This book is a rare find, sharing all the joys, stresses, desires, and challenges Samantha faced throughout her first three years of transition. Not always easy to read or glamorous, it details one woman's desire to live fully in this world as her true self. It is a shining example of the resilience of the human spirit and is sure to inspire hope in all who read it. --Kris Keniray, Sexuality Educator Sometimes the greatest adventure a human being can go on is not the discovery of a far-off, distant land. Sometimes the greatest adventure is discovering the secrets that lie within. Through the Jungle: A Traveler's Guide chronicles the story of Samantha's discovery of her true self. Sometimes happy and enlightening, often dark and disturbing, her journey takes you through three years of her life told as it happened through her personal diary. This story gives the reader a glimpse into a world very few people will ever experience first hand, the world of a transsexual male to female.

"Queer Masculinities: A Critical Reader in Education "is a substantial addition to the discussion of queer masculinities, of the interplay between queer masculinities and education, and to the political gender discourse as a whole. Enriching the discourse of masculinity politics, the cross-section of scholarly interrogations of the complexities and contradictions of queer masculinities in education demonstrates that any serious study of masculinity-hegemonic or otherwise-must consider the theoretical and political contributions that the concept of queer masculinity makes to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of masculinity itself.

The essays adopt a range of approaches from empirical studies to reflective theorizing, and address themselves to three separate educational realms: the K-12 level, the collegiate level, and the level in popular culture, which could be called 'cultural pedagogy'. The wealth of detailed analysis includes, for example, the notion that normative expectations and projections on the part of teachers and administrators unnecessarily reinforce the values and behaviors of heteronormative masculinity, creating an institutionalized loop that disciplines masculinity. At the same time, and for this very reason, schools represent an opportunity to 'provide a setting where a broader menu can be introduced and gender/sexual meanings, expressions, and experiences boys encounter can create new possibilities of what it can mean to be male'. At the collegiate level chapters include analysis of what the authors call 'homosexualization of heterosexual men' on the university dance floor, while the chapters of the third section, on popular culture, include a fascinating analysis of the construction of queer 'counternarratives' that can be constructed watching TV shows of apparently hegemonic bent. In all, this volume's breadth and detail make it a landmark publication in the study of queer masculinities, and thus in critical masculinity studies as a whole.

The research for this book was prompted by a combination of events, in particular the election of Mary Robinson as President of Ireland (November 1990) and the X case which rocked Irish society (February 1992). The book is an exploration of the dynamics between the Irish and European Courts, the legislators and the Irish citizens in relation to certain socio-sexual questions: divorce, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Spanning the 73 years since the creation of the Irish State, it questions the nature of the moral order regulating Irish society and the concept of democracy underlying it: from a moral order based on the natural law and Victorian ideology, to a moral order based on the fundamental rights of individuals. The book examines the fragile balance struck between tradition and modernity, and is an indirect tribute to the work of former President Mary Robinson as a constitutional lawyer and senator.

Cross-gender performance was an integral part of Shakespearean theatre: from boys portraying his female characters, to those characters disguising themselves as men within the story. This book examines contemporary trends in staging cross-gender performances of Shakespeare in the UK and USA. Terri Power surveys the field of gender in performance through an intersectional feminist and queer theoretical lens. In depth discussions of key productions reveal processes adapted by companies for their performances. The book also looks at how contemporary performance responds to new cultural politics of gender and creates a critical language for understanding that within Shakespeare. This book features: - First-hand interviews with professional artists - Case studies of individual performances - A practical workshop section with innovative exercises

Coming of Age in Times of Crisis is an anthropological study of the intersecting roles of gender and schooling in the lives of rural Venezuelan youth as they make the transition to adulthood during times of national political and economic crisis. Strongly grounded in local detail while speaking to larger comparative issues and the crises that surround globalization, the study enables us to see how gender roles and social class are reproduced in a culture experiencing profound upheaval, and to see how rural Venezuelans have managed to reproduce and change their culture in these circumstances. This book is based on two-and-a-half years of ethnographic field research Hurtig conducted in the Andean region of Venezuela between 1991 and 1993, and again briefly in 1996.

Encompassing feminism, masculinities and queer theory, and drawing on film, literature, language, creative writing and digital technologies, these essays, from scholars experienced in teaching gender theory in university English programmes, offer inventive and student-focused strategies for teaching gender in the twenty-first century classroom.

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a seismic shift in attitudes toward gay and lesbian people, with a majority of Americans now supporting same-sex marriage and relations between same-sex, consenting adults. However, support for transgender individuals lags far behind; a significant majority of Americans do not support the right of transgender people to be free from discrimination in housing, employment, public spaces, health care, legal documents, and other areas. Much of this is due to deeply entrenched ideas about the definition of gender, perceptions that transgender people are not "real" or are suffering from mental illness, and fears that extending rights to transgender people will come at the expense of the rights of others. So how do you get people to rethink their prejudices? In this book, Melissa R. Michelson and Brian F. Harrison examine what tactics are effective in changing public opinion regarding transgender people. The result is a new approach that they call Identity Reassurance Theory. The idea is that individuals need to feel confident in their own identity before they can embrace a stigmatized group like transgender people, and that support of members of an outgroup can be encouraged by affirming the self-esteem of those targeted for attitude change. Michelson and Harrison, through their experiments, show that the most effective messaging on transgender issues meets people where they are, acknowledges their discomfort without judgment or criticism, and helps them to think about transgender people and rights in a way that aligns with their view of themselves as moral human beings.

