The past century witnessed dramatic changes in the lives of modern Chinese women and gender politics. Whilst some revolutionary actions to rectify the feudalist patriarchy, such as foot-binding and polygyny were first seen in the late Qing period; the termination of the Qing Dynasty and establishment of Republican China in 1911-1912 initiated truly nation-wide constitutional reform alongside increasing gender egalitarianism. This book traces the radical changes in gender politics in China, and the way in which the lives, roles and status of Chinese women have been transformed over the last one hundred years. In doing so, it highlights three distinctive areas of development for modern Chinese women and gender politics: first, women's equal rights, freedom, careers, and images about their modernized femininity; second, Chinese women's overseas experiences and accomplishments; and third, advances in Chinese gender politics of non-heterosexuality and same-sex concerns. This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on film, history, literature, and personal experience. As such, it will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, women's studies, gender studies and gender politics.

Since the early 1990s, evolutionary psychology has produced widely popular visions of modern men and women as driven by their prehistoric genes. In Gender, Sexuality and Reproduction in Evolutionary Narratives, Venla Oikkonen explores the rhetorical appeal of evolutionary psychology by viewing it as part of the Darwinian narrative tradition. Refusing to start from the position of dismissing evolutionary psychology as reactionary or scientifically invalid, the book examines evolutionary psychologists' investments in such contested concepts as teleology and variation. The book traces the emergence of evolutionary psychological narratives of gender, sexuality and reproduction, encompassing: Charles Darwin's understanding of transformation and sexual difference Edward O. Wilson's evolutionary mythology and the evolution-creationism controversy Richard Dawkins' molecular agency and new imaging technologies the connections between adultery, infertility and homosexuality in adaptationist thought. Through popular, literary and scientific texts, the book identifies both the imaginative potential and the structural weaknesses in evolutionary narratives, opening them up for feminist and queer revision. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the humanities and social sciences, particularly in gender studies, cultural studies, literature, sexualities, and science and technology studies.

Fixing Patriarchy: Feminism and Mid-Victorian Male Novelists explores representations of monstrous women in mid-Victorian literature, tracing anxious male responses to the feminist movement of the era. It argues that Victorian patriarchy was a fluid theory and set of practices through which Victorian men attempted unsuccessfully to fix gender definitions and their own positions of power. In Victorian novels written by men, the thorough instability of contemporary conceptions of both masculinity and femininity is revealed, as an entire society struggled with new forms of self-awareness and new threats to traditional social structures and systems of belief.

Addressing the contradictions surrounding modern-day femininity and its complicated relationship with feminism and postfeminism, this book examines a range of popular female and feminist icons and paradigms. It offers an innovative and forward-looking perspective on femininity and the modern female self.

This book combines the insights of enlightenment thinking and feminist theory to explore the significance of love in modern philosophy. The author argues for the importance of emotion in general, and love in particular, to moral and political philosophy, pointing out that some of the central philosophers of the enlightment were committed to a moralized conception of love. However, she believes that feminism's insights arise not from its attribution of special and distinctive qualities to women, but from its recognition of human vulernability.

In this collection, continental and diasporan African women interrogate the concept "sacred text" and analyze ways oral and written religious "texts" intersect with violence against African-descended women and girls. While the sanctioned idea of a sacred text is written literature, this project interrupts that conception by drawing attention to speech and other embodied practices that have sacral authority within the social imaginary. As a volume focused on religion and violence, essays in this collection analyze religions' authorization of violence against women and girls; contest the legitimacy of some religious "texts"; and affirm other writing, especially memoir, as redemptive. Unraveling and Reweaving Sacred Canon in Africana Womanhood arises from three years of conversation of continental and diasporan women, most recently continued in the July 6-10, 2014 Consultation of African and African Disaporan Women in Religion and Theology and privileges experiences and contexts of continental and diasporan African women and girls. Interlocutors include African traditionalists, Christian Protestants and Catholics, Muslims, and women embodying hybrid practices of these and other traditions.

