This interdisciplinary study examines the relationship between violence, empowerment, and the teenage super/heroine in comics and young adult fantasy novels. The author analyzes stories of teenage super/heroines who have experienced trauma, abduction, assault, and sexual violence that has led to a loss of agency, and then tracks the way that their use of violence empowers them to reclaim agency over their lives and bodies. The author identifies these characters as vigilante feminist teenage super/heroines because they become vigilantes in order to protect other girls and young women from violence and create safer communities. The teenage super/heroines examined in this book are characters who have the ability-through super power, or supernatural and magical ability-to fight back against those who seek to cause them harm. They are a product of and a response to both the pervasive culture of violence against girls and women and a system that fails to protect girls and women from harm. While this book is part of a robust intellectual conversation about the role of girls and women in popular literature and culture and about feminist analyses of comics and YA literature, it is unique in its reading of violence as empowerment and in its careful tracing-and naming-of the teenage vigilante super/heroine, a characterization that is hugely popular and deserves this close reading.

This book constitutes a feminist literary analysis of motherhood as presented in selected Indian women's fictions across a diverse range of geographical, linguistic, class and caste contexts. Situated at the crossroads of motherhood studies and literary studies, this book offers a rigorous examination of the prosody and politics of motherhood in this corpus. In its five thematically focused chapters, the book scrutinises in depth such key concerns as maternal ambivalence; maternal agency and caste; mother-daughter relationships; motherhood and diaspora; and non-biological motherhood. It attempts to understand the literary ramifications of these issues in order to identify the ways in which fiction writers reconceive of the notion of motherhood and maternal identities from and against multiple perspectives. Another pressing concern is whether these Indian women writers' visions furnish readers with any different understandings of motherhood as compared to dominant Western feminist discourses. Maternal Fictions advances feminist literary criticism in the specific area of Indian women's writing and the overarching areas of motherhood and literature by acting as a launchpad into a complex constellation of ideas concerning motherhood. The fictional universe is at once ambivalent, diverse, contingent, grounded in a specific location, and yet well placed to converse with discourses emanating from other times and places.

Catharine Macaulay was a celebrated republican historian, whose account of the reasons for the seventeenth-century English Revolution, the parliamentary period, and its aftermath was widely read by the mothers and fathers of American Independence and by central players in the French Revolution. As well as publishing her eight volume history, spanning the period from the accession of James I to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, she wrote political pamphlets, offered a sketch of a republican constitution for Corsica, advocated parliamentary reform, and published a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Her Letters on Education of 1790 made a decisive impact on the thought of Mary Wollstonecraft, and her Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth opposed the skeptical and utilitarian attitudes being developed by Hume and others. This volume brings together for the first time all the available letters between her and her wide-ranging correspondents, who include George Washington, John Adams, Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, James Otis, Benjamin Rush, David Hume, James Boswell, Thomas Hollis, John Wilkes, Horace Walpole, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, and many other luminaries of the eighteenth-century enlightenment. It includes an extended introduction to her life and works and offers a unique insight into the thinking of her friends and correspondents during the period between 1760 and 1790, the crucible for the development of modern representative democracies. The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay will appeal to scholars of philosophy, political thought, women's studies, and eighteenth-century history, as well as those interested in the development of democratic ideas.

'We need this message more than ever' - Malala Yousafzai

The right to:

Spend your own money. Go to school. Earn an income. Access contraceptives. Work outside the home. Walk outside the home. Choose whom to marry. Get a loan. Start a business. Own property. Divorce a husband. See a doctor. Drive a car.
All of these rights are denied to women in some parts of the world.

The Moment of Lift is the Sunday Times bestselling debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women's empowerment.

'How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.'

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down.

In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares the stories of the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world and the lessons she’s learned from them. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book – to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.”

Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention – from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world – and ourselves.

Writing with emotion, candour, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another.

When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.

