Search results for ""Seal Press""

Words matter. They wound, they inflate, they define, they demean. They have nuance and power. "Effortless," "Sassy," "Ambitious," "Aggressive": What subtle digs and sneaky implications are conveyed when women are described with words like these? Words are made into weapons, warnings, praise and blame, bearing an outsize influence on women's lives-to say nothing of our moods.No one knows this better than Lizzie Skurnick, writer of the New York Times' column "That Should be A Word" and a veritable queen of cultural coinage. And in Pretty Bitches, Skurnick has rounded up a group of powerhouse women writers to take on the hidden meanings of these words and how they can limit our worlds - or liberate them. From Laura Lipmann and Meg Wolizer to Jennifer Weiner and Rebecca Traister, each writer uses her word as a vehicle for memoir, cultural commentary, critique, or all three. Spanning the street, the bedroom, the voting booth and the workplace, these simple words have huge stories behind them - stories it's time to examine, re-imagine and change.

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The Secret for a new generation, Imagination Transforms Everything helps readers to harness the transformative power of our imaginations. Using a voice-driven personal narrative, scientific research, and practical exercises, debut author Andrea Kasprzak introduces the concept of "intentionally imagining," which entails taking time to disconnect and daydream, using journaling to track those daydreams, and turning them into intentions to fulfill our goals. The author draws on her own experiences, the law of attraction theory, and intention research to give practical steps for stopping limiting self-talk, unfulfilling narratives, and the endless digital cycle sucking up our attention. Ultimately, "intentional imagining" promises to result in greater clarity about who we are and what we want, so that we can act in ways that align with that clarity.

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After filing a story for a journalism assignment only two days after giving birth, Amy Westervelt had a revelation: we treat mothers like crap in this country. From inadequate maternity leave to gender-based double standards, emotional labor to the wage gap, Westervelt became determined to understand how we got here--where "having it all" is the fabled, hollow, unreachable goal. In Forget "Having It All," Westervelt traces the roots of our modern problems back to the founding of our nation and through the changing roles of men and women since. What she discovers may be surprising: the roles of mothers have flip-flopped throughout our history (for example, leading up to the Industrial Revolution, many men were home while women worked). Using this historical backdrop, Westervelt draws out what we should replicate from our past (the origin of Mother's Day, for example, was a dedicated day for mothers to organize just as laborers had done--to take stock of their place in society and push for more), and what we must begin anew (such as incorporating working fathers into our discussions about work-life balance) as we overhaul American motherhood. Ultimately, Westervelt presents a measured, historically-backed call for workplace policies, cultural norms, and personal attitudes about motherhood that will radically improve the lives of not just working moms but everyone in our country.

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An empowerment manifesto for creatives, misfits, innovators, and disruptors from the star of So You Think You Can Dance and creator of Broadway's Finding NeverlandA Unicorn in a World of Donkeys offers a playbook for living a creative and authentic life. Using her own story as a launching spot, and creative quizzes, charts, and lists to engage the reader in an interactive journey, Mia Michaels explores the experience of the unicorn in a world of donkeys, a world where fitting in, pleasing others, following rules, and maintaining norms-no matter how messed up those norms are-is the only acceptable path. She acknowledges the struggles of the unicorn life-loneliness, ridicule, being misunderstood and undervalued-and goes on encourage readers to reframe the unicorn life the way she has, as essential to a life of brilliance.

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The greatest creators in human history--from Mozart to Meryl Streep, Jackson Pollock to Jay-Z--don't just have talent--they also understand their motivations for pursuing art. What's Your Creative Type? helps artists do the same in a fun and witty way. Stepping away from the hyper-focus on how people create, What's Your Creative Type? instead explores why. By identifying your creative motivation type, you'll be able to find renewed energy, overcome creative blocks, and release the artist within.Drawing from creativity theory and personality typology, each chapter of the book is devoted to a creative type, from the A-Lister seeking recognition to the Activist who wants to change the world. What's Your Creative Type? is peppered with pop-culture studies of famous artists and illustrates each type with entertaining examples from legendary figures.Whether you're a seasoned artist or writer in search of inspiration or simply looking to explore your budding creative talents and motivations, What's Your Creative Type? has fresh and reliable advice and insight for you.

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Parents will do just about anything to give their kids happy lives and successful futures. Unfortunately, the drive to give kids the best of everything leads to a financial strategy based in fear and competition, and results in millions of dollars worth of unnecessary purchases. Enough is enough.In Not Buying It, Brett Graff, the Home Economist," separates the truth about what parents need for their kids to succeed from the fiction perpetuated by ads, peer pressure, and internal fear. Graff shows how parents can save up to a million dollars by investing the money they would otherwise spend on overpriced and unnecessary purchases for their kids. Graff exposes the many ways that overspending can actually harm kids by encouraging narcissism and unhealthy habits. Her tips range from the everyday (understand when supposedly "organic" products aren't worth the extra dollars) to the long-term (consider investing in a smaller home for your family, which encourages intimacy and connection), making this a valuable manual for all stages of a parent's life.An essential book for new parents as well as parenting veterans, Not Buying It is the definitive guide for families who want to separate the truth about raising kids from the hype.

