In the wake of the violent labor disputes in Colorado's two-year Coalfield War, a young woman and single mother resolved in 1916 to change the status quo for 'girls,' as well-to-do women in Denver referred to their hired help. Her name was Jane Street, and this compelling biography is the first to chronicle her defiant efforts - and devastating misfortunes - as a leader of the so-called housemaid rebellion. A native of Indiana, Jane Street (1887 - 1966) began her activist endeavors as an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In riveting detail, author Jane Little Botkin recounts Street's attempts to orchestrate a domestic mutiny against Denver's elitist Capitol Hill women, including wives of the state's national guard officers and Colorado Fuel and Iron operators. It did not take long for the housemaid rebellion to make local and national news. Despite the IWW's initial support of the housemaids' fight for fairness and better pay, Street soon found herself engaged in a gender war, the target of sexism within the very organization she worked so hard to support. The abuses she suffered ranged from sabotage and betrayal to arrests and abandonment. After the United States entered World War I and the first Red Scare arose, Street's battle to balance motherhood and labor organizing began to take its toll. Legal troubles, broken relationships, and poverty threatened her very existence. In previous western labor and women's studies accounts, Jane Street has figured only marginally, credited in passing as the founder of a housemaids' union. To unearth the rich detail of her story, Botkin has combed through case histories, family archives, and - perhaps most significant - Street's own writings, which express her greatest joys, her deepest sorrows, and her unfortunate dealings with systematic injustice. Setting Jane's story within the wider context of early-twentieth-century class struggles and the women's suffrage movement, The Girl Who Dared to Defy paints a fascinating - and ultimately heartbreaking - portrait of one woman's courageous fight for equality.

One of the most famous novelists in the English literary canon, the likes of Middlemarch and Silas Marner are household names, but Eliot's essays are often overlooked. This collection brings together some of her most important essays and seeks to celebrate her non-fiction writing. In 'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists' Eliot states a desire - some few years before her best-known works - to turn her hand to novel-writing, and decries the trivial nature of contemporary writers, setting out a manifesto for good writing. In 'Woman in France' she considers the history of women's writing, and the complications women face in order to write - something Eliot knew much about herself, adopting a male name to publish the work she did not publish anonymously. Taken together, this collection gives a rare and valuable insight into the author's writing, and shines a light on her pioneering subtle form of feminism.

Women and Entrepreneurship is a careful selection of the most significant previously published material which has been influential in shaping the field of women's entrepreneurship. The volume presents early works which laid the foundations first asking whether women entrepreneurs were different, exploring issues about women entrepreneurs and their businesses and delving into more specific questions on individual, organizational, and environmental matters. An organizing framework connects the works from theory to the conceptual categories of human capital, including personal cognition and goals, social capital, financial capital, strategic choice, performance, outcomes and environment. The volume provides a comprehensive introduction for any researcher entering this field of study and illustrates those areas where additional research is greatly needed.

Global Women Leaders transports the reader into the fascinating lives of trailblazers in four very different countries. All were change-makers in their professions, and all of them confronted the challenges women everywhere will recognize as their own. How they succeeded, despite roadblocks, is both inspiring and instructive. Each gives us sound advice on a range of familiar hurdles from those associated with work and family to lack of confidence and sexism. If you want to know how to achieve authentic leadership, this is the book for you.' - Melanne Verveer, Georgetown University, US Global Women Leaders showcases narratives of women in business, nonprofit organizations and the public sector who have achieved leadership positions despite cultural obstacles and gender bias. Featuring leaders from India, Japan, Jordan and the United Kingdom, the book examines how these women have overcome challenges and served as role models in their professions. Regina Wentzel Wolfe and Patricia H. Werhane present stories of these women leaders within their unique cultural contexts. Standout features include models of feminist leadership behaviors and interrogations of the dominant paradigm of male leadership. Challenges for women in the workplace, systems thinking and various female leadership styles are also explored. The successes of the leaders featured in this book will be of interest to those in public, private and nonprofit sector organizations as well as academics and students teaching and studying feminist leadership, MBA students and entrepreneurs.

Although women constitute half of the world's population, their participation in the political sphere remains problematic. While existing research on women politicians from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada sheds light on the challenges and opportunities they face, we still have a very limited understanding of women's political participation in emerging democracies. "Women in Politics and Media: Perspectives From Nations in Transition" is the first collection to de-Westernize the scholarship on women, politics and media by: 1) highlighting the latest research on countries and regions that have not been 'the usual suspects'; 2) featuring a diverse group of scholars, many of non-Western origin; 3) giving voice through personal interviews to politically active women, thus providing the reader with a rare insight into women's agency in the political structures of emerging democracies. Each chapter examines the complex women, politics and media dynamic in a particular nation-state, taking into consideration the specific political, historic and social context. With 23 case studies and interviews from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, this volume will be of interest to students, media scholars and policy makers from developed and emerging democracies.

This book examines persistent gender inequality in higher education, and asks what is preventing change from occurring. The editors and contributors argue that organizational resistance to gender equality is the key explanation; reflected in the endorsement of discourses such as excellence, choice, distorted intersectionality, revitalized biological essentialism and gender neutrality. These discourses implicitly and explicitly depict the status quo as appropriate, reasonable and fair: ultimately impeding efforts and attempts to promote gender equality. Drawing on research from around the world, this book explores the limits and possibilities of challenging these harmful discourses, focusing on the state and universities themselves as levers for change. It stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women's deceptively 'small victories' in the academy.