Empowered women empower women! This small but mighty book - bursting with kick-ass quotes and uplifting statements - is a celebration of female strength and solidarity. There's nothing more powerful than a strong woman - except for two strong women supporting each other! When girls stick together, amazing things can happen, and this little book is here to make sure you never forget it. Whether you need a boost to help you follow your dreams, or you want to lift up the women around you, this book is in your corner. It's filled with inspiring quotes and affirmations to put a spring in your step and fire in your heart. Featuring a groovy design to lift your vibe Includes awesome affirmations to help you feel like a badass Serves up fearless feminist wisdom to keep you focused on your goals 160 pages of empowerment, with quotes from a diverse range of inspirational women, from Taylor Swift to Audre Lorde

Over the last thirty years, feminist, postcolonial and queer theorists have interrogated the ways in which sexuality is conceptualized and constructed, specifically with the intention of deconstructing essentialist notions of sexuality and identity formation. Yet, while recent theoretical interventions have re-situated sexuality as a historical and social category--allowing us to see how ideas about sexuality are linked to forms of power and other hegemonic categories of identity and subjectivity like class, race, gender and nationality--sexuality remains a contentious subject. In critically examining the plural representations of sexuality in contemporary literature, this book has a distinctly global emphasis, containing essays that interrogate sexuality in the work of not only a number of mainstream American and British writers but also less well-known writers from New Zealand and Canada. All of the chapters owe primary intellectual and theoretical debts to three broad and overlapping domains of critical scholarship and practice: feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies. As the first critical collection of essays to consider the representation of sexuality across such a wide variety of contemporary writing, Sexuality and Contemporary Literature analytically foregrounds insights into the historical and current arrangements of sexuality that contemporary literature provides, while also inviting the reader to imagine other possibilities for the future that literary texts open up. Sexuality and Contemporary Literature is an important book for literary and cultural studies collections.

Although Hegel and feminism seem an unlikely couple, Hegelian philosophy played a prominent part in the thinking of groundbreaking feminist philosophers from Simone de Beauvoir to Luce Irigaray. This book offers a new generation of feminist readings of Hegel from leading scholars in the both fields. Through close readings and innovative arguments, this book makes a significant contribution to the debate on gender and provides insight into philosophical method.

This timely book provides new insights into debates around the relationship between women and film by drawing on the work of philosopher Luce Irigaray. Arguing that female-directed cinema provides new ways to explore ideas of representation and spectatorship, it also examines the importance of contexts of production, direction and reception.

Yeltsin is certainly not the Sakharov of the Democratic Movement. Russian people sarcastically call his burning the Parliament an October Revolution of 1993. In "Women's Glasnost vs. Naglost "we finally hear the voices of the Russian women on what it means to be female and Russian in the tumultuous climate that is modern Russia. The founder of the Russian women's movement, Tatyana Mamonova was the first Russian woman exiled from the Soviet Union for publishing the underground samizdat, Woman and Russia. Now lauded as the Simone de Beauvoir of Russia, Mamonova has interviewed 17 Russian women on the subject of the C.A.S. as it relates to glasnost. Women from all walks of life are asked about changes with respect to their roles and expectations as women. Artists, professionals, dissidents, lesbians, doctors, writers, and civil servants tell their stories in candid terms showing that there is still a long road ahead. Revisions and elaborations of speeches delivered on Mamonova's American tours, poetry in her own hand, and line drawings in her own eloquent and prolific style compliment her essays and the women's interviews.

This work provides a broad survey of the development of female insurgency in France between 1789 and 1871, placing particular emphasis on the conflicts of 1830-1851. The author demonstrates that a tradition of women's protest evolved from the 1789 Revolution, assuming particular forms associated with the exclusion of females from political and civil rights, and inviting both praise and vilification. The conclusions challenge the view that in 19th-century France, women retreated altogether from popular movements.