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Eating healthy can be a struggle. It's hard to choose broccoli and brown rice instead of hot, cheesy pizza. And diets often ask you to cut out different foods all at once, leaving you feeling deprived.In The 3-Day Reset , Pooja Mottl outlines 10 simple ways you can change your cravings and start eating whole, healthy, delicious foods,three days at a time. Each reset takes only 72 hours to complete, which means you'll be able to stay focused on healthy eating from start to finish.Resets include: sugar, wheat, salt, chocolate, yogurt, chicken, beverages, breakfast, salad, and takeout.Packed with delicious recipes and nutritional information to support why you should eat whole foods like quinoa instead of processed, frozen, or packaged foods, The 3-Day Reset will set you on the path to healthy eating, and help you stay there for good.

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Whether or not we like to admit it, pop culture is a lens through which we alternately view and shape the world around us. When it comes to feminism, pop culture aids us in translating feminist philosophies, issues, and concepts into everyday language, making them relevant and relatable. In Feminism and Pop Culture, author and cofounder of Bitch magazine Andi Zeisler traces the impact of feminism on pop culture (and vice versa) from the 1940s to the present and beyond. With a comprehensive overview of the intertwining relationship between women and pop culture, this book is an ideal introduction to discussing feminism and daily life.

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Are single women happy individualists? Neurotic man-hunters? Crazed cat ladies? Are they confused, or content? Bitter, or better off? No one seems to know. The popular media gives us shoe shopaholics, ditzy desperados, wannabe brides forever making cow eyes at The Bachelor. But what do single women have to say about their own lives?With sass, humour, and style, Single State of the Union paints a provocative, playful, and complex portrait of today's single woman, taking on such topics as:o sex and the single girlo single motherhoodo buying a house without a spouseo faux boyfriendso cohabitation hesitationo single women in the mediaWritten by an impressive roster of single (and some formerly single) women, this collection portrays single women as individuals whose lives extend well beyond Match.com and Manolo Blahniks. So listen up, Carrie. Attention, Bridget. It's time for the rest of us to be heard.

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In this ground-breaking anthology, Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender ask real moms , from Web site designers to tattoo-clad waitresses , to laugh, cry, scream, and shout about motherhood. Allison Crews fights to have a voice and be recognized as a teen mother. Angela Morrill eschews both doctors and midwife and gives birth at home. Kimberly Bright draws compelling comparisons between raising a toddler and having a psychotic boyfriend." For every young mom, Breeder offers inspiration, strength, wisdom, and humour. Contributors include Allison Crews, Beth Lucht, Ayun Halliday, Katie Granju, Peri Escarda, Allison Abner, and Kimberly Bright.

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In the last decade, studies have reported a drastic rise in teens who experience anxiety, panic, and an inability to cope with the pressures of daily life. As mental health challenges become less stigmatized, young people are more likely than ever before to know how to identify their feelings and ask for help. Even celebrity teen icons like Selena Gomez are "coming out" as anxiety sufferers.Zen Teen addresses this epidemic with powerful coping mechanisms and creative tools-including two fun quizzes, tons of engaging exercises and a cool playlist-designed for the teenage mind. With topics like "The Unique Genius of You" and "Rock-Star Rituals," Tanya Carroll Richardson prompts teens to get calm by engaging in mindful tasks, like identifying gurus, tapping into warrior energy, mastering meditation, practicing realistic optimism, becoming a self-awareness samurai, learning to surrender, discovering personal dharma, finding a spirit animal, expressing challenging emotions, living loving-kindness, protecting the planet, and making vision boards that embrace "the Tao of Cool."Smart and fresh, Zen Teen helps teens thrive while navigating and managing the pressures of everyday life.

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For many of us, a good, heart-pounding mystery is the perfect escape from real-world confusion and chaos. But what about the writers who create those stories of suspense and intrigue? How do our favorite novelists cope with our perplexing world, and what mysteries keep them up at night? In Private Investigations, twenty fan-favorite mystery writers share their first-person stories of grappling with mysteries they've personally encountered, at home and in the world. Caroline Leavitt regales us with a medical mystery, a time when she lost her voice and doctors couldn't find a cure; Martin Limon travels back to his military stint in Korea to grapple with the chaos of war; Anne Perry ponders the magical powers of stories conjured from writers' imaginations, and more.Exploring all the tropes of the genre--from haunted houses to elusive perpetrators, from respecting the legacy of victims of violence to regrouping after missed signals have derailed their lives--these writers' true tales show just how much art imitates life, and how, ultimately, we are all private investigators in the our own real-life dramas.