* Addresses a growing interest in understanding the unique epistemological perspectives of historically silenced groups and how those perspectives might both challenge hegemonic norms and expand opportunities for belongingness. * Contributors include the leading foundational and contemporary voices on the positionality and contributions of Black women in U.S. higher education * Emphasizes Black female agency as the authors propose equity-based policies and practices that facilitate inclusion

This book sheds new light on the way that, in the last decade, digital technologies have become inextricably linked to culture, economy and politics and how they have transformed feminist and queer activism. This exciting text critically analyses the contradictions, tensions and often-paradoxical aspects that characterize such politics, both in relation to identity and to activist practice. Aristea Fotopoulou examines how activists make claims about rights online, and how they negotiate access, connectivity, openness and visibility in digital networks. Through a triple focus on embodied media practices, labour and imaginaries, and across the themes of bodily autonomy, pornography, reproduction, and queer social life, she advocates a move away from understandings of digital media technologies as intrinsically exploitative or empowering. By reinstating the media as constant material agents in the process of politicization, Fotopoulou creates a powerful text that appeals to students and scholars of digital media, gender and sexuality, and readers interested in the role of media technologies in activism.

This book gives a comprehensive overview of the ways in which the relation between German Idealism and feminist philosophy has been explored. It demonstrates the significance of German Idealism for feminist philosophy, and simultaneously brings out the relevance of feminist readings and interpretations for a critical understanding of German Idealism. Key Features: * Presents original work on the German Idealists and considers their legacy within feminist thought from different philosophical perspectives. * Incorporates perspectives from queer theory, new materialism and critical philosophy of race, and so explores German Idealism through the subversion and transformation of meanings and conceptual arrangements. * Challenges the epistemic boundaries of philosophy by engaging the thought of women contemporary with the German Idealists such as Bettina von Arnim and Karoline von Gunderrode. * Places the work of the German Idealists on gender, sexuality, marriage and family within the wider contexts of colonialism and European nation building. * Considers how several key concepts of German Idealism (such as subject, reason, enlightenment, autonomy and the sublime) have been central targets of feminist theory. * Includes a Black feminist critique of Kantian universalism. Fully reflecting the diversity that characterizes feminist thinking today, The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism and Feminist Philosophy is essential reading for scholars and graduate students of German idealism, feminist philosophy and feminist theory.

Engaging Donna Haraway: Lives in the Natureculture Web explores the impact of major theorist, Donna Haraway, in such diverse areas as feminisms, Marxism, new materialism, science studies, posthumanism, animal studies, ecocriticism, digital media, and life narrative. The book shows how Haraway's decades-long career as a major theoretical voice and provocateur of thinking about new and complex connections across technology, species, and disciplines has generated bold experiments in writing from the perspective and senses of non-human species, in photographic self-portraiture of bodily life, in animating the lives of scientists, in radical genealogy, in playful teaching methods and much more. Focusing on the ways in which Haraway's oeuvre have affected and will continue to challenge life narrative theory and practice, the chapters in this book present cross-disciplinary perspectives which are both personal and critical. As scholars, students and activists inspired by Haraway's work, these essays together ask all of us to think about where we place ourselves in an age of environmental crisis and how to live in a 'natureculture web' which is as fragile as it is beautiful. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.

First published in 1980, Lesbians, Women and Society presents an analysis of lesbianism as a phenomenon that developed from a 'personal problem' or 'individual deviance' to a social movement with political ambitions. Social lesbianism, an important concept introduced in the text, refers to the emergence of a public expression of lesbianism and is a stage in the process of establishing a lesbian group identity. It thrusts the issue into the public eye, and lends vitality to society's awareness. Two groups of 'social lesbians' are visible: those fearful of change who cling to traditional and social views, 'sick but not sorry'; and those who wish to challenge such traditional views in favour of a more public approach, 'sorry, but we're not sick.' But regardless of their relationships to the dominant sexual ideology, as a group, 'social lesbians' threaten the structure of power in society. This critical analysis thus challenges many people's views of lesbianism, and points out to the uninformed observer the complexities which are involved in the contemporary lesbian experience. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, gender studies, feminist theory, and sexuality studies.