The history of the housewife is a complicated and uneasy narrative, rife with contradictions, tensions, and unanswered questions. In response to this, Sentenced to Everyday Life marks an important cross-generational moment in feminism. Challenging our previous understandings of what constitutes the housewife figure, this book tugs at a critical issue still unresolved in the contemporary world: what is the relationship between women and the home? And why are women so reluctant to call themselves housewives? Drawing on research and evidence surrounding the housewife figure of the 1940s and 1950s, Johnson and Lloyd address the question of why the housewife has been such a problematic figure in feminist debates since World War II. Starting with an exploration of why the housewife of the 1940s became associated with drudgery, this book covers such topics as the ways in which magazines and advertising attempted to articulate an innate connection between women and the domestic sphere, while later films of the 1950s explored the constantly shifting boundaries between social, family and individual desires and constraints for women in the home. Johnson and Lloyd also examine how the home has been a site of boredom, and what happens to the balance between work and family in the modern world. In moving into contemporary debates, the authors explore the uneasy tension between the construction of the modern self and women's efforts to transcend the domestic sphere. By situating their examination in a still unresolved contemporary topic, Johnson and Lloyd offer us both a backward glance and a forward-looking perspective into domesticity and the modern self.

This is an original, full length biography of Britain's first twentieth-century black feminist - Una Marson - poet, playwright, and social activist and BBC broadcaster. Una Marson is recognised today as the first major woman poet of the Caribbean and as a significant forerunner of contemporary black writers; her story throws light on the problems facing politicised black artists. In challenging definitions of 'race' and 'gender' in her political and creative work, she forged a valiant path for later black feminists. Her enormous social and cultural contributions to the Caribbean and Britain have, until now, remained hidden in archives and memoirs around the world. Based on extensive research and oral testimony, this biography embraces postcolonial realities and promise, and is a major contribution to British cultural history. -- .

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850 - 1928), who spent most of her life at Newnham College, Cambridge, was renowned for her work on Greek art and religion. In her application of anthropology to classical studies, she stirred up controversy amongst her academic colleagues, while, at the same time, influencing many writers, including Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. Despite many difficulties, both academic and personal, her brilliant mind and strength of character enabled her to open up new possibilities for academic women.

Women's increased role in the labour market has combined with concerns about the damaging effects of long working hours to push time-related issues up the policy agenda in many Western nations. This wide-ranging and accessible book assesses policy alternatives in the light of feminist theory and factual evidence. The book introduces mainstream ideas on the nature and political significance of time and re-frames them from a feminist perspective. It uses feminist analyses of women's experience and use of time to provide a critical overview of policies in Western welfare states. Themes covered include the impact of 'time poverty' on women's citizenship; gender differences in time use and how these are rewarded; the social meanings of time and whether these differ between women and men; and the role of the past in framing policy options today. The book also explores: the significance of differences amongst women; the interconnected nature of public and private time; the value of time spent caring for others; the right to time for care; and, the uses and limitations of time-use studies. The book is essential reading for all those interested in gender inequality, time-use or work/rest-of-life balance. It will be an invaluable resource for students and academics throughout the social sciences.

Silence, Feminism, Power: Reflections at the Edges of Sound interrogates the often-unexamined assumption that silence is oppressive, to consider the multiple possibilities silence enables. The equation between voice and power informs feminist theory and activism, creating an imperative that the oppressed must 'come to voice.' Alternately, this volume explores the diverse and complex ways that differently situated groups and individuals deploy power through silence. Authors engage questions like: What forms of resistance and healing do silence make possible? What alliances might be enabled by learning to read silences? Under what conditions is it productive to move between voice and silence? The book is thematically organized to explore: Intersectionality, Privilege, and Alliances; Academia and Knowledge Production; Community, Family, and Intimacy; Memory, Healing, and Power. Essays feature diverse feminist reflections on the nuanced relationship between silence and voice to foreground the creative, healing, meditative, generative and resistive power our silences engender.