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As our newsfeeds become more and more glutted by stories of harassment and assault, it's no surprise women are turning to every power in their arsenal to fight back--even the magical ones. As Lindy West put it in her New York Times op-ed, "Yes, this is a witch hunt. I'm a witch, and I'm hunting you."Hexing the Patriarchy: Magical Resistance from A to Z is a book for women for women who want to join the resistance. Upbeat and inviting, without making light of anyone's oppression or spirituality, it offers fed-up women a primer of enchantment in the form of 26 spells for undermining modern-day oppression, all gathered from authentic witches from various magical traditions. Readers will learn how to . . . make salt scrubs to "wash away patriarchal bullshit" place spells on misogynist leadershipmix potions to boost their strength against harassment . . . and more. Individually and cumulatively, the spells are designed to topple the patriarchy with a dangerous, they-never-saw-it-coming power.

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While many feminist and queer movements are designed to challenge sexism, they often simultaneously police gender and sexuality,sometimes just as fiercely as the straight, male-centric mainstream does. Among LGBTQ activists, there is a long history of lesbians and gay men dismissing bisexuals, transgender people, and other gender and sexual minorities. In each case, exclusion is based on the premise that certain ways of being gendered or sexual are more legitimate, natural, or righteous than others.As a trans woman, bisexual, and femme activist, Julia Serano has spent much of the last ten years challenging various forms of exclusion within feminist and queer/LGBTQ movements. In Excluded, she chronicles many of these instances of exclusion and argues that marginalizing others often stems from a handful of assumptions that are routinely made about gender and sexuality. These false assumptions infect theories, activism, organizations, and communities,and worse, they enable people to vigorously protest certain forms of sexism while simultaneously ignoring and even perpetuating others. Serano advocates for a new approach to fighting sexism that avoids these pitfalls and offers new ways of thinking about gender, sexuality, and sexism that foster inclusivity rather than exclusivity.

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After surviving nearly a decade of heroin abuse and hard living on the streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin District, Tracey Helton Mitchell decided to get clean for good.With raw honesty and a poignant perspective on life that only comes from starting at rock bottom, Tracey tells her story of transformation from homeless heroin addict to stable mother of three-and the hard work and hard lessons that got her there. Rather than dwelling on the pain of addiction, The Big Fix focuses on her journey of recovery and rebuilding her life, while exposing the failings of the American rehab system and laying out a path for change. Starting with the first step in her recovery, Tracey re-learns how to interact with men, build new friendships, handle money, and rekindle her relationship with her mother, all while staying sober, sharp, and dedicated to her future.A decidedly female story of addiction, The Big Fix describes the unique challenges faced by women caught in the grip of substance abuse, such as the toxic connection between drug addition and prostitution. Tracey's story of hope, hard work, and rehabilitation will inspire anyone who has been affected by substance abuse while offering hope for a better future.

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How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t is a straight-shooting approach to self-improvement for women, one that offers no-crap truth-telling about the most common self-destructive behaviors women tend to engage in. From listening to the imposter complex and bitchy inner critic to catastrophizing and people-pleasing, Andrea Owen--a nationally sought-after life coach--crystallizes what's behind these invisible, undermining habits. With each chapter, she kicks women's gears out of autopilot and empowers them to create happier, more fulfilling lives. Powerfully on-the-mark, the chapters are short and digestible, nicely bypassing weighty examinations in favor of punch-points of awareness.

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Sometimes your foundation crumbles. Sometimes you realize there wasn't a foundation to begin with. Maybe your relationship ended in a breakup or divorce, or you lost your job, or a loved one died. Whatever crisis showed up to screw with you, it brought everything else crashing down, and suddenly life became confusing, disorienting, out of control. A total shit show. You. Need. Help.Therein lies the problem: Traditional self-help guides just aren't for you. You're an individualist, an iconoclast, a follow-your-own-drumbeat kind of person. The typical sunshine-and-rainbows, 'live your best life!' books in the 'personal growth' aisle aren't going to speak to your worldview--you need an embrace-your-weirdness vision for growth and rebuilding. Enter Ariel Meadow Stallings, who has experienced a few life catastrophes of her own and emerged from them with newfound clarity and strength. In From Sh!tshow to Afterglow, she offers a lifeline of support and outside-the-box thinking for times of crisis and confusion, sharing plenty of tactical tips for getting your shit together. Along the way, she never lets readers forget that sometimes a life has to be taken apart before it can be put back together better than ever.Without sugar-coating how deeply it sucks to have your world shattered, From Sh!tshow to Afterglow gives readers a reassuring plan for putting the pieces back together and emerging stronger than ever.

