Becoming Men is the story of 32 boys from Alexandra, one of Johannesburg's largest townships, over a period of twelve seminal years in which they negotiate manhood and masculinity. Psychologist and academic Malose Langa documents in close detail what it means to be a young black man in contemporary South Africa.

The boys discuss a range of topics including the impact of absent fathers, relationships with mothers, siblings and girls, school violence, academic performance, homophobia, gangsterism, unemployment and, in one case, prison life. Deep ambivalence, self-doubt and hesitation emerge in their approach to alternative masculinities premised on non-violent, non-sexist and non-risk-taking behaviour. Many of the boys appear simultaneously to comply with and oppose the prevalent norms, thereby exposing the difficulties of negotiating the multiple voices of masculinity.

Providing a rich interpretation of how emotional processes affect black adolescent males, Langa suggests interventions and services to support and assist them, especially in reducing high-risk behaviours generally associated with hegemonic masculinity. This is essential reading for students, researchers and scholars of gender studies who wish to understand manhood and masculinity in South Africa. Psychologists, youth workers, lay counsellors and teachers who work with adolescent boys will also find it invaluable.

The founder of the first female-focused recovery program offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety.

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.

Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.

Jewish Women who rock. Stories that inspire. Illustrations that pop.

If you loved the bestselling Goodnight stories for Rebel Girls series, you will love Goodnight Golda!

Here are 32 Jewish women who have shaped Jewish history and the Jewish mindset. Some use their wits, other their looks, some their talent, others their perspective. They are the trailblazers, achievers, visionaries and preservers of faith that have shaped our reality, and on whose shoulders we, as young (and not so young) 21st Century Jewish (and other) women, stand.

The women featured range from biblical (Yael and Ester) and history-makers (Anne Frank and Hannah Senesh) to contemporary voices (like Sivan Yaári and Donna Karan) and visionary/activists (like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sarah Schenirer), and hail from across the world - from Portugal to USA, UK to Poland, Israel to South Africa, Ethiopia to Canada.

Each heroine has a short biography and entertaining story on how they changed their world and ours. Each heroine has her own gorgeous illustration – contemporary, vivid and fun. This is a book for the future heroines of the Jewish people, and beyond.

Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material.

Renegades: Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to their country's polarized politics and the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders - one Black and one white - looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.

It includes:

• Original introductions by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen
• Exclusive new material from the Renegades podcast recording sessions
• Obama's never-before-seen annotated speeches, including his "Remarks at the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery Marches
• Springsteen's handwritten lyrics for songs spanning his 50-year-long career
• Rare and exclusive photographs from the authors' personal archives
• Historical photographs and documents that provide rich visual context for their conversation.

Obama and Springsteen discuss marriage and fatherhood, race and masculinity, the lure of the open road and the call back to home. They also compare notes on their favourite protest songs, the most inspiring American heroes of all time, and more. Along the way, they reveal their passion for - and the occasional toll of - telling a bigger, truer story about America throughout their careers, and explore how their fractured country might begin to find its way back toward unity.

In a world where misinformation distorts the essence of manhood and societal expectations push men into emotional incarceration, bestselling author and founder of the Cave of Adullam, Jason Wilson, offers a path to freedom.

The Man the Moment Demands will empower you to become the right man in every moment by embodying the ten characteristics of the comprehensive man: the Fighter, the Provider, the Leader, the Lover, the Nurturer, the Gentleman, the Friend, the Husband, the Father, and the Son. With The Man the Moment Demands you'll learn how to:

• unpack the impact of your past and unlock the power to shape your future;
• embrace transparency and express the full spectrum of your emotions while maintaining self-control;
• evolve beyond the “alpha male” myth through example, not intimidation; and
• answer the question “Who are you?” to strip away the facade and live authentically.

This is not just a transformative book; it's a blueprint. A rite of passage for those ready to rise and rediscover what it truly means to be a man—authentically human. One that will empower you to be the man the moments demands.

Shirley Zinn’s story is one of determination, courage, and triumph over incredible adversity.

Born and raised on the Cape Flats, Shirley never allowed her past to dictate her future. She proved that the typical story of a girl from the Cape Flats – that of gangsterism, alcoholism and teenage pregnancy – didn’t have to be her story. Instead she relentlessly pursued her own goals and forged an impressive academic career even when she faced significant odds. And when she’d done that, she set out to conquer the world of business.

Shirley is a formidable woman with an amazing story to tell. She has risen to the top of the pile in both academic and business circles, and yet she has retained great humanity and empathy in the face of great personal tragedy.

Her story has lessons for us all – whether we are ordinary or extraordinary, whether we work in business, in government, or at home. Shirley’s story will inspire you and show you that it is possible to achieve your goals, if you are prepared to swim upstream and be single-minded in getting where you want to be.