This study of feminism, equity and change in the academy is based on interviews with 40 feminist academics and students in Britain, Sweden and Greece. The research attempts to decode and disentangle gendered message systems and the matrix of power relations in the academy. It consists of feminist readings of the micro processes of everyday practices. Change is interrogated in relation to feminist pedagogy, equity, organizational culture, policies and discourses of new right reform, mass expansion and new managerialism. This work is intended for departments of sociology, women's studies, education, organization studies, management studies, equal opportunities, and employment studies.

The 1840s, 50s, and 60s: three decades during which the British feminist movement saw some of its most intense activity of the nineteenth-century, and readers find some of the most monstrous, troubling representations of women by male writers in all of literary history. In Fixing Patriarchy, Donald E. Hall suggests that feminism at mid-century posed intertwined social, economic, political and psychological threats to patriarchy. Hall explores the metamorphic nature of Victorian definitions of masculinity and femininity through an analysis of male authors such as Dickens, Tennyson, Kingsley, Thackeray, Hughes, Collins, and Trollope in dialogue with Victorian feminists and other women writers.

Synthesizing historical research with pertinent queer, feminist, post-structuralist, and materialist theories, Hall locates both startling admissions of moral fallibility and violent strategies of retrenchment and containment of this perceived threat to the male social body. Fixing Patriarchytraces parallels among Victorian discourses of religion, science, economics, and aesthetics, as it explores a cultural dynamic of un-fixedness and heightened desires for fixity.

Browse the Table of Contents

Read a Sample Chapter

Visit Paula Kamen's website at http: //www.paulakamen.com

"It's about time! Read this book."
"--Shere Hite, The Hite Report"

"With intelligence and flair, Gen-X feminist, journalist and playwright Kamen (Feminist Fatale) presents an exhaustive study of the sexual mores of the women in her generation. . . . Critical yet nonjudgmental, Kamen's lively book is a welcome primer on contemporary sexual ethics. . . . It's sure to be a hit among feminists of all ages even while it raises eyebrows in other camps."
"--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY"

"a]at times startling and at the very least amusinga]reading it is an education. And now we know at least some of what educated women stand to gain."
"--The New York Times Book Review"

"A refreshing surveya]Offers lucid analyses of the changing content and understanding of sex."
"-- The Chicago Tribune"

"At last, the torch has been passed! Paula Kamen follows women's struggle for sexual pleasure and self-affirmation into a new generation - and finds it healthier and more vibrant than ever. Young women will be fascinated by Her Way. Older ones will be amazed."
"--Barbara Ehrenreich"

"At last, a book about young women's sexual behavior that's actually written by a young woman! Paula Kamen documents women's sexual truths without judgment and-more important-without all the wrongheaded, double-standard-laden assumptions that all too often plague writing on this topic. Kamen brings the focus back where it should be: on women's own views, rather than others' views of them."
"--Lisa Miya-Jervis, Bitch Magazine"

"A bold new look at female sexuality in America today. Based onyears of meticulous research, Paula Kamen has produced a fascinating, important study of how young women are redefining their roles and relationships in a post-boomer world."
"--Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking"

"Lively and entertaining, honoring the intimate voices of a diversity of women, Her Way is an authoritative study of our long slow journey toward sexual autonomy. Kamen is a savvy third wave feminist who has done her homework. The book is a link between generations, and a major stepping stone toward fuller liberation. This is feminism for the 21st century!"
"--Barbara Seaman, coeditor of For Women Only: Our Guide to Health Empowerment"

"Intellectual, political, and compassionate, Her Way shows that the freedom to live and love by our own standards-with men on our good side-is the way toward the social change that, truly, begins in our social lives."
"--Lynn Harris, author of Breakup Girl to the Rescue! A Superhero's Guide to Love, and Lack Thereof"