This innovative and adventurous work, now in paperback, uses broadly feminist and postmodernist modes of analysis to explore what motivates damaging attitudes and practices towards disability. The book argues for the significance of the psycho-social imaginary and suggests a way forward in disability's queering of normative paradigms.

Drawing on the writings of Foucault, this book explores the politics and power-dynamics of family life, examining how everyday obligations such as attending school, going to work and staying healthy are organized through the family. The book includes an essay by Foucault, Les desordres des familles , translated here in English for the first time.

Men Can Wear Dresses Too is an engaging, compelling and challenging account of my life as catie maye a heterosexual male to female cross dresser. However it is not just another story about a 'guy in a dress'. This book is totally unique, in that, unlike any other work in this genre it not only describes a very personal, engaging and sometime traumatic life journey but essentially incorporates the results of the most influential cross dressing surveys carried out in modern times. The results are integrated, reviewed and fully explained within the story to support and Validate the events of my life, to challenge social opinion and ultimately to destroy many of the erroneous myths that surround those men who cross dress.

Transgender, gender variant and intersex people are in every sector of all societies, yet little is known about their relationship to place. Using a trans, feminist and queer geographical framework, this book invites readers to consider the complex relationship between transgender people, spaces and places. This book addresses questions such as, how is place and space transformed by gender variant bodies, and vice versa? Where do some gender variant people feel in and / or out of place? What happens to space when binary gender is unravelled and subverted? Exploring the diverse politics of gender variant embodied experiences through interviews and community action, this book demonstrates that gendered bodies are constructed through different social, cultural and economic networks. Firsthand stories and international examples reveal how transgender people employ practices and strategies to both create and contest different places, such as: bodies; homes; bathrooms; activist spaces; workplaces; urban night spaces; nations and transnational borders. Arguing that bodies, gender, sex and space are inextricably linked, this book brings together contemporary scholarly debates, original empirical material and popular culture to consider bodies and spaces that revolve around, and resist, binary gender. It will be a valuable resource in Geography, Gender and Sexuality studies.

The Devil's Lane highlights important new work on sexuality, race, and gender in the South from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Contributors explore legal history by examining race, crime and punishment, sex across the colour line, and slander. Emerging stars and established scholars such as Peter Wood and Carol Berkin weave together the fascinating story of competing agendas and clashing cultures on the southern frontier.

Emphasizing Frances Burney's professionalism and her courage, Janice Farrar Thaddeus shows the many-sided writer who recognized her abilities and exercised them, always carefully shaping her career. Though she often depicted herself as retiring, even fearful, Burney forced on her readers themes they were scarcely ready for, flamboyantly mixing genres, writing comically about intimate violence. Not content in old age to be merely a literary icon, she privately recorded with increasing clarity the moments when the world lacerates the self.

Ashley Baggett uncovers the voices of abused women who utilized the legal system in New Orleans to address their grievances from the antebellum era to the end of the nineteenth century. Poring over 26,000 records, Baggett analyzes 421 criminal cases involving intimate partner violence - physical or emotional abuse of a partner in a romantic relationship - revealing a significant demand among women, the community, and the courts for reform in the postbellum decades. Before the Civil War, some challenges and limits to the male privilege of chastisement existed, but the gendered power structure and the veil of privacy for families in the courts largely shielded abusers from criminal prosecution. However, the war upended gender expectations and increased female autonomy, leading to the demand for and brief recognition of women's right to be free from violence. Baggett demonstrates how postbellum decades offered a fleeting opportunity for change before the gender and racial expectations hardened with the rise of Jim Crow. Her findings reveal previously unseen dimensions of women's lives both inside and outside legal marriage and women's attempts to renegotiate power in relationships. Highlighting the lived experiences of these women, Baggett tracks how gender, race, and location worked together to define and redefine gender expectations and legal rights. Moreover, she demonstrates recognition of women's legal personhood as well as differences between northern and southern states' trajectories in response to intimate partner violence during the nineteenth century.

Gendered Policies in Europe examines the policy process, focusing on the shifts in equal opportunities legislation towards measures to help parents combine employment and family life. The authors track the inputs of members states and pressure groups to European policy formation and analyse outputs and outcomes at national levels as they impact on gender issues in law and practice. They draw on examples of the implementation of reconciliation policies to illustrate how the policy process operates in different national contexts.