Women everywhere marvel at those "good girls" in Scripture - Sarah, Mary, Esther - but on most days, that's not who they see when they look in the mirror. Most women (if they're honest) see the selfishness of Sapphira or the deception of Delilah. They catch a glimpse of Jezebel's take-charge pride or Eve's disastrous disobedience. Like Bathsheba, Herodias, and the rest, today's modern woman is surrounded by temptations, exhausted by the demands of daily living, and burdened by her own desires.

So what's a good girl to do? Learn from their lives, says beloved humor writer Liz Curtis Higgs, and by God's grace, choose a better path. In Bad Girls Of The Bible, Higgs offers a unique and clear-sighted approach to understanding those "other women" in Scripture, combining a contemporary retelling of their stories with a solid, verse-by-verse study of their mistakes and what lessons women today can learn from them.

Whether they were "Bad to the Bone," "Bad for a Season, but Not Forever" or only "Bad for a Moment," these infamous sisters show women how "not" to handle the challenges of life. With her trademark humor and encouragement, Liz Curtis Higgs teaches us how to avoid their tragic mistakes and joyfully embrace grace.

Khamr: The Makings Of A Waterslams is a true story that maps the author’s experience of living with an alcoholic father and the direct conflict of having to perform a Muslim life that taught him that nearly everything he called home was forbidden.

A detailed account from his childhood to early adulthood, Jamil F. Khan lays bare the experience of living in a so-called middle-class Coloured home in a neighbourhood called Bernadino Heights in Kraaifontein, a suburb to the north of Cape Town. His memories are overwhelmed by the constant discord that was created by the chaos and dysfunction of his alcoholic home and a co-dependent relationship with his mother, while trying to manage the daily routine of his parents keeping up appearances and him maintaining scholastic excellence.

Khan’s memories are clear and detailed, which in turn is complemented by his scholarly thinking and analysis of those memories. He interrogates the intersections of Islam, Colouredness and the hypocrisy of respectability as well as the effect perceived class status has on these social realities in simple yet incisive language, giving the reader more than just a memoir of pain and suffering.

Khan says about his debut book: "This is not a story for the romanticisation of pain and perseverance, although it tells of overcoming many difficulties. It is a critique of secret violence in faith communities and families, and the hypocrisy that has damaged so many people still looking for a place and way to voice their trauma. This is a critique of the value placed on ritual and culture at the expense of human life and well-being, and the far-reaching consequences of systems of oppression dressed up as tradition."

Like an apparition, conjured out of the darkness, a young man with light blond hair pushed his face into the car. I immediately spotted the knife. It was a long, thin weapon, almost like a letter opener, with a tapering blade. It felt cold and spiny as he pressed it to my neck. When he spoke his voice, which was quiet and controlled, sounded as though it emanated from a distant planet. But every word thudded into my skull. “Move over or I’ll kill you,” he whispered.

And so began Alison’s nightmare journey with the two callous killers who were to rape her, stab her so many times doctors could not count the wounds, slit her throat and leave her for dead in a filthy clearing miles from the city of Port Elizabeth which was her home. But Alison defied death. And more than that, she denied her attackers the satisfaction of destroying her life.

I Have Life is the triumphant story of a woman who refused to become a victim. The courage which allowed her to move beyond severe physical and emotional trauma and to turn a devastating experience into something life-affirming and strong, is an inspiration to people everywhere.

How to make home your family’s favorite place to be . . . all year long.

Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for “home” to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn’t you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can’t wait to be?

There is good news waiting for you in the pages of The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family’s life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you’ll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions. You’ll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish.

A searing investigation that challenges everything you thought you knew about domestic abuse.

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it?

Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today.

Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes.

Catapulted into national prominence with the release of her multiple-award-winning debut album, Zandisile, in 2005, Simphiwe Dana has since carved a place for herself as one of the most significant artists of her generation using a unique combination of jazz, rap and traditional music. Hailed by the media as 'South Africa's Jazz Diva No#1' and 'the best thing to happen to Afro-Soul music since Miriam Makeba', Dana is listened to and loved both locally and abroad.

A feminist exploration of the public lives of performer Simphiwe Dana - a rebel with several causes, in eight essays, award winning author, Prof Gqola brilliantly shows why Dana is arguably one of the most significant cultural figures working in contemporary South Africa today.

Fluctuating public responses to Ms Dana show us something about South African sensitivities to Blackness, femininity, language and the imagination.

Doctor, author and influencer (@DrAmyShah) Amy Shah, shares a nutritional, science-based protocol to minimise hormonal havoc, hot flashes, and night sweats and take on perimenopause and menopause with improved mood, energy, and health.

