akbarzadeh Ieva Astahovska et al (eds.), Revisiting Footnotes: Footprints of the Recent Past in the Post-Socialist Region, by Ulrike Gerhardt About the Contributors

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Book SynopsisThis study investigates how Janet Frame weaves together literary sources from her extensive reading to create a web of intertextual relationships. Patricia Neville traces Frames passion for books beginning with her childhood and earliest published work in the Otago Daily Times. Drawing on new research and through close readings of Frames novels, she discusses the effects of Frames borrowings from the Bible and Shakespeare and from writing from New Zealand, Britain, France, and the USA. A fascinating read not only for scholars, but for all admirers of Janet Frames fiction.

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Book Synopsis"Memory is Our Home" is a powerful biographical memoir based on the diaries of Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc, who was born in Warsaw before the end of World War I, grew up during the interwar period and who, after escaping the atrocities of World War II, was able to survive in the vast territories of Soviet Russia and Uzbekistan. Translated by her own daughter, interweaving her own recollections as her family made a new life in the shadows of the Holocaust in Communist Poland after the war and into the late 1960s, this book is a rich, living document, a riveting account of a vibrant young woman's courage and endurance. A forty-year recollection of love and loss, of hopes and dreams for a better world, it provides richly-textured accounts of the physical and emotional lives of Jews in Warsaw and of survival during World War II throughout Russia. This book, narrated in a compelling, unique voice through two generations, is the proverbial candle needed to keep memory alive.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisComprises articles that examine the contribution of women saints from India and abroad. This title discusses the origin of Bhakti according to the author. It is of interest to literary, cultural, religious, and philosophic scholars.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisContains chapters, which cater to the academic needs of scholars having interest on gender issues in India.

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Book SynopsisContributed literary pieces by women authors from the India and developed nations.

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