Feminine Force is the ultimate self-help book for women, written by a woman whose own life and career literally defined the term "self-made". As Georgette herself writes, "You can bet to lose or you can bet to win... It's you choice. You have your own "Feminine Force" within you. Release your power and create the life you deserve."
The market for commercial beauty products exploded in Third Republic France, with a proliferation of goods promising to erase female imperfections and perpetuate an aesthetic of femininity that conveyed health and respectability. While the industry's meteoric growth helped to codify conventional standards of womanhood, The Force of Beauty goes beyond the narrative of beauty culture as a tool for sociopolitical subjugation to show how it also targeted women as important consumers in major markets and created new avenues by which they could express their identities and challenge or reinforce gender norms. As cosmetics companies and cultural media, from magazines to novels to cinema, urged women to aspire to commercial standards of female perfection, beauty evolved as a goal to be pursued rather than a biological inheritance. The products and techniques that enabled women to embody society's feminine ideal also taught them how to fashion their bodies into objects of desire and thus offered a subversive tool of self-expression. Holly Grout explores attempts by commercial beauty culture to reconcile a standard of respectability with female sexuality, as well as its efforts to position French women within the global phenomenon of changing views on modern womanhood. Grout draws on a wide range of primary sources-hygiene manuals, professional and legal debates about the right to fabricate and distribute "medicines," advertisements for beauty products, and contemporary fiction and works of art-to explore how French women navigated changing views on femininity. Her seamless integration of gender studies with business history, aesthetics, and the history of medicine results in a textured and complex study of the relationship between the politics of womanhood and the politics of beauty.
"Although she is often presented (in her warrior aspect) as cruel and horrific, with her lolling red tongue and necklace of severed heads, Kali is creator and nurturer - the essence of Mother-love and feminine energy (Sakti). As Divine Mother Lotus-goddess, she brings worlds to birth, sustains them and absorbs them, in a never-ending cycle of her own opening and closing."--Back cover.
This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___
Are there moments in your life when your femaleness is a source of power or hardship? When does your voice ring its clearest? When have you been silenced?Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility brings together international poets and essayists, both award winning and emergent, to answer these questions with raw, honest meditations that speak to women of all races, nationalities, and sexual orientations.With a foreword by Anna March, cofounder of the literary magazine Roar: Literature and Revolution by Feminist People and a New York Times contributing writer, Feminine Rising collects unforgettable stories both humorous and frightening, inspirational and sensual, employing traditional poetry and prose alongside exciting experimental forms. Feminine Rising celebrates women's differences while embracing the source of their sameness-the unique experience of womanhood.
Throw out your conformity stereotypes and outdated paradigms. The world has shifted. There is a new approach to launching and building a highly successful business that defies past times' patriarchal conformity. It is both wild and extraordinary and enriching to your soul on every level of soul-drenching satisfaction. Wild Business is more than a book or a global movement that is sweeping across the planet; it is an awakening to your divine, inherent gifts that lie dormant within. When you embark on this creative journey, you draw from an infinite well of strength and confidence. You bring forth the value you were born to share, and there is no more playing small or hiding in the shelter of fear. For your business and you are no longer separated. You become one. If you are sensing that other pieces of the puzzle have never quite fit, then this is your invitation to step back into the wildness from which you came.