Hot flushes, mood swings, anxiety, weight gain, brain fog - the hormonal flux that comes with menopause and perimenopause may bring some notorious side effects, but that doesn't mean you have to feel miserable or settle for debilitating symptoms. This isn't your mother's menopause!

Double-board certified medical doctor Amy Shah shows you the power of targeted nutrition to manage the chaos that perimenopause and menopause can bring. There's a growing awareness about perimenopause, the period of hormonal changes leading up to menopause that can begin as early as your late 30s. Starting in perimenopause and continuing through menopause, your immune system, gut and metabolism get out of balance as your hormones shift.

Dr Shah's protocol supports your hormones by increasing key nutrients-including protein, fibre, probiotics, and vitamins and minerals-to realign and nourish your body and heal your gut-brain connection, helping to reduce and relieve unpleasant menopause symptoms while dramatically decreasing the risk of serious diseases from heart disease to depression to osteoporosis. It's as easy as 30-30-3:

• 30 grams of protein in your first meal to curb cravings
• 30 grams of fibre to diversify and strengthen the gut
• 3 probiotic foods to balance the microbiome.

Pairing this optimal diet with circadian fasting and science-supported lifestyle strategies and 20 recipes to maximise benefits, Hormone Havoc is your all-in-one guide to taking control of your health when you and your hormones feel out of control. You don't have to settle for feeling awful during perimenopause and menopause-Dr Shah shows how you can not just feel like yourself again, but feel even better than before.

For once, this is not a book about 'transactional sex' or HIV. There is no moral panic over women having standards in their romantic lives, or easy clichés of desperation in the face of unrelenting African poverty. In this book, Lebohang Masango explores how women in South Africa give meaning to aspiration, romance and love in their pursuit of the soft life -- a life free of hardship.

Love it or hate it, soft life will not be a passing trend, even if it carries different names in the future.

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

"I’ve always been told that if I was good, I’d attract good things. So then, why am I unhappy?"

From a young age, women are taught to put everyone else first. The result? A society full of ‘Good Girls’, pushing themselves to meet expectations while ignoring their own needs. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this whip-smart and empowering book, psychotherapist Marta Martínez Novoa explains that people pleasing is not a personality failing, but a common response to trauma – an instinct to become more appealing to a threat, and a way to feel safe. Taking you on a journey into your past, this book will help you understand why you feel the way you do in the present, and gives you practical tools to build a future where you feel bolder, safer and more confident in everything you do.

If you’re done being a people pleaser and ready to start living for you, this is your toolkit to wake up and finally take charge.

By the time Shana Fife is 25 she has two kids from different fathers. To the coloured people she grew up around, she is a jintoe, a jezebel, jas, a woman with mileage on the p*ssy. She is alone, she has no job and, as she is constantly reminded by her family, she is pretty much worthless and unloveable. How did she become this woman, the epitome of everything she was conditioned to strive not to be?

Unsettlingly honest and brutally blunt, Ougat is Shana Fife’s story of survival: of surviving the social conditioning of her Cape Flats community, of surviving sexual violence and depression, and of ultimately escaping a cycle of abuse. Exploring themes of sexuality, marriage and motherhood, rape, drugs and depression and cultural identity, Shana describes – with the self-deprecating humour her followers love so much – what it means to be a coloured woman, who gives coloured womanhood meaning and, ultimately, how surviving life as a coloured woman means being OK with giving a giant ‘f*ck you’ to the norm.

A powerful, fresh and disarming new voice – Shana’s writing is like nothing you’ve read before.

Meet Daisy De Melker, who 'lovingly' prepared a flask of strychnine-laced coffee for her son. She is very different from Najwa Petersen, who carefully planned a 'house robbery' to eliminate her musician husband. Chané van Heerden placed her victim's facial skin in the freezer for preservation, yet Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron wished to dispose of her mother's body before it was even cold. And Dina Rodrigues? She 'wouldn't harm a fly' - but then went and organised a hit on a baby.

Women are not paragons of virtue who cannot commit murder. Nor are they always insane when they do deliberately cause death. And the women with 'blood on their hands' are not homogeneous.

In Blood on Her Hands, award-winning journalist Tanya Farber investigates the lives, minds and motivations of some of South Africa's most notorious female murders, from the poisonous nurse Daisy de Melker, to the privileged but deeply disturbed Najwa Petersen, to the mysterious Joey Haarhoff, who died before revealing the fate of her victims. Written in a style lighter than the subject matter might suggest, Blood on Her Hands will keep you reading until late at night.