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Crappy homes, lame love lives, getting passed over for a great job (again)-not what we expected for our adulthoods. Americans tell their children you can become anything! But let's face it-most of us can't. Sure, some of our peers go on to become astronauts or billionaires. But most of us don't. In Average Is the New Awesome, Samantha Matt offers encouragement to us regular humans. Full of hilarious stories and insightful advice, this is a manifesto for ordinary awesomeness-for the beauty that can be found when we acknowledge that good enough really is good enough and that greatness is ours to define.

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Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without access to TV or the internet and never taught English, she suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood into mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family and her way of life.

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Bill Cosby's decades-long career as a sweater-wearing, wholesome TV dad came to a swift and stunning end on April 26, 2018, when he was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. The mounting allegations against Bill Cosby--more than 60 women have come forward to accuse him of similar crimes--and his ultimate conviction were a shock to Americans, who wanted to cleave to their image of Cosby as a pudding-pop hero. Award-winning journalist and former People magazine senior writer Nicki Weisensee Egan was the first reporter to dig into the story when Constand went to the police in 2005. Other news organizations looked away, but Egan doggedly investigated the case, developing ties with entrenched sources and discovering incriminating details that would ultimately come to influence the prosecution.In her debut book, Chasing Cosby, Egan shares her firsthand account of Cosby's 13-year run from justice. She tells us how Cosby planned and executed his crimes, and how Hollywood alliances and law enforcement knew what Cosby was doing but did nothing to stop him. A veteran crime reporter, Egan also explores the cultural and social issues that influenced the case, delving into the psychological calculations of a serial predator and into the psyche of a nation that fervently wanted to put their faith in the innocence of "American's Dad."Rich in character and rife with dramatic revelations about popular culture, media power, and our criminal system, Egan's account will inform and fascinate readers with its candid telling of humanity's most enduring tale: the rise and fall of a cultural icon.

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A celebration of the author's art, a rallying read for women who are fed up with their own harassment experiences and a statement on how pervasive the problem of street harassment really is, this is a singular and important book. Sitting at the cross-section of social activism, art, community engagement and feminism, Stop Telling Women To Smile brings to the page the author's arresting and famous street art-featuring the faces and voices of everyday women as they talk about the experience of living in communities that are supposed to be their homes yet are frequently hostile. Among the lessons of the #metoo movement is that countless women experience harassment, and that women are more eager than ever to share experiences and recognise common oppression. Fazlalizadeh has been contributing to these conversations through her street art since 2012. This perfectly timed, singular collection of profiles, short essays and original artwork unforgettably shows how it affects women based on gender presentation, race, class, age and other intersecting identities.

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When Brooke Axtell was seven years old, her nanny subjected her to sex trafficking. Today, she is a champion and advocate for women around the world who have experienced sexual violence and trauma.Beautiful Justice shares Brooke's own gripping story, both the trauma of sex trafficking and also her pathway through healing, moving on, and reclaiming power. Along the way, she imparts warm wisdom for others who have experienced similar violence, providing lessons from her own life and from the thousands of women, advocates, and lawmakers she's spoken with. Relying on her own experiences and a keen awareness of public policy, she provides a clear-eyed awareness of the ways that our culture and government work against women experiencing violence around the world. Inspiring and powerfully redemptive, Brooke encourages readers to take part in a creative resistance as a path to justice.

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When we talk about sex, we talk about women as mysterious, deceptive, and - above all - untrustworthy. Women lie about orgasms. Women lie about being virgins. Women lie about who got them pregnant, about whether they were raped, about how many people they've had sex with and what sort of experiences they've had - the list goes on and on. Over and over we're reminded that, on dates, in relationships, and especially in the bedroom, women just aren't telling the truth. But where does this assumption come from? Are women actually lying about sex, or does society just think we are?In Faking It, Lux Alptraum tackles the topic of seemingly dishonest women; investigating whether women actually lie, and what social situations might encourage deceptions both great and small. Using her experience as a sex educator and former CEO of Fleshbot (the foremost blog on sexuality), first-hand interviews with sexuality experts and everyday women, Alptraum raises important questions: are lying women all that common - or is the idea of the dishonest woman a symptom of male paranoia? Are they trying to please men, or just trying to trick and trap them? And what affect does all this dishonesty - whether real or imagined - have on women's self-images, social status, and safety? Through it all, Alptraum posits that even if women are lying, we're doing it for very good reason--to protect ourselves ("My boyfriend will be here any minute," to a creep who won't go away, for one), and in situations where society has given us no other choice.

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Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s.Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.