This book explores the thought of Olive Schreiner, the internationally famous writer, feminist theorist, social critic, opponent of imperialism and nationalism, and analyst of violence and war, best known for her novels and short stories, articles and critical commentaries, and her feminist treatise, Women and Labour. Expounding her groundbreaking ideas and analyses to a new generation of sociologists, it presents Schreiner as one of the first proponents of an intersectional analysis, in her treatment of the great questions of the age - on labour, women and race - as mutually reinforcing and also bound together with capitalism, imperialism and war in society. Through an analysis of her use of different genres of writing in representing the complexities of social life and oppressions, the author reveals a combination of social theory with practical substantive examples and analysis at the core of Schreiner's intellectual and moral project - an approach that put her at odds with her contemporaries but shows her to be a forerunner of present-day sociological thinking. An examination of the significance for sociology of the work of a figure, the importance of whose thought is only now being recognised, Reintroducing Olive Schreiner will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in the history of the discipline, intersectionality and methods of research and analysis.

The Festschrift volume consists of 42 contributions by 55 authors from 13 countries. The papers, written in Catalan, English, French, Russian and Spanish, treat data from these and some other languages (Arabic, BCS [Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian], Czech, Finnish, Hebrew, Korean, Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan [Alaska], Shughni [Pamir]). They pertain to virtually all branches of "core" synchronic linguistics (with occasional excursions into diachrony, literary theory, philology and religious studies): semantics, lexicology / lexicography, syntax and morphology. Some are more theoretically minded while others are focused on pedagogical and / or computational applications of language models, particularly those of the Meaning-Text theory. The topics covered are collocations and other types of phrasemes, lexical functions, syntactic dependencies, argument structure and grammatical voice, to mention just a few.

The black women's club movement is frequently seen as definitive of "first-wave" African American feminism. However, this six-volume collection from the History of Feminism series draws together key documents that show the varied political work African American feminists were undertaking well before the turn into the 20th century. African American Feminisms brings together writings that document distinctly African American feminist organizing from as early as the late 1820s through female benevolent and literary societies, as well as writings that document African American feminist participation in black political concerns such as emigration and colonization, discrimination in public transportation, and anti-lynching. African American women also negotiated competing demands within interracial reform movements like abolition, woman's rights, temperance and suffrage, as well as within organizations like the black church, making documents that offer insight into those unique demands key to understanding black feminist arguments and rhetoric. Pursuing a varied feminist rhetoric that ranged from advocating domestic and maternal feminism to defending black womanhood, African American feminists focused on larger social reforms as well as agitating for material changes in the lives of African American women and girls. African American feminists were also keenly attuned to opening useful venues to black feminist voices, from the pulpit to the press, and urged the women that followed them to continue this work.This collection, which includes a variety of genres from the spiritual autobiography to the platform speech and the pamphlet, goes beyond the more common focus on the "greats" of black feminism to include lesser known black feminists and some unidentified women who contributed to black feminist debate on a variety of topics. African American Feminisms, edited and with an introduction by Teresa Zackodnik, is destined to be welcomed by those interested in women's studies, feminism, and African American history as an invaluable reference resource.

What does pregnancy mean when it does not lead to the birth of a child? Through personal experience via graphic novel and with a corresponding philosophical analysis, The Pregnancy Childbearing Project narrates and assesses the alternative values possible in miscarriage, a.k.a., the failed pregnancy. Having shared in both experiences - miscarriage and childbirth - solidarity among women must be possible. All pregnancies lead to a kind of 'emptying out' - a loss - whether wanted or unwanted, with or without a child. Often, after miscarriage, people say, 'just try again.' What then for the work of grief? How do you get over what you cannot get over? The kind of loss in the experience of miscarriage is not socially or culturally recognized as a kind of death. The Pregnancy Childbearing Project seeks solidarity among women who have known pregnancy independent of the politics and rhetoric of pro-life discourse, and in doing so, holds the pro-life agenda accountable for the silencing of women, arguing that alienates them from each other and their own experiences.

