Muslim women's freedom, or assumed lack thereof, has long been a Western obsession. Almost never do we ask, what does agency look like to Muslim women? Who or what do they think constrains them, and how do they challenge that? Focussing on the little-researched area of the Australian Muslim community, this book brings together for the first time diverse accounts from Australian Muslim researchers, leaders, and community workers to interrogate how Muslim women understand, experience, and fight for agency. Academic and activist, personal and political, this ground-breaking book features the people at the centre of the debate. Contributors are Feda Abdo, Amira Aftab, Mahsheed Ansari, Fadi Baghdadi, Susan Carland, Tasneem Chopra, Mehreen Faruqi, Derya Iner, Balawyn Jones, Souha Korbatieh, Ghena Krayem, Mehal Krayem and Ayah Wehbe.

The accounts of women navigating pregnancy in a post-conflict setting are characterized by widespread poverty, weak infrastructure, and inadequate health services. With a focus on a remote rural agrarian community in northern Uganda, Global Health and the Village brings the complex local and transnational factors governing women's access to safe maternity care into view. In examining local cultural, social, economic, and health system factors shaping maternity care and birth, Rudrum also analyzes the encounter between ambitious global health goals and the local realities. Interrogating how culture and technical problems are framed in international health interventions, Rudrum reveals that the objectifying and colonizing premises on which interventions are based often result in the negative consequences in local healthcare.

Making a living in the Caribbean requires resourcefulness and even a willingness to circumvent the law. Women of color in Jamaica encounter bureaucratic mazes, neighborhood territoriality, and ingrained racial and cultural prejudices. For them, it requires nothing less than a herculean effort to realize their entrepreneurial dreams. In Higglers in Kingston, Winnifred Brown-Glaude puts the reader on the ground in frenetic urban Kingston, the capital and largest city in Jamaica. She explores the lives of informal market laborers, called "higglers," across the city as they navigate a corrupt and inaccessible "official" Jamaican economy. But rather than focus merely on the present-day situation, she contextualizes how Jamaica arrived at this point, delving deep into the island's history as a former colony, a home to slaves and masters alike, and an eventual nation of competing and conflicted racial sectors. Higglers in Kingston weaves together contemporary ethnography, economic history, and sociology of race to address a broad audience of readers on a crucial economic and cultural center.

Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries: in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnes Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the Thinking Cinema series draws on feminist theorists and critics from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities.Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency,and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can 'do justice' to female subjectivity: Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, and thereby reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to cast a new veil over such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank; and includes a timeline ofdevelopments in women's film-making and feminist film theory from 1970 to 2011.

Candid and intimate accounts of the factory-worker tragedy that shaped American labor rights On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building in Greenwich Village, New York. The top three floors housed the Triangle Waist Company, a factory where approximately 500 workers, mostly young immigrant women and girls, labored to produce fashionable cotton blouses, known as "waists." The fire killed 146 workers in a mere 15 minutes but pierced the perpetual conscience of citizens everywhere. The Asch Building had been considered a modern fireproof structure, but inadequate fire safety regulations left the workers inside unprotected. The tragedy of the fire, and the resulting movements for change, were pivotal in shaping workers' rights and unions. A powerful collection of diverse voices, Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Fire brings together stories from writers, artists, activists, scholars, and family members of the Triangle workers. Nineteen contributors from across the globe speak of a singular event with remarkable impact. One hundred and eleven years after the tragic incident, Talking to the Girls articulates a story of contemporary global relevance and stands as an act of collective testimony: a written memorial to the Triangle victims.

Gender and diversity is a crucial area that requires more attention in multiple academic settings. As more women progress into leadership positions in academia, it becomes necessary to develop solutions geared specifically toward success for females in such environments. Challenges Facing Female Department Chairs in Contemporary Higher Education: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a key source on the latest challenges and opportunities for women heading academic departments in university settings, exploring the support available to female department chairs, and first-hand experiences and lessons learned in field. Featuring extensive coverage across a range of relevant perspectives and topics, such as gender challenges, management techniques, and professional development, this book is a critical source for academics, practitioners, and researchers.

Naomi "Omie" Wise was drowned by her lover in the waters of North Carolina's Deep River in 1807, and her murder has been remembered in ballad and story for well over two centuries. Mistakes, romanticization and misremembering have been injected into Naomi's biography over time, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The authors of this book, whose family has lived in the Deep River area since the 18th century, are descendants of many of the people who knew Naomi Wise or were involved in her murder investigation. This is the story of a young woman betrayed and how her death gave way to the folk traditions by which she is remembered today. The book sheds light on the plight of impoverished women in early America and details the fascinating inner workings of the Piedmont North Carolina Quaker community that cared for Naomi in her final years and kept her memory alive.

For many women in their 20's and 30's, the greatest professional hurdle they'll need to overcome has little to do with their work life. The most focused, confident, and ambitious women can find themselves derailed by a tiny little thing: a new baby. While more workplaces are espousing family-friendly cultures, women are still subject to a "parenting penalty" and high-profile conflicts between parenting and the workplace are all over the news: from the controversy over companies covering the costs of egg-freezing to the debate over parental leave and childcare inspired by Marissa Mayer's policies at Yahoo. Here's the Plan offers an inventive and inspiring roadmap for working mothers steering their careers through the parenting years. Author Allyson Downey,founder of weeSpring, the Yelp for baby products," and mother of two young children,advises readers on all practical aspects of ladder-climbing while parenting, such as negotiating leave, flex time, and promotions. In the style of #GIRLBOSS or Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, Here's the Plan is the definitive guide for ambitious mothers, written by one working mother to another.