101 Remarkable South African Women is the first book to bring together such a wide-ranging collection of extraordinary women who shaped South Africa’s past and present. From the prehistoric Eve of the West Coast and cultural bridge-builder Krotoa to groundbreaking figures like Olive Schreiner, Miriam Makeba, Thuli Madonsela, and global star Tyla, these 101 stories span centuries of South African history, politics, art, literature, music, sport, science, and activism.

This beautifully curated and highly readable volume offers an accessible entry point into South African history for general readers, students, and anyone who wants inspirational local role models or to discover the voices too often left out of the official records. Inspiring, informative, and filled with remarkable lives, it is at once a celebration of our foremothers and a showcase of contemporary role models

A fusion of conversations, observations, and personal reflections on his own experiences, work with men, and scholarship, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love, violence and masculinity.

This book seeks to imagine the possibility of a more loving masculinity in a society where structural violence, failures of government and economic inequality underpin much of the violent behaviour that men display. Enriched with personal reflections on his own experiences as a partner, father, psychologist and researcher in the field of men and masculinities, Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity is Kopano Ratele’s meditation on love and violence, and the way these forces shape the emotional lives of boys and men.

Blending academic substance and rigour in a readable narrative style, Ratele illuminates the complex nuances of gender, intimacy and power in the context of the human need for love and care. While unsparing in its analysis of men’s inner lives, Ratele lays out a path for addressing the hunger for love in boys and men. He argues that just as the beliefs and practices relating to gender, sexuality and the nature of love are constantly being challenged and revised, so our ideas about masculinity, and men’s and boys’ capacity to show genuine loving care for each other and for women, can evolve.

As a child I would often lie awake at night, praying that through some miracle I would be woken up by people who had come to take me back to my rightful family, and that those I had come to know as my parents would tell me the truth: that I was, in fact, adopted and had been born a girl and they had had a doctor operate on me.’

Growing up as Kgositsile, meaning ‘king’,  Tshiamo Modisane  always knew that she was a girl despite her assigned birth gender. This talented child of a pastor from KwaThema and Daveyton townships near Johannesburg was expected to conform to conservative black culture’s expectations for a male, and would endure censure and even abuse from family, friends, peers and strangers into adulthood. Yet Tshiamo began making courageous choices at the age of five, a journey of both self-doubt and self-belief that culminated in gender-affirmation surgery in her thirties. With sass, faith and baked-in confidence from her family ties to the entertainment world, she successfully transitioned from male to female while navigating a career as an actress, celebrity stylist and Lux’s first gender-non-conforming brand ambassador.

As admirable as it is affirming, this poignant memoir examines past hurts and present truths, and opens up a sorely needed discussion about unconditional acceptance.

The Covid-19 pandemic threw into stark relief the multi-dimensional threats created by neoliberal capitalism. Government measures to alleviate the crisis were largely inadequate, leaving women – in particular working-class women – to carry the increased burden of care work while at the same time placing themselves in direct risk as frontline workers.

Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19, the seventh volume in the Democratic Marxism series, explores how many subaltern women – working class, peasant and indigenous – responded to challenges of increased labour precarity and additional care-work. The book critiques neoliberal feminism, which has overshadowed the experiences of feminist grassroots resistance. Instead, the academics and activists in this volume call to action a new wave feminism that is responsive to socio-ecological and economic exploitation, and the oppression of both women and the environment within the patriarchal capitalist system.

Offering a diverse range of approaches to this topic, contributions range from women leading the defence of Rojava – the Kurdish region of Syria, anticapitalist ecology and building food secure pathways in communities across Africa, championing climate justice in mining-affected communities and transforming gender divisions in mining labour practices in South Africa, to contesting macro-economic policies affecting the working conditions of nurses.

These practices demonstrate a feminist understanding of the current systemic crises of capitalism and patriarchal oppression. What is offered here is a subaltern women’s grassroots resistance focused on advancing and enabling solidarity-based political projects, deepening democracy, building capacities and alliances to advance new feminist alternatives.

What happens when enemies work to advance similar goals? Who wins, who loses, and why? In Frenemies, Nancy Whittier addresses this question through a study of feminist and conservative opposition to pornography, campaigns against child sexual abuse, and engagement on the Violence Against Women Act. Drawing on extensive research, Whittier shows how feminist and conservative activists interacted with each other and with the federal government, how their interaction affected them, and what each side achieved. Whittier re-conceptualizes relationships between social movements, presenting a model of how "frenemies"-groups that are neither allies nor opponents-work toward related goals. She outlines the dynamics and paths of frenemy relationships, describing the unintended consequences for the groups involved and for their respective movements at large. With high levels of political polarization across the U.S., Frenemies provides a crucial look at both the promise and the risk of cooperation across political differences.