Women are taught from the earliest moments of life that motherhood, along with marriage to a man, is a natural state to which they should aspire. From dollplay as a child to nagging questions of when am I going to become a grandparent as one gets older, the societal pressure to procreate is constant and intense. What then, of women who choose not to have children or are unable to have children? How do they respond to a society and to families that view them as selfish, incomplete, and less then women?

In "Will You Be Mother?" Jane Bartlett interviews fifty women who, for various reasons, have not had children. We hear from women who have chosen to be sterilized in their twenties, others who can never say never but postpone childbearing because of acute ambivalence, women in their sixties who have chosen to never have children and are happy with that choice, and infertile women who have had no choice. They speak of how their own childhoods shaped their decision and, while expressing their frustration at the pressures placed upon them, also exhibit an unequivocal sense of freedom. Will You Be Mother? is a diverse exploration of the personal and public implications of the pressure society puts on women to have children, and a challenging critique of the prevalent belief that motherhood is a natural state for women.

This book charts the changing aspects of gender in Russia's cultural and social history from the late 17th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The essays, while focusing on women as a primary subject, highlight the construction of both femininity and masculinity in a culture that has undergone major transformation and disruptions over the period of three centuries.

Women buy the weekly shopping, home insurance, household appliances, soft furnishings, holidays and more. CEO's and Marketers need to acknowledge that women really are the Boss when it comes to buying. They also need to understand the many psychological and behavioral characteristics of women that affect their relationships with brands. This book identifies the key biological and brain differences between women and men, then defines more effective marketing approaches based on these insights.

This book conducts a gendered critique of the 'principle of distinction' in international humanitarian law (IHL), with a focus on recent conflicts in Africa. The 'principle of distinction' is core to IHL, and regulates who can and cannot be targeted in armed conflict. It states that civilians may not be targeted in attack, while combatants and those civilians directly participating in hostilities can be. The law defines what it means to be a combatant and a civilian, and sets out what behaviour constitutes direct participation. Close examination of the origins of the principle reveals that IHL was based on a gendered view of conflict, which envisages men as fighters and women as victims of war. Problematically, this view often does not accord with the reality in 'new wars' today in which women are playing increasingly active roles, often forming the backbone of fighting groups, and performing functions on which armed groups are highly reliant. Using women's participation in 'new wars' in Africa as a study, this volume critically examines the principle through a gendered lens, questioning the extent to which the principle serves to protect women in modern conflicts and how it fails them. By doing so, it questions whether the principle of distinction is suitable to effectively regulate the conduct of hostilities in new wars. This book will be of much interest to students of international law, gender studies, African politics, war and conflict studies, and international relations.

Every form of life is coded by the genetic code. Life continually changes and evolves. However, the language of the Code does not change. A billion years ago, the primitive life forms on Earth spoke the same body language as they do today. They used the same Code. Nothing has changed. Is this Code eternal? What are the principles of its design? Of course, some will even ask, who designed it? In order to respond to these questions, the book takes an unexpected tack. It develops the proposition that "two takes" are necessary in order to understand reality, a left side take, and a right side take. All of present day sciences, including mathematics are based on the left side take on reality. All of the languages of present day science, including conventional mathematics, are "left side" languages. The book develops the foundations for another kind of science, the "right side" science. We call it the First Science. The book argues that the language for this right side unifying science is none other than the Code. It is here that the story becomes quite extravagant. This Code is so generic that it can code literally anything, not just the biological. In this perspective, the life principle permeates just about everything that exists. The origin of the First Science goes back to Aristotle, and even before. According to Aristotle, the First Science was even supposed to provide knowledge of God. The book explores this ancient territory with modern eyes and ends up revealing a new science and a new kind of geometry. The science is proposed as the unifying science, not only of matter and mathematics, but of consciousness and the generic form of things.

This book explores the nature of intimacy by revealing how the influence of individual, interpersonal and wider social factors create variations in self-disclosure, intimacy games and relationship habits. It describes how the dynamics of power and control in relationships give rise either to mutual satisfaction or to the unraveling of intimacy.

In nine chapters, contributors explore how genetic, hormonal, and neurological factors affect the behavior of males and females within complex environmental settings. Based on the latest research, the essays theorize about the causes of variation in sex differences in behavior and related phenomena. Sex differences in behavior are examined as a cross-species phenomenon and as having numerous biological as well as environmental determinants.

One of the most significant dimensions of gender studies is that it is political. It raises questions about power in society and how and why power is differentially distributed between different genders. It asks questions about who has power over whom, in which situations, how power is exercised, and how it is, and can be, challenged. Different theories and perspectives within gender studies have different approaches to these questions and look for answers in different social processes. Many debates are on-going, as new data is revealed and new theories are put forth. Understanding Gender in the African Context is a scholarly reference that explores the complexities of the ideologies and social patterns that contribute to the field of gender studies. Featuring a range of topics such as human rights, feminism, and social media, this book is ideal for policymakers, sociologists, social scientists, civil society organizations, government officials, academicians, researchers, and students.