This collection of essays presents a sampling of film and television texts, interrogating images of U.S. masculinity. Rather than using "postfeminist" as a definition of contemporary feminism, this collection uses the term to designate the period from the late 1980s on-as a point when feminist thought gradually became more mainstream. The movies and TV series examined here have achieved a level of sustained attention, from critical acclaim, to mass appeal, to cult status. Instead of beginning with a set hypothesis on the effect of the feminist movement on images of masculinity on film and television, these chapters represent a range of responses, that demonstrate how the conversations within these texts about American masculinity are often open-ended, allowing both male characters and male viewers a wider range of options. Defining the relationship between U.S. masculinity and American feminist movements of the twentieth century is a complex undertaking. The essays collected for this volume engage prominent film and television texts that directly interrogate images of U.S. masculinity that have appeared since second-wave feminism. The contributors have chosen textual examples whose protagonists actively struggle with the conflicting messages about masculinity. These protagonists are more often works-in-progress, acknowledging the limits of their negotiations and self-actualization. These chapters also cover a wide range of genres and decades: from action and fantasy to dramas and romantic comedy, from the late 1970s to today. Taken together, the chapters of Screening Images of American Masculinity in the Age of Postfeminism interrogate "the possible" screened in popular movies and television series, confronting the multiple and competing visions of masculinity not after or beyond feminism but, rather, in its very wake.

Benigna Preziosi Mazzarella led a life that seemed the epitome of ordinariness, except that it also embodied a perfect storm for longevity: amazing genes, adherence to a Mediterranean diet, and almost compulsive physical activity. Benigna imbued her days with an energy all her own. Even more remarkable, she lived to be over one hundred and seven years old.

David Mazzarella, a journalist and the son of Benigna, shares a cooking, eating, and lifestyle guide based on his mother's philosophies that a lifetime of hard work was not bad, that laughter was even better, and that the only enemy in her life was fat. Known as a wizard in the kitchen, Benigna possessed uncharacteristic dislikes for a lady who exclusively cooked Italian food-she had little use for garlic, oregano, unpeeled tomatoes, wine, and the insides of bread. Mazzarella offers a glimpse into a typical day in his mother's kitchen along with the recipes of her most sought-after dishes, including one made with a mysterious herb.

"Always Eat the Hard Crust of the Bread" shares a wonderful tribute to a tough matriarch and inspiring cook through entertaining anecdotes, personal foibles, unforgettable sayings, and practical recipes that share one woman's secret of how to live a long and happy life.

"A delightful tribute to a long-lived mother and some quirky family members with dozens of Mama's unique recipes, including one made with an obscure herb that few know how to use."
-Gwen Romagnoli, co-author of "Italy the Romagnoli Way: A Culinary Journey"

Challenging Images of Women and the Media: Reinventing Women's Lives, edited by Theresa Carilli and Jane Campbell, collects fifteen articles addressing the status of women through an examination of depictions of women in the media. This in-depth study shows how mixed messages from the media muddle attempts at breaking the "glass screen," causing women to constantly question their role in global culture. With cake ads followed by diet commercials, the media's depiction of women is both confusing and contradictory. While more and more women have begun to contribute to the media as respected anchors, talk show hosts, and commentators, these portrayals are often counteracted by music videos and reality television shows such as Jersey Shore. This collection seeks to analyze these depictions and their effects on women and culture. The contributors to this anthology hail from such diverse locations as Japan, Australia, Pakistan, India, China, Bulgaria, and the United States. With this global focus, Challenging Images of Women in the Media scrutinizes issues of race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality through a study of gendered media portrayals. By challenging the status quo of media images, the contributors to this essential volume invite a dialogue about women's lives.

Misconceptions regarding gender identity and issues of inequality that women around the world face have become a predominant concern for not only the citizens impacted, but global political leaders, administrators, and human rights activists. Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis explores how an analysis of language use in the South Asian region exposes issues related to gender identity, representation, and equality. Emphasizing emerging research and case studies focusing on the concept of gender in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Nepal, this publication is an essential resource for social theorists, activists, linguists, media professionals, researchers, and graduate-level students.

"Standing Our Ground: Women, Environmental Justice, and the Fight to End Mountaintop Removal" examines women's efforts to end mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. Mountaintop removal coal mining, which involves demolishing the tops of hills and mountains to provide access to coal seams, is one of the most significant environmental threats in Appalachia, where it is most commonly practiced.
The Appalachian women featured in Barry's book have firsthand experience with the negative impacts of Big Coal in West Virginia. Through their work in organizations such as the Coal River Mountain Watch and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, they fight to save their mountain communities by promoting the development of alternative energy resources. Barry's engaging and original work reveals how women's tireless organizing efforts have made mountaintop removal a global political and environmental issue and laid the groundwork for a robust environmental justice movement in central Appalachia.

Drawing on a lifetime of experiences, author Julie McCulloch Burton shares a compilation of short stories and vignettes that reflect her self-deprecating sense of humor and her positive outlook on life, turning ordinary moments into meaningful lessons.

Including personal photographs of a wide range of subjects-food, flowers, animals, people, landscapes, seasons, studies in lines, and studies in water movement-Mediocre also presents a varied collection of writings, many of which originated as e-mails to family and friends. Burton offers narratives relaying the realities and absurdities of humorous, everyday situations; accounts of what it's like to live with multiple sclerosis; favorite family recipes; philosophical thoughts; poetry; and reflections on moments in life when you wish you had thought things through just a little bit more.

In "Mediocre," Burton provides enlightenment about an ailment that does not define her, entertains with the humor that does, and teaches that the object of this game is not only to do your best on your best day, but also to do your best on your worst day.