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.

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.

In this pioneering work about the precursor to the comic book, Kelly Boyd traces the evolution of the boys' story paper and its impact on the imaginative world of working-class readers. From the penny dreadful and the <I>Boy's Own Paper</I> to the tales of Billy Bunter and Sexton Blake, this cultural form shaped ideas about gender, race, class, and empire in response to social change.

The rapidly expanding population of youth gangs and street children is one of the most disturbing issues in many cities around the world. These children are perceived to be in a constant state of destitution, violence and vagrancy, and therefore must be a serious threat to society, needing heavy-handed intervention and 'tough love' from concerned adults to impose societal norms on them and turn them into responsible citizens. However, such norms are far from the lived reality of these children. The situation is further complicated by gender-based violence and masculinist ideologies found in the wider Ethiopian culture, which influence the proliferation of youth gangs. By focusing on gender as the defining element of these children's lives - as they describe it in their own words - this book offers a clear analysis of how the unequal and antagonistic gender relations that are tolerated and normalized by everyday school and family structures shape their lives at home and on the street.

This book details years of research involving questionnaires and observations of married couples in pursuit of the determinants of both marital happiness and divorce. It will be of interest to family and clinical psychologists and methodologists.

This book details years of research involving questionnaires and observations of married couples in pursuit of the determinants of both marital happiness and divorce. It will be of interest to family and clinical psychologists and methodologists.

A volume in Research on Women and Education (RWE) Series EditorsBeverly Irby, Sam Houston State University and Janice Koch, Hofstra University The Research on Women and Education SIG of the American Educational Research Association presents the third book in its series, Gender and Early Learning Environments. Finding after the publication of Gender and Schooling in the Early Years, the second book in the series, that there was and is a paucity of published literature on early childhood gender issues, the editors determined that one additional book on early childhood and gender issues was warranted in this series. The latest book in the series, Gender and Early Learning Environments, is encompassing of a wide range of topics addressing early childhood influences on gender and development of the whole child. For early childhood educators, this book aides in making visible and exploring the definition of what gender means in contemporary culture.

During the past three decades, feminist scholars have successfully demonstrated the ubiq uity and omnirelevance of gender as a sociocultural construction in virtually all human collectivities, past and present. Intrapsychic, interactional, and collective social processes are gendered, as are micro, meso, and macro social structures. Gender shapes, and is shaped, in all arenas of social life, from the most mundane practices of everyday life to those of the most powerful corporate actors. Contemporary understandings of gender emanate from a large community of primarily feminist scholars that spans the gamut of learned disciplines and also includes non-academic activist thinkers. However, while in corporating some cross-disciplinary material, this volume focuses specifically on socio logical theories and research concerning gender, which are discussed across the full array of social processes, structures, and institutions. As editor, I have explicitly tried to shape the contributions to this volume along several lines that reflect my long-standing views about sociology in general, and gender sociology in particular. First, I asked authors to include cross-national and historical material as much as possible. This request reflects my belief that understanding and evaluating the here-and-now and working realistically for a better future can only be accomplished from a comparative perspective. Too often, American sociology has been both tempero- and ethnocentric. Second, I have asked authors to be sensitive to within-gender differences along class, racial/ethnic, sexual preference, and age cohort lines."

""In Your Face" is an acrobat of a book--agile, supple, daring, showy, and brave. . . . a strikingly imaginative text. . . that rarest of things, an academic text that can be read for pleasure as well as illumination."
--"New Formations"

"Merck launches into a complex analysis of the displacement of sex[uality] into representations of the face in a range of texts...a dazzling kaleidoscopic display."
--"Journal of American Studies"

At a time when "sexy" can be an adjective for anything, when sexual awareness is declared to be advancing faster in months than in the past half century, and when pundits warn of sexual overload, the actual representation of sex is still deemed confrontational, aggressive, "in your face." While critics accuse the academy of an obsession with sexuality, they also complain that nothing that appears to refer to sex really does.

In readings ranging across film, drama, opera, fine art, and critical theory, Mandy Merck considers these phenomena as well as the role of the dog in anti-porn propaganda, the unacknowledged significance of the lesbian hand, and the early retirement of the phallus. Other topics include the relationship of women's tennis and prostitution, the gendering of the wild and the tame in the age of AIDS, and the sexlessness of postmodern criticism. In Your Face ends with the face and its alleged desecration by fellatio. Germaine Greer's condemnation of Bill Clinton for "fucking the faces of little girls" is examined in the light of one of Monica Lewinsky's endearments for the President--"fuckface."

