1. The romance of the real : The Blithdale romance and The Bostonians -- 2. The reproduction of meaning : language, oedipality, and The Awakening -- 3. Modernist perversity : the repetition of desire in The Sun also rises -- 4. Oral narratives : "race" and sexuality in Their eyes were watching God -- 5. Love's substitutions : Elizabeth Bishop and the lie of language.
Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act, why are women still living in a man's world? Debora L. Spar never thought of herself as a feminist. Raised after the tumult of the 1960s, she presumed the gender war was over. As one of the youngest female professors to be tenured at Harvard Business School and a mother of three, she swore to young women that they could have it all. "We thought we could just glide into the new era of equality, with babies, board seats, and husbands in tow," she writes. "We were wrong." Now she is the president of Barnard College, arguably the most important all-women's college in the United States. And in Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection—a fresh, wise, original book— she asks why, a half century after the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, do women still feel stuck. In this groundbreaking and compulsively readable book, Spar explores how American women's lives have—and have not—changed over the past fifty years. Armed with reams of new research, she details how women struggled for power and instead got stuck in an endless quest for perfection. The challenges confronting women are more complex than ever, and they are challenges that come inherently and inevitably from being female. Spar is acutely aware that it's time to change course. Both deeply personal and statistically rich, Wonder Women is Spar's story and the story of our culture. It is cultural history at its best, and a road map for the future.
Revels in the complexities of female identity and American culture. The collection's sixteen original essays move beyond conventional discussions of hippie chicks and Weatherwomen to examine the diverse lives of women who helped to shape religion, sports, literature, and music, among other aspects of the cultural hodgepodge known as the sixties. From familiar names like Yoko Ono, Carole King, and Joan Baez to lesser-known figures like Anita Caspary and Barbara Deming, the women represent a variety of points on the celebrity and feminist spectrums. The book traces women who sought to break into "male" fields, women whose personae and work link the radical sixties to earlier cultural traditions, and those who consciously confronted power structures and demanded change. – from publisher information.
Essays by 30 authors attempt to reclaim and to create heightened awareness about individuals, contributions, and struggles that have made African American women's survival and progress possible.
A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Three best friends navigate love, sex, faith—and the one night that changes it all—in this novel that reveals “searing and poignant truths about the female experience” (Ashley Audrain, NYT bestselling author of The Push) Whatever happened to the way we were? It’s always been Malak, Kees, and Jenna against the world. Since childhood, under the watchful eyes of their family and community, these three best friends have had to navigate love, sex, faith, and womanhood alongside the expectations of being good Muslim women. But they’ve always done it together. Malak wants the dream: for her partner, community, and faith to coexist happily, and she’ll even break her own heart to get it. Kees is in love with Harry, a white Catholic man who her parents can never know about. Jenna is always the life of the party, even though she’s plagued by an unshakable loneliness. But when their college years come to a close, one night changes everything. As their lives take different paths, in the wake of heartbreaks, marriages, new careers and new beginnings, Malak, Kees, and Jenna need each other more than ever. Can they forgive and find a way back to each other in time? These Impossible Things is a moving paean to youth and female friendship—and to all the joy and messiness love holds.
A beautifully wrought modern fairy tale from master storyteller and award-winning author Nancy Werlin Inspired by the classic folk ballad “Scarborough Fair,” this is a wonderfully riveting novel of suspense, romance, and fantasy. Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that she is the latest recipient of a generations-old family curse that requires her to complete three seemingly impossible tasks or risk falling into madness and passing the curse on to the next generation. Unlike her ancestors, though, Lucy has family, friends, and other modern resources to help her out. But will it be enough to conquer this age-old evil?
From the YouTube slam poetry star of "Shrinking Women" (more than 5 million views!) comes a novel in verse about body image, eating disorders, self-worth, mothers and daughters, and the psychological scars we inherit from our parents. Fifteen-year-old Ivy's world is in flux. Her dad has moved out, her mother is withdrawn, her brother is off at college, and her best friend, Anna, has grown distant. Worst of all, Ivy's body won’t stop expanding. She's getting taller and curvier, with no end in sight. Even her beloved math class offers no clear solution to the imbalanced equation that has become Ivy’s life. Everything feels off-kilter until a skipped meal leads to a boost in confidence and reminds Ivy that her life is her own. If Ivy can just limit what she eats—the way her mother seems to—she can stop herself from growing, focus on the upcoming math competition, and reclaim control of her life. But when her disordered eating leads to missed opportunities and a devastating health scare, Ivy realizes that she must weigh her mother's issues against her own, and discover what it means to be a part of—and apart from—her family. This Impossible Light explores the powerful reality that identity and self-worth must be taught before they are learned. Perfect for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins. Praise for This Impossible Light: ★ "In an exceptional novel in verse, slam poet Myers debuts with a powerful commentary on maternal inheritance and eating disorders....striking use of the flexibility of free verse...absorbing and evocative." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "Every YA library needs this book." —VOYA "Written in evocative verse, with notes of wonder and despair, the cadence flows across and down the pages with grace. Lifted beyond the confines of the problem novel with its lyricism and resonance." —Kirkus Reviews "This verse novel’s form perfectly mirrors its content as readers move from poem to poem, from thought to thought, following Ivy through the false logic that triggers and sustains her disordered eating—and into the beginning of the much more difficult steps of grief and recovery." —Horn Book "The undeniable teen appeal makes it a first purchase for any YA collection." —School Library Journal "More than a touching debut, this is a surefire coping companion, too." —Booklist
Winner of a 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, this moving manifesto “empowers women to access a fearlessness that will enable community progress” (Essence). Through one incredible woman’s journey from a small Zimbabwe village to becoming one of the world’s most recognizable voices in women’s empowerment and education, this book “can help any woman achieve her full potential” (Kirkus Reviews). Before Tererai Trent landed on Oprah’s stage as her “favorite guest of all time,” she was a woman with a forgotten dream. As a young girl in a cattle-herding village in Zimbabwe, she dreamed of receiving an education but instead was married young and by eighteen, without a high school graduation, she was already a mother of three. Tererai encountered a visiting American woman who assured her that anything was possible, reawakening her sacred dream. Tererai planted her dreams deep in the earth and prayed they would grow. They did, and now not only has she earned her PhD but she has also built schools for girls in Zimbabwe, with funding from Oprah. The Awakened Woman: A Guide for Remembering & Igniting Your Sacred Dreams is her accessible, intimate, and evocative guide that teaches nine essential lessons to encourage all women to reexamine their dreams and uncover the power hidden within them—power that can recreate our world for the better. Tererai points out that there is a massive, untapped, global resource in women who have, for one reason or another, set aside their wisdom, their skills, and their dreams in order to take care of the personal business of their lives. Not only is this a type of invisible suffering experienced by countless women, this rich resource is a secret weapon for improving our world. Women have the capacity to inspire, to create, to transform—and Tererai’s call to action “shines as a beacon of hope to women everywhere” (Danica McKellar, actress and New York Times bestselling author).
Laurie and Matt Krieg are in a mixed-orientation marriage: Laurie is primarily attracted to women—and so is Matt. With vulnerability and wisdom, they tell the story of how they met and got married, the challenges and breakthroughs of their journey, and what they've learned about how marriage is meant to point us to the love and grace of Jesus.
Chronicles the development of feminist ideas and women's rights in America from the Salem witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century through the appointment of the first woman secretary of state in the late twentieth century.