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As typical as donor-conceived children have become, with at least a million such children in the US alone, their experiences are still unusual in many ways. In Scattered Seeds, journalist and writer Jacqueline Mroz looks at the growth of sperm donation and assisted reproduction and how it affects the children who are born, the women who buy and use the sperm to have kids, and the sperm donors who donate their genetic material to help others procreate. With empathy and in-depth analysis, Scattered Seeds explores the sociology, psychology, and anthropology surrounding those connected with fertility procedures today and looks back at the history that brought us to this point.The personal stories in this book will put a human face on the issues and help to illuminate this country's controversial and troubling unregulated fertility industry-an industry that has been compared to the Wild, Wild West, where anything goes. What is the human cost of our country's unregulated fertility industry? How are the lives of sperm-donor families changed? Scattered Seeds will answer those questions, considering carefully the social and psychological dynamics surrounding those connected with fertility procedures today.

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Cancer is indiscriminate. It cares little for class, creed or colour. Its patients are literally everywhere. When Laura Holmes Haddad was diagnosed, she discovered shelf upon shelf of overly-earnest, somber, gray survival books, and knew there had to be a better way. This Is Cancer is the thoughtful, informative fabulous-looking result for those who prefer their pathos with equal parts humour and reality and a touch of flair. A what to expect when you're expecting" book for the diagnosis you don't want but are stuck with, This Is Cancer is the book that patients keep in their heading to the hospital bag," because it's the only one that tells them what's going on and keeps them company. Including such useful snippets as: There is no limit to what you will put yourself through when told it might save your life. Stay away from the Internet. And don't let anyone tell you what they looked up" about your diagnosis. You'll be surrounded by people but you'll feel lonely, and alone, sometimes. Lexapro is Tylenol for the soul. If you don't like your doctor(s), find new ones. You will feel somewhat at the mercy of them, like they hold the key to your mortality, but in fact more than one doctor can potentially save you and some are nice and some are mean.Whether you or your loved ones want a primer full of useful information in an easy to reference format or a friendly and comforting read, the honest, grave, and mordantly funny stories and tips from young survivors will bring you the real intel and advice that you need most during this tremendously difficult time.

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Rupa Mehta, called a pint-sized guru" by Vogue and the Rachael Ray of Fitness" by the New York Post , has helped thousands of people on their journey to physical and emotional wellness from her New York fitness studio. Now, with The Nalini Method , Rupa brings her revolutionary techniques for shedding emotional weight and achieving balance of body and mind to the wider world with a gorgeous and fun full-colour book. The Nalini Method is an innovative mood-based fitness plan that fuses yoga, Pilates, strengthening exercises, and barre work to help participants lose emotional weight and find emotional fitness,transforming both mind and body in the process. Rupa's dynamic techniques synthesize Western and Eastern approaches to create an accessible program that's as challenging as it is fun. The workouts of The Nalini Method help participants find balance within seven different moods: Anger Energy Stress Chill Happiness Doubt AnxietyIn addition, Rupa includes recipes for six unique and delicious mood foods" to help maintain energy and balance along the way.With tips and resources to help any woman achieve her fitness goals every day, The Nalini Method blazes a new and exciting trail to physical and emotional well-being.

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It has been decades since women of color first turned feminism upside down, exposing the feminist movement as exclusive, white, and unaware of the concerns and issues of women of color from around the globe. Since then, key social movements have risen, including Black Lives Matter, transgender rights, and the activism of young undocumented students. Social media has also changed how feminism reaches young women of color, generating connections in all corners of the country. And yet we remain a country divided by race and gender.Now, a new generation of outspoken women of color offer a much-needed fresh dimension to the shape of feminism of the future. In Colonize This!, Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman have collected a diverse, lively group of emerging writers who speak to the strength of community and the influence of color, to borders and divisions, and to the critical issues that need to be addressed to finally reach an era of racial freedom. With prescient and intimate writing, Colonize This! will reach the hearts and minds of readers who care about the experience of being a woman of color, and about establishing a culture that fosters freedom and agency for women of all races.

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Now in its updated second edition, Full Frontal Feminism is a book that continues to embody the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com. Full Frontal Feminism is a smart and relatable guide to the issues that matter to today's young women. This edition includes a new foreword by Valenti, reflecting upon what's happened in the seven years since Full Frontal Feminism was originally published. With new openers from Valenti in every chapter, the book covers a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more.Chapters include:You're a Hardcore Feminist. I Swear. Feminists Do It Better (and Other Sex Tips) Pop Culture Gone Wild The Blame (and Shame) Game If These Uterine Walls Could Talk Material World My Big Fat Unnecessary Wedding and Other Dating Diseases Real" Women Have Babies I Promise I Won't Say Herstory" Boys Do Cry Beauty Cult Sex and the City Voters, My Ass A Quick Academic Aside Get to ItSince its original publication, Full Frontal Feminism has reassured readers,yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty cool.