Few women in the 20th century wielded more power and influence than did Josefine Lehnert (1894-1983). No woman, in twenty centuries, ever wielded more power and influence in the Vatican.When Josefine Lehnert entered Holy Cross Convent [Menzinger, Switzerland] she was given the name "Pascalina." In 1917, the beautiful young nun from Bavaria and two other Sisters were sent to Munich to organize and maintain the nunciature. The Holy See's newly appointed Nuncio to Bavaria was 41-year-old Eugenio Pacelli. For the rest his diplomatic career, Schwester Pascalina would remain his personal secretary, housekeeper and ne plus ultra confidante. When Pacelli was recalled to Rome in 1929 and subsequently made a cardinal and appointed Secretary of State, he requested that Sister Pascalina be permitted to continue working with him. She was the first woman ever to reside in the Apostolic Palace. In 1939, on the first ballot and by a unanimous [minus one] vote, Eugenio Pacelli became the world's 260th Pope; the twelfth to take the name "Pius."Romanità -an unofficial yet rigorous ecclesiastical/Italianate protocol that permeates diplomacy to this day- saw fit to "promote" the new pontiff's secretary. Henceforth, "Sister" Pascalina was "Mother" Pascalina. Strong woman that she was, "La Madre" was keenly and constantly aware of the tightrope she was walking -and more so of the snake pit just below it. As the pope's closest confidante, she strove for anonymity; kept any opinion she might have had on any matter, private or public, strictly to herself; avoided photographers and journalists like the plague and -perhaps most challengingly of all- ignored every cruel rumor and innuendo, never dignifying one of them with a response.Undoubtedly, Pope Pius XII was a giant among men; an outstanding intellectual; a savior to countless victims of World War II; a courageous advocate for the voiceless; a born leader who understood a complicated world and its leaders, good and evil; a Pope worthy to be called "Great".It is said that "Behind ever great man is a great woman." The history of Pope Pius XII and Mother Pascalina requires one very important word change to that maxim: "Beside every great man stands a great woman."
Ellyn, a very beautiful and charismatic acting student, found her true calling in uncovering the workings of the human soul to its core. Her energy and knowledge not only made people very successful but also had the ability to heal and transform any individual she came upon. Sadly, those she worked with met her with ignorance and abuse, not allowing her to shine in her own light. For much of her adult life, the world treated Ellyn as if she was invisible, pushing her to the edge of existence on numerous occasions. Ellyn knew that the key to a better world was found in women and simultaneously, women were also the very reason for the current decline in the world which gave her no choice but to study and work with many of them from across the globe for years until it enabled her to free herself from the prison she had found herself in. It was then that she discovered the one who created her and to bring her gift into the world with was a well-known rockstar who had written about her in many of his songs.
Alisa Vitti found herself suffering through the symptoms of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), and was able to heal herself through food and lifestyle changes. Relieved and reborn, she made it her mission to empower other women to be able to do the same. As she says, 'Hormones affect everything. Have you ever struggled with acne, oily hair, dandruff, dry skin, cramps, headaches, irritability, exhaustion, constipation, irregular cycles, heavy bleeding, clotting, shedding hair, weight gain, anxiety, insomnia, infertility, lowered sex drive, or bizarre food cravings and felt like your body was just irrational?' With this breadth of symptoms, improving hormonal health is a goal for women at every stage of their lives Alisa Vitti says that medication and anti-depressants aren't the only solutions. The thousands of women she has treated in her Manhattan clinic know the power of her process that focuses on uncovering your unique biological make up. Groundbreaking and informative, WomanCode educates women about hormone health in a way that's relevant and easy to understand. Bestselling author and women's health expert Christiane Northrup, who has called WomanCode the 'Our Bodies, Ourselves of this generation', provides an insightful foreword.
Women are constantly being told that it's simply too difficult to balance work and family, so if they don't really "have to" work, it's better for their families if they stay home. Not only is this untrue, Leslie Bennetts says, but the arguments in favor of stay-at-home motherhood fail to consider the surprising benefits of work and the unexpected toll of giving it up. It's time, she says, to get the message across -- combining work and family really is the best choice for most women, and it's eminently doable. Bennetts and millions of other working women provide ample proof that there are many different ways to have kids, maintain a challenging career, and have a richly rewarding life as a result. Earning money and being successful not only make women feel great, but when women sacrifice their financial autonomy by quitting their jobs, they become vulnerable to divorce as well as the potential illness, death, or unemployment of their breadwinner husbands. Further, they forfeit the intellectual, emotional, psychological, and even medical benefits of self-sufficiency. The truth is that when women gamble on dependancy, most eventually end up on the wrong side of the odds. In riveting interviews with women from a wide range of backgrounds, Bennetts tells their dramatic stories -- some triumphant, others heartbreaking. The Feminine Mistake will inspire women to accept the challenge of figuring out who they are and what they want to do with their lives in addition to raising children. Not since Betty Friedan has anyone offered such an eye-opening and persuasive argument for why women can -- and should -- embrace the joyously complex lives they deserve.