*Winner of the James S. Donnelly, Sr. Prize 2022* In Ireland, 2018, a constitutional ban that equated the life of a woman to the life of a fertilised embryo was overturned and abortion was finally legalised. This victory for the Irish Repeal movement set the country alight with euphoria. But, for some, the celebrations were short-lived - the new legislation turned out to be one of the most conservative in Europe. People still travel overseas for abortions and services are not yet fully commissioned in Northern Ireland. This book traces the history of the origins of the Eighth Amendment, which was drawn up in fear of a tide of liberal reforms across Europe. It draws out the lessons learned from the groundbreaking campaign in 2018, which was the culmination of a 35-year-long reproductive rights movement and an inspiring example of modern grassroots activism. It tells the story of the 'Repeal' campaign through the lens of the activists who are still fighting in a movement that is only just beginning.

What is feminist transdisciplinary research? Why is it important? How do we do it? Through 19 contributions from leading international feminist scholars, this book provides new insights into activating transdisciplinary feminist theories, methods and practices in original, creative and exciting ways - ways that make a difference both to what research is and does, and to what counts as knowledge. The contributors draw on their own original research and engage an impressive array of contemporary theorising - including new materialism, decolonialism, critical disability studies, historical analyses, Black, Indigenous and Latina Feminisms, queer feminisms, Womanist Methodologies, trans studies, arts-based research, philosophy, spirituality, science studies and sports studies - to trouble traditional conceptions of research, method and praxis. The authors show how working beyond disciplinary boundaries, and integrating insights from different disciplines to produce new knowledge, can prompt important new transdisciplinarity thinking and activism in relation to ongoing feminist concerns about knowledge, power and gender. In doing so, the book attends to the multiple lineages of feminist theory and practice and seeks to bring these historical differences and intersections into play with current changes, challenges and opportunities in feminism. The book's practically-grounded examples and wide-ranging theoretical orbit are likely to make it an invaluable resource for established scholars and emerging researchers in the social sciences, arts, humanities, education and beyond.

Originally published in 1985, this collection of essays expands the understanding of both health itself and the ways in which women may experience their roles as consumers and providers of health care. The authors represent a number of disciplines - anthropology, sociology and political science - and examine issues of public concern on both sides of the Atlantic. Many important health questions are discussed, including the increasing use of high technology methods on obstetrical care, HRT, the treatment of frail elderly women, occupational health, health issues of sport and fitness, and health care systems of the UK, US and Canada as they relate to women in various social circumstances.

1. This is still the leading book on the market offering an introductory overview of Queer Criminology. The new edition has been fully updated to include new development in theory and research and offers further coverage of international issues and a new chapter on intersectionality. 2. This book is useful supplementary reading for courses on gender and crime, law and sexuality, multiculturalism and criminal justice and diversity and criminal justice and can also be used as a core text on the growing number of courses covering Queer Criminology. 3. The original edition was winner of the 2016 Book Award from the American Society of Criminology, Division of Critical Criminology.

Critical Poetics of Feminist Refusals renders a vivid portrait of the intergenerational and intersectional dialogue between influential feminist writers on how to say no to the conditions of oppression, exclusion, and exploitation imposed by patriarchal and systemically racist capitalist societies. The book provides today's readers and writers access to the powerful inventory of concepts and techniques that two generations of feminists have assembled for refusing domination and constituting fugitive forms of sociability and writing. Drawing on examples from feminist thinkers, Audre Lorde, Carla Lonzi, Helene Cixous, Hortense Spillers, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Anne Boyer and Simone White, the book focuses on how the power dynamics of recognition tie the uses of language to the material conditions of discrimination in everyday life.