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You know what? It's super creepy to kiss a woman who is unconscious. And you know what else? The way out of poverty isn't by marrying a rich dude--or by wearing fragile footwear, for that matter. And while we're at it, why is the only woman who lives with seven men expected to do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry?Fairytales need a reboot and comedy queens Laura Lane and Ellen Haun are the women to do it. In Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling, they offer a rollicking parody of classic (read: patriarchal) tales that turns sweet, submissive princesses into women who are perfectly capable of being the heroes of their own stories. Mulan climbs the ranks in the army but wages a different war when she finds out she's getting paid less than her fellow male captains, Wendy learns never to trust a manboy stalking her window, Sleeping Beauty's prince gets a lesson in consent, and more.Busting with laugh-out-loud, razor-sharp twists to these outdated tales, Cinderella and the Glass Ceilingis fun, magical, necessary and totally woke.

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Dawn Dais hated running. And it didn't like her much, either. Her fitness routine consisted of avoiding the stairs in her own house, because who really has the energy to climb stairs? It was with this exercise philosophy firmly in place that she set off to complete a marathon. The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women is the ideal training manual for women who don't believe that running is their biological destiny but who dream of crossing the finish line nonetheless. Fully updated with today's best technology for runners and an exploration of running for different bodies, Dais provides readers with a doable training schedule alongside helpful how-tos and funny observations from the pavement. She also integrates entries from her own running journal, sharing everything would-be marathoners need to know about the gear, the blisters, the early morning workouts, the late-night carb binges and most important of all, the amazing rewards. Running may not seem like a friendly endeavour, but with Dawn Dais, you can tame the beast and hit the marathon trail.

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Unenthused by a white wedding gown and bored by the hoopla of the Hollywood-style reception, Ariel Meadow Stallings found herself absolutely exhausted by--and horribly distanced from--the nuances of traditional nuptials. So, she chose the aisle less-traveled for her own wedding day.In this newly updated edition of Offbeat Bride, Stallings humorously recounts the story of the original offbeat wedding--hers--and shares anecdotes and advice from dozens of other nontraditional couples. She provides plenty of insider tips for avoiding extra costs and cumbersome obligations, along with a clever planner to help you create your own special day. Both practical and enjoyable, Offbeat Bride validates choosing the funky, different, and offbeat over the traditional, and leads couples through the planning process--from unique ideas on how to announce the engagement all the way to answering the question, "So, how's married life?" Stallings is the ultimate guide to the alternative wedding of your dreams, encouraging every bride and groom to create their own distinctive celebrations of partnership and love.

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To anyone who is not a new mother, babyhood may seem like a nanosecond long--a quick blip on the radar of life. But to a new mother, it feels never-ending. A child is born, a thunderstorm comes barreling in, and the idea of buckling down to raise said baby seems like an eternity--and feels totally impossible. How will I ever make it through? This is especially true for women today, who are raised to foster strong personal and professional identities. Becoming a mother is a complete restructuring of one's life, and there's a necessary psychic reckoning that gets buried under dirty diapers and lost amid the nipple shields and mashed peas.Loaded with unfettered support from a mom who has been through it, You Are a F*cking Awesome Mom offers a welcome acknowledgement that motherhood is a mind f*ck--and that women deserve more than trite oversimplifying and sugarcoating about the miracles of child-rearing. It is not a parenting book, it's a mama book, one with an irresistible, irreverent voice, sharp insight, and some welcome doses of "truth salad," plus a few experts thrown in for good measure. It's You Are a Badass for new mothers, and a long-awaited life raft for all the mothers drowning in maternal confusion and terror.

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The statistics are staggering. One in four girls will experience sexual abuse by the time she is sixteen, and 48 percent of all rapes involve a young woman under the age of eighteen. It's not surprising then, that in a society where sexual abuse of young women is rampant, many women never share their stories. They remain hidden and invisible.In her pioneering work with young survivors through the last thirty years, Dr. Patti Feuereisen has helped teen girls and young women to find their voices, begin healing, and become visible.In this revised third edition, Dr. Patti's gentle guidance and the girls' powerful stories continue to create an encouraging message: Remarkable healing is possible if girls learn to share their stories in their teens and early twenties. With a new introduction, new chapters, and updated resources, this new edition of Invisible Girls has even more to offer girls, young women, and those who care about them.

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Millions of women in our country experience some mix of low desire, absent pleasure, tanking lust and elusive orgasms. It's just stress, motherhood, anxiety, poor body image, or plain old boring monogamy though, right? Wife loses interest, husband is left cold for too long-these and similar narratives have been accepted as the norm. With The Pleasure Gap, Katherine Rowland aims to dismantle such claims once and for all. Women aren't less sexual than men, she asserts, for one and they're certainly not predetermined to lose sexual drive as they age. And, in fascinating new accounts featured by Rowland, a growing number of women are taking steps to reignite their sexuality. Through rich narrative accounts of dozens of women and sexual health professionals, science journalism, social criticism and compelling profiles of women from all walks of life, Rowland argues that the pleasure gap is neither medical malady nor psychological condition but rather a result of our culture's troubled relationship with women's sexual expression and pleasure.