"Gives women cause to celebrate! Her Way shows how, for perhaps the first time in history, a generation of young women is truly defining sex on its own terms. Her nuanced analysis of this quiet but undeniable trend is optimistic while not shying away from the problems that remain, including the inertia of a mainstream popular culture that insists on portraying women as sexy rather than as sexual beings in their own right."
"--Lisa Douglass, coauthor of Are We Having Fun Yet? The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Sex"

"Chronicles the complex ways young women understand and experience sexuality today. In this collection, Kamen draws on interviews, reports, and studies to weave an analysis of how Gen-X womendefine and adopt sex roles and gendered responses to an increasingly sexualized world. . . . Kamen concludes, rather convincingly, that young women are finally beginning to make their own rules, instead of blindly obeying those made by others and, as a result, are leading more fulfilling lives."
"--MS. MAGAZINE"

"If women's sexual mores become more like men's, is that progress? Paula Kamen seems to think so, based on HER WAY. . . . Kamen backs her assertions with a panoramic breadth of scholarship-pretty much every major piece of sex research for the last hundred years shows up in HER WAY, including some fascinating surveys of women born in the nineteenth century."
"--NERVE"

"Lively and entertaining, honoring the intimate voices of a diversity of women, Her Way is an authoritative study of our long slow journey toward sexual autonomy. Kamen is a savvy third wave feminist who has done her homework. The book is a link between generations, and a major stepping stone toward fuller liberation. This is feminism for the 21st century!"
--Barbara Seaman, Co-editor of "For Women Only: Our Guide to Health Empowerment"

"The next time you're having an argument with some asshole over the fact that women can have just as high a sex drive and the same ability to know their desires as men, just pull out this book. . . . It's a great book to help you get an overall feeling for the sexual attitudes of chicks these days. . . . a must-have for any feminist home."
"--BUST"

Three decades after the Sexual Revolution, women's power and status have begun to match men's, and women are finally making the rules in order to experience a more radical and truer form of liberation.

Her Waydemonstrates how and why 20- and 30-something women have evolved to act and think more like men sexually, while also creating their own distinct sexual patterns and appetites. Today's young women are now the leaders of an unreported but sweeping "Sexual Evolution," in which women take control of sex and redefine it from their perspective. In other words, do it "her way."

Paula Kamen characterizes this Sexual Evolution according to two major developments that are setting sexual patterns for future generations of women: young women's sexual profiles are now remarkably similar to those of men, in terms of age of first intercourse, and numbers of sex partners and casual encounters. They also feel less guilt or shame about their behavior, from premarital sex to having a child out of marriage to coming out of the closet to cohabiting.

Yet young women are not merely imitating men, but forging their own distinct sexual perspectives and asserting their own needs. In addition to discovering the pleasures of sex, young women are also exploring the dilemmas, challenging male-defined sexual scripts, and changing what actually goes on in bed.

Based on more than one hundred lively, unfiltered and in-depth interviews with women across the country, Her Way cuts through the sensationalism and speculation of popular discussions about young women and sex. Kamen reports the real story of today's enhanced sexual expectations and choices.

This is a new edition of Laura Mulvey's groundbreaking collection of essays, originally published in 1989. in an extensive introduction to this second edition, Mulvey looks back at the historical and personal contests for her famous article "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, "and reassesses her theories in the light of new technologies.

'A crucial book for feminists, for sociology and the new "political anthropological historical school". It informs us how we are differently "situated" in and through social relations, which texts and images mediate, organise and construct.' Philip Corrigan, Professor of Applied Sociology, Exeter University Dorothy E. Smith is Professor of Sociology in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. She is the author of The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology.

This impressive and original study is one of the first books to combine mainstream sociology with feminism in exploring the subject of the professions and power. This is an important addition to the corpus of feminist scholarship... It provides fresh insights into the way in which male power has been used to limit the employment aspirations of women in the middle classes. - Rosemary Crompton, University of Kent