This book is based on rich empirical data and findings concerning the lives, perceptions and ambitions of young middle-class female graduates, thus providing essential insights into the lives and viewpoints of a previously unresearched group in China from a feminist scholarly perspective. The study shows how the lives of young women and debates over youthful femininity lie at the very heart of modern Chinese history and society. With a central focus on women's issues, the book's ultimate goal is to enable Western readers to better understand the changing ideologies and the overall social domain of China under the leadership of President Xi. The empirical data presented includes interviews and group discussions, as well as illustrations, tables and images collected during a prolonged period of fieldwork. The insights shared here will facilitate cross-cultural communication with both Western feminist academics and readers who are sensitive to different cultures.

Simone de Beauvoir made her own distinctive contribution to existentialism in the form of an ethics which diverged sharply from that of Jean-Paul Sartre. In her novels and philosophical essays of the 1940s she produced not just a recognizably existentialist ethics, but also a character ethics and an ethics for violence. These concerns, stemming from her own personal philosophical background, give a vital, contemporary resonance to her work. De Beauvoir's feminist classic The Second Sex reflects her earlier philosophical interests, and is considerably strengthened by this influence. This book defends her existentialist feminism against the many reproaches which have been levelled against it over several decades, not least the criticism that it is steeped in Sartrean masculinism.

First comprehensive treatment of recently emerging anti-feminist, sexist and misogynistic movements Examines their ideologies and activities, as well as their links to the established far right Sheds new light on violently misogynistic online communities that have inspired 'Incel' terrorism against women

Sojourner Truth and Intersectionality investigates how the story of the 19th-century abolitionist and women's rights advocate Sojourner Truth has come to be an iconic feminist story, and explores the continued relevance of this story for contemporary feminist debates in general, and intersectionality scholarship in particular. Tracing various academic reception histories of the story of Sojourner Truth and the famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, the book gives insight into how this story has been taken up by feminist scholars in different times, places, and political contexts. Exploring in particular how and why the story of Sojourner Truth has become a key reference for the theoretical and political framework of intersectionality, the book examines what the consequences of this connection are both for how intersectionality is understood today, and how the story of Sojourner Truth is approached. The book examines key intersecting dimensions within the story of Truth and its reception, including gender, race, class and religion. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in gender, women's and feminist studies. In particular, the book will be of interest to those wishing to learn more about intersectionality and Sojourner Truth.

Caring for Liberalism brings together chapters that explore how liberal political theory, in its many guises, might be modified or transformed to take the fact of dependency on board. In addressing the place of care in liberalism, this collection advances the idea that care ethics can help respond to legitimate criticisms from feminists who argue that liberalism ignores issues of race, class, and ethnicity. The chapters do not simply add care to existing liberal political frameworks; rather, they explore how integrating dependency might leave core components of the traditional liberal philosophical apparatus intact, while transforming other aspects of it. Additionally, the contributors address the design of social and political institutions through which care is given and received, with special attention paid to non-Western care practices. This book will appeal to scholars working on liberalism in philosophy, political science, law, and public policy, and it is a must-read for feminist political philosophers.

Until today, Western, European sociology contributes to the social reality of colonial modernity, and gender knowledge is a paradigmatic example of it. Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology, and Plural Modernities critically engages with these 'Western eyes' and shifts the focus towards the global variety of gendered socialities and hierarchically entangled social histories. This is conceptualised as multiple gender cultures within plural modernities. The authors examine the multifaceted realities of gendered life in varying contexts across the globe. Bringing together different perspectives, the volume provides a rereading of the social fabric of gender in contrast to androcentrist-modernist as well as orientalist representations of 'the' gendered Other. The key questions explored by this volume are: which social mechanisms lead to conflicting or shifting gender dynamics against the backdrop of global entanglements and interdependencies, and to what extent are neocolonial gender regimes at work in this regard? How are varying gender cultures sociohistorically and culturally structured, and how are they connected within (global) power relations? How can established hierarchies and asymmetries become an object of criticism? How can historical, cultural, social, and political specificities be analysed without gendered and other reifications? That way, the volume aims to promote border thinking in sociological understanding of social reality towards multiple gender cultures and plural modernities.