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Stay-at-home dad and journalist Mike Adamick jumps into the feminist-parenting fray with a book designed to help dads understand the dynamics behind sexist micro-messages our daughters experience every day, so they can combat them in daily life. Addressing a wide range of challenges facing dads who want to raise empowered girls, Raising Empowered Daughterscovers all the angles and issues dads need to know so they can better understand society's subtle silencing of girls, and their own role in the gender imbalance that kids all experience.Taking readers into the home, the schools, and through the public influences of pop culture and media, Adamick shows dads exactly where their daughters are being undermined by male-dominated traditions and standards. Armed with this awareness, he gives dads practical actions they can take to infuse their daughters with the confidence and role models they need to avoid the traps of patriarchy.

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From Black Lives Matter to the ongoingWomen's Marches, we have had some powerful moments over the last decade that have galvanized and created new, but brief, feelings of community. Many of us, however, haven't figured out how to spark that feeling on our own, or how to build off or sustain those moments. Many of us are longing for a kind of sugar-borrowing and stoop-sitting closeness we imagine existed in the 50s. Maybe we even grew up in that environment, but we moved away from home for love, work, or adventure and we don't know how to recreate it in a new place. What so many of us are missing is the closeness that connects us and make us feel like we belong to a community.In How We Show Up, community visionary Mia Birdsong delivers a modern, timely understanding of what true, authentic family and community can look like--outside of the 2-parent, 2.5 kids norm we all have in our heads. Today we have more single parents, couples who raise children outside of marriage, and more people growing older alone. Tackling topics like creating safe spaces, creativity in community, raising children in community, and more, How We Show Up is the antidote to the social fractures we face in our nation today. By sharing stories and actionable advice, and taking cues from marginalized communities--people of color, women, LGBTQ--Mia Birdsong offers us the blueprint we need to build true community wherever we are.

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Bonnie Rough was a new mother grappling with many typical concerns of raising a daughter: how to inspire her to push past stereotypes, how to teach her to have a healthy attitude towards her body and her sexuality. Then her husband's job relocated the family to Amsterdam, where Rough quickly witnessed the free, uninhibited, and egalitarian sexual attitudes of the Dutch--where nudity isn't frowned upon and parents hope their children have favorable sexual experiences more than fearing their activity. In Better Than Birds and Bees, Rough describes how to implement the easygoing, surprisingly low-risk European attitude, reflecting on her experiences with her daughters. With careful research and anecdotal discoveries, Rough outlines ways for American parents to navigate a culture with dismally little formal sexual education, showing how creating healthy sexual attitudes reverberates with every aspect of society, shaping not only childhood experiences but gender misconceptions and inequality through adulthood.

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In Girl Talk, New York Times science reporter Jacqueline Mroz takes on the science of female friendship--a phenomenon that's as culturally powerful as it is individually mysterious. She examines friendship from a range of angles, from the historical to the experiential, with a scientific analysis that reveals new truths about what leads us to connect and build alliances, and then "break up" when a friendship no longer serves us. Mroz takes a new look at how friendship has evolved throughout history, showing how friends tend to share more genetic commonalities than strangers, and that the more friends we have, the more empathy and pleasure chemicals are present in our brains. Scientists have also reported that friendship directly influences health and longevity; women with solid, supportive friendships experience fewer "fight or flight" impulses and stronger heart function, and women without friendships tend to develop medical challenges on par with those associated with smoking and excessive body weight. With intimate reporting and insightful analysis, Mroz reveals new awareness about the impact of women's friendships, and how they shape our culture at large.

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Instagram star Valerie Sagun is a powerful voice in the body-positive movement: With 120,000 followers on Instagram and constant traffic on her Tumblr site, readers love her for her fearless message and insights on the benefits of yoga for all bodies.Rejecting the idea that all yogis have to be skinny white women in fancy Lululemon gear, Valerie-size 22, mixed race, and tattooed-offers readers all of the inspiration and guidance they need to become yogis at any size.Yoga has long been one of the most popular fitness trends in the U.S., and the body positivity community is now bigger than ever. The success of TLC's My Big Fat Fabulous Life and model Tess Holliday prove that there's a growing audience of women longing to see themselves represented on the screen and in the pages of books. Big Gal Yoga is perfect for everyone, from yoga novices to more experienced yogis. And while Valerie provides plenty of tips for plus-size yogis, anyone can follow her yoga instruction. Her message of body positivity is also a universal one-no matter the insecurity, Valerie's honest advice and encouragement can help anyone find self-love through yoga.

