Showing titles in Gender Studies

June 1987: Diane Abbott makes history as the first elected Black female MP in the UK. Since then, she has survived more than three decades in parliament, campaigning tirelessly for a better future for Britain, from increasing access to education through the Black Child Initiative, to consistently voting in favour of higher disability benefits. With her trademark frankness and humour, her memoir, A Woman Like Me, will celebrate an extraordinary life and encourage a new generation to surpass expectations, just as she has done.

The LGBT agenda, for too long, has been dominated by pragmatic issues like same-sex marriage and gays in the military. It has been stifled by this myopic focus on the present, which is short-sighted and assimilationist. Cruising Utopia seeks to break the present stagnancy by cruising ahead. Part manifesto, part love-letter to the past and the future, Cruising Utopia argues that the here and now are not enough and issues an urgent call for the revivification of the queer political imagination.

In the midst of a historic "birth dearth," why do some 5 percent of American women choose to defy the demographic norm by bearing five or more children? Hannah’s Children is a compelling portrait of these overlooked but fascinating mothers who, like the biblical Hannah, see their children as their purpose, their contribution, and their greatest blessing. The social scientist Catherine Pakaluk, herself the mother of eight, traveled across the United States and interviewed fifty-five college-educated women who were raising five or more children.

Why does the political representation of women matter? And which hurdles - personal, political and societal - have been faced, fought and sometimes overcome in the past 30 years? From campaigning with small children to increasing the number of women in Parliament, bringing women's issues to the heart of the Labour Party and tackling a parliamentary culture with no consideration for family life, this frank, inspiring and politically charged audiobook is a crucial account of the progress (and occasional setbacks) made.

In the last few years, as identity politics has taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings, the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused. Hags asks the question why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme - care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex - and explores it in relation to middle-aged women's beliefs, bodies and choices.

Did you know that 48 percent of the women in prison have committed an offence in order to support the drug use of someone else? That 46 percent of women in prison report having attempted suicide once in their lifetime? Or that over half of the women in prison have been victims of more serious crimes than the ones they've been convicted of? But this isn't a book about statistics. It's a book about the individual stories of women caught up in our creaking and under-resourced prison system.

How was it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women? In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines novelist Thomas Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him—mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women’s lives in the nineteenth century.

On May 23, 2009, Amanda Stott-Smith drove to the middle of the Sellwood Bridge in Portland, Oregon, and dropped her two children into the Willamette River. Forty minutes later, rescuers found the body of four-year-old Eldon. Miraculously, his seven-year-old sister, Trinity, was saved. As the public cried out for blood, Amanda was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison.

Adrienne Rich's influential and landmark investigation concerns both the experience and the institution of motherhood. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

What if you could live your life in partnership with divinity, using your intuition as your guide? According to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., and Caroline Myss - such a life is possible. In fact, it is the life that mystics have chosen throughout history, and only one thing is required: the willingness to completely surrender to divine instruction. Now Caroline Myss and Dr. Estes - two of the country's leading intuitives and bestselling authors - are together for the first time on audio with Intuition and the Mystical Life.

When the goddess culture was stolen and buried, so too were women's rites of passage into our wild, intuitive femininity and maturity. With Maiden to Mother, Sarah Durham Wilson excavates these ancient rites, guiding us through a sacred and crucial initiation from the immature Maiden into the archetypal Mother—the powerful, safe, compassionate, full-bloom feminine life force that exists within all of us.

The Courage to Heal is an inspiring, comprehensive guide that offers hope and a map of the healing journey to every woman who was sexually abused as a child - and to those who care about her. Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.

Hey, I'm Jamie, a 29-year-old trans guy from the UK. I've been transitioning for 12 years now after realising I was trans (by accident!) at sixteen years old. I knew I was a boy since the age of four, but realised whilst growing up that I was different. It was only in my teens that I found the words to express who I was and what I needed to do. Since then, I've been on testosterone for more than a decade - I know, I can't believe it either - I've also had top and bottom surgery and legally changed my sex, so I know a few things about the transitioning process and being trans!

Women over 40 are the most ignored demographic in society. And yet this is the time when you are likely to have the most freedom, power, confidence and self knowledge than ever before. Some serious life has been lived: there have been great loves, heartbreaks, births, marriages, careers, betrayals, bereavements and survival. So what now? What happens when the narrative given to you by society - husband, babies, house - runs out and you become storyless? Writer and journalist Sam Baker seeks to empower and give voice to women to create a new narrative....

In A More Complete Beast, Jack Donovan picks up Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts on nobility and master morality and uses them to guide men through an "upside-down" modern world, avoid the trap of hateful ressentiment, and overcome adversity through creativity. In Donovan's hands, Nietzsche's words are rasps and chisels to help men refine a strength-based ethos, revealing their highest and noblest selves to become more complete men. And, as Nietzsche reminded us, man is a beast - so to become a more complete man is always to become a more complete beast.

In Girls on the Edge, psychologist and physician Leonard Sax argues that many girls today have a brittle sense of self-they may look confident and strong on the outside, but they're fragile within. Sax offers the tools we need to help them become independent and confident women, and provides parents with practical tips on everything from helping their daughter limit her time on social media, to choosing a sport, to nurturing her spirit through female-centered activities.

Rough is a revolutionary nonfiction work exploring the narratives of sexual violence that we don't talk about. Through powerful testimony from 50 women and non-binary people, this book shines a light on the sexual violence that takes place in our bedrooms and beyond, sometimes at the hands of people we know, trust, or even love. Rough investigates violations such as 'stealthing', non-consensual choking, and non-consensual rough sex acts that our culture is only starting to recognise as sexual violence.

An inclusive and empowering manifesto for change in women’s healthcare – exploring the systemic and deep rooted sexism within medicine, and offering actionable ways for women to advocate for ourselves and others and get the diagnosis and treatment we need. Have you ever been to a doctor and felt like you were being fobbed off or ignored? Did they belittle or overlook your concerns about your health? Ever been told you’re just ‘hormonal’? You’re not alone.

Covering American transgender history from the mid-20th century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.

Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back, to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting...a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable, Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backward, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians.