The figure of the mistress is undoubtedly controversial. She provokes intense reactions, ranging from fear, to disgust and revulsion, to excitement and titillation, to sadness and perhaps to some, love. The mistress is conventionally depicted as a threat to moral living and someone whose sexuality is considered defective and toxic. Of course, she is a woman that you would not have as your friend, and certainly not your wife, since her ethical sense, if she even has one, is dubious at best. This book subverts these traditional judgements and offers an unflinching look at the lived experience of the mistress. Here she is recast as a potentially loving, free, intimate 'other' woman. Drawing upon feminist philosophy, contemporary sexual ethics and the current cultural moment of #MeToo, Mistress Ethics moves beyond a narrative of infidelity, conventional judgment, the safeguarding of monogamy and conventional heterosex that permeates our society. It asks what happens when we let go of our insecurities, judgments and moralistic relationship philosophies and opt, instead, for an ethics of kindness. This kindness - underpinned by engaging with those deemed 'other' and learning from mistresses, both straight and queer - will teach us new ways of thinking about ethics and sex, and reveal how we have better sex, and how we can be better to each other.

In this comprehensive study of the role of women in the Italian mafia, Ombretta Ingrasci assesses the roles and spaces of women within traditionally male, patriarchal organized crime units. The study draws on an extensive range of research, legal reports and interviews with women involved with the mafia, public officials and police. Placed within a framework of political, social, cultural and religious history, post-1945, this book provides an excellent history of women and organized crime in modern Italy.

Women’s freedom is in jeopardy. Misogyny is everywhere. Courtship, duty and marriage are dying phenomenons – nails in the coffin to female happiness. Our bodies are an inventory of pain and weakness. Evidently, it is a very bad time to be female.

Or so we’re told.

In Good Slut, Zoe Strimpel examines the myths that submerge women in narratives of victimhood and fragility, instead offering a much-needed dose of realism. Because while women’s agency is increasingly under threat by the return of ‘traditional’ values, fuelled by fear-mongering discourse from both the political left and right, it’s unequivocally never been a better time to be a woman. It may be complex terrain, yet women’s pain, injustices, experiences and achievements are taken more seriously now than ever before. What’s more, the opportunities in free societies are endless: whether sexual freedom, bodily autonomy or financial independence, women can, should and will – if they desire – have it all.

Courageous, defiant and incisive in its approach, Good Slut argues that liberation – true liberation – comes not from fear or shame, but from making the most out of the intertwined forces of money, power, and, of course, sex. A fierce celebration of female agency and choice, it is a timely reminder to get back in touch with the joy and freedoms available to us – if only we dare to grasp it.

Cosmetic surgeries are at an all-time high, Ozempic is bringing back 'heroin chic' and TikTok trad-wives are on the rise - after four waves of feminism, what went wrong?

Despite decades of progress, the gains of the feminist movement feel more fragile than ever. But as Atlantic critic and Pulitzer Prize finalist Sophie Gilbert points out, this is not a unique moment. Feminism felt just as fragmented in the early 2000s, when the momentum of third-wave feminists and riot grrrls was squashed by lad culture and the commodification of Girl Power.

Casting her eye across pop culture of the past thirty years - from Madonna, the Spice Girls and the Kardashians, to MySpace, #GirlBoss and Real Housewives - Sophie Gilbert reveals a toxic pattern of progress and misogynistic backlash. Girl on Girl shows how every form of media, heavily influenced by the rise of porn, has shaped and warped women's relationships with themselves and other women.

We cannot move forward without fully reckoning with the ways pop culture has defined us - this book shows us how.

Mujerista Theology is a comprehensive introduction to Hispanic feminist theology written from the heart and the convictions of experience. Continually drawing on her Cuban roots, Isasi-Diaz focuses on the life journeys and struggles of Hispanic women as she develops a theology to support and empower their daily struggles for meaning. With her own life journey always firmly connected to the grassroots experience of Hispanic women and to the struggle for liberation, Isasi-Diaz is a major spokesperson for the continuing need for liberation theology today. The first part of Mujerista Theology describes the experience of self-discovery: what it is like to live in a foreign land as the oppressed "other". The second part focuses on the methodology of doing mujerista theology and its major themes: solidarity, empowerment, anthropology, encountering God, and liturgy and rituals.