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When Jen Welter became a linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015, she was the first woman to ever break the glass sideline of the NFL, but it wasn't her first time pioneering as a woman in football: Welter was also the first woman to play running back in a men's professional football league. In Play Big, Welter reveals the grit and determination that it took to be a trailblazer in one of the country's toughest boys' clubs. With reliability and encouragement, Play Big lays out how she handled the unique pressure of being the only woman in a notoriously sexist environment. By detailing her own strategies for succeeding despite the odds, Welter gives readers the tools they need to do the same, whatever their own obstacles might be.Drawing on a move that garnered attention during her time with the Cardinals--writing personal motivational notes for each of her linebackers the night before a game--Welter translates simple but effective tips for perseverance and toughness in Play Big.

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Cocktail marketers and male bartenders like to tell women what we want to drink,and it's usually fruity, frilly, fancy, and pink. In Drink Like a Woman, Jeanette Hurt shakes up barroom expectations, stirs up some new ideas, and pours a lively collection of feminist cocktails that are just as varied, flavorful, and strong as women are.Sharing basic techniques, cocktail classics, hangover cures, drinking games, and more, this spirited guide takes the misogyny out of mixology by offering fun and functional tips for the at-home barista who doesn't need a man to mix it up. She also exposes the surprisingly sexist history of cocktail culture, and offers more than 50 recipes, crafted by top women bartenders around the country, including:Anarchy AmarettoBloody Mary RichardsNelly Bly-TaiThe LBD (The Little Black Dress)Ruth's Pink TabooWoManhattanZeldatiniThe Suffragette SourRide, Sally RideCurie RoyaleWith feisty illustrations and original recipes that call for a generous splash of female empowerment, Drink Like a Woman is sure to subvert the patriarchy, one drink at a time.

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"A boldly beautiful page-turner about loving and losing someone with mental illness. I'll be recommending this absorbing memoir for years to come." ,Cheryl Strayed, best-selling author of Wild Even as a reporter, Sheila Hamilton missed the signs as her husband David's mental illness unfolded before her. By the time she had pieced together the puzzle, it was too late. Her once brilliant and passionate partner was dead within six weeks of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, leaving his young daughter and wife without so much as a note to explain his actions, a plan to help them recover from their profound grief, or a solution for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that they would inherit from him. All the Things We Never Knew takes readers on a breathtaking journey from David and Sheila's romance through the last three months of their life together and into the year after his death. It details their unsettling spiral from ordinary life into the world of mental illness, examines the fragile line between reality and madness, and reveals the true power of love and forgiveness.

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The Coregasm Workout is a revolutionary new book that provides natural, safe, and effective techniques for enhancing sex through fitness. Developed by leading sex researcher, educator, and columnist Dr. Debby Herbenick, The Coregasm Workout introduces simple, science-backed exercises to make working out more fun and sex lives more satisfying. Debby has developed The Coregasm Workout based on her deep background in health science and unprecedented research on exercise-induced arousal in order to bring fitness and sexuality closer together. Her fact-based methods are specifically designed to improve orgasm and have been tested, refined, and proven by real women, for women. The Coregasm Workout will help improve your sex life- and help you enjoy exercising more often- through four C.O.R.E. principles: Challenge yourself through cardio, reps, and resistance Order matters: it's not just the kind of exercises you do, but the order in which you do them Relax and receive: be open to the experience of coregasm Engage your lower abs, muscles often strongly linked to coregasmFun, fascinating, and useful, The Coregasm Workout offers new exercise techniques for women who want to stay sexy, healthy, and fit, and enjoy the benefits of the gym in the bedroom.

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Change looms in Havana, Cuba's capital, a city electric with uncertainty yet cloaked in cliché, 90 miles from U.S. shores and off-limits to most Americans. Journalist Julia Cooke, who lived there at intervals over a period of five years, discovered a dynamic scene: baby-faced anarchists with Mohawks gelled with laundry soap, whiskey-drinking children of the elite, Santería trainees, pregnant prostitutes, university graduates planning to leave for the first country that will give them a visa. This last generation of Cubans raised under Fidel Castro animate life in a waning era of political stagnation as the rest of the world beckons: waiting out storms at rummy hurricane parties and attending raucous drag cabarets, planning ascendant music careers and black-market business ventures, trying to reconcile the undefined future with the urgent today.Eye-opening and politically prescient, The Other Side of Paradise offers a deep new understanding of a place that has so confounded and intrigued us.

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The United States is obsessed with virginity , from the media to schools to government agencies. In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Through in-depth cultural and social analysis, Valenti reveals that powerful messaging on both extremes , ranging from abstinence-only curriculum to "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials , place a young woman's worth entirely on her sexuality. Morals are therefore linked purely to sexual behaviour, rather than values like honesty, kindness, and altruism. Valenti sheds light on the value , and hypocrisy , around the notion that girls remain virgins until they're married by putting into context the historical question of purity, modern abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex. The Purity Myth presents a revolutionary argument that girls and women are overly valued for their sexuality, as well as solutions for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity.

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