In a country whose last great Presidential scandal revolved around a key witness known only as "Deep Throat" and whose currentChief Executive works in the "Oral Office," giving head is going down in history. Analyzing the strange relationship of Linda Lovelace, Camille Paglia, and Paul de Man, In Your Face concludes by considering desire and disgust in high and low places.

What is the first question our parents asked about us after we were born? Probably, 'Is it a boy or a girl?' No single fact about us is more significant than our sex. In any human culture, it determines how others react to us and how they treat us. "Viva Le Difference", a light-hearted exploration of sex differences, shows how this view violates not only everyday experience and common sense, but the accumulating evidence of science that men and women are profoundly different creatures. Authors Anthony Walsh and Grace J. Walsh begin with a look at the genetic and hormonal bases of sex by viewing maleness and femaleness as a continuum based on the degree of masculisation of the brain. Next, they explore different sexual aspects of the human body other than the reproductive organs. They look at size, strength, and endurance, and many other differences in capacity, as well as sensory (eyes, nose, ears, etc.) differences. From there, the discussion focuses on differences in the brain and mind, health and illness among men and women, and the different ways in which men and women experience emotion, with an emphasis on that most intense emotion of all - love. Informative and entertaining, this book offers a fresh, insightful, and lively look at what makes men and women unique.

The YMCA and the YWCA have been an integral part of America's urban landscape since their emergence almost 150 years ago. Yet the significant influence these organizations had on American society has been largely overlooked. Men and Women Adrift explores the role of the YMCA and YWCA in shaping the identities of America's urban population.

Examining the urban experiences of the single young men and women who came to the cities in search of employment and personal freedom, these essays trace the role of the YMCA and the YWCA in urban America from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The contributors detail the YMCA's early competition with churches and other urban institutions, the associations' unique architectural style, their services for members of the working class, African Americans, and immigrants, and their role in defining gender and sexual identities.

The volume includes contributions by Michelle Busby, Jessica Elfenbein, Sarah Heath, Adrienne Lash Jones, Paula Lupkin, Raymond A. Mohl, Elizabeth Norris, Cliff Putney, Nancy Robertson, Thomas Winter, and John D. Wrathall.

According to a 1992 World Health Organization report, more than 100 million couples throughout the world make love on any given day. Every moment, lovers are locked in passion, compelled by a natural urge driving all peoples in all centuries. And yet this same natural desire has all too often been regarded as a dangerous force and even branded as obscene. Religious taboos have tainted sex with guilt and punishment. Earlier in this century, artists could be imprisoned for portraying sex. Today, despite two decades of easing restrictions on sexual expression and greater freedom for the practice of non-traditional lifestyles, religious fundamentalists and other extremists seek to turn back the clock, advocating prosecution of any whom they regard as sexually subversive or exploitative, and recommending strict censorship of artistic or literary expressions of erotic emotion. The Art of Lovemaking: An Illustrated Tribute is a spirited rebuttal to those crying for renewed censorship. In this sumptuous volume, James Haught brings together the works of many modern and classic artists to show that the depiction of love and desire is not only alive and well but an important theme in art, both in the East and West, throughout the ages. While styles differ and artistic conventions vary, the same message shines through: that love is beautiful and therefore ought to be looked at and enjoyed, not regarded as shameful. The Art of Lovemaking, intended for the private pleasure of adult couples, may be perused solely for its sensual loveliness. But its purpose is also to refute three unhealthy calumnies: the puritanical axiom that sex itself is dirty, the ultrafeminist contention that any portrayal of sexdegrades women, and the vulgar notion that reduces all erotic art to the level of pornography. These fallacious views must retreat before the simple honesty of major artists depicting lovers as affectionate equals. In his superb introduction, Russell Vannoy discusses various philosophical and cultural approaches to sexuality and the problems of trying to formulate a single, hence exclusive, definition of sexual love.

This text, by a director of university counselling, examines the interplay of forces shaping the development of masculinity. It is particularly important during a period when the status of men has undergone considerable erosion in society. Counsellors, psychotherapists, mental health professionals, and all those working with teenage males will find this study of sex and gender issues, male bonding, psychosexual adjustment, situational ethics, and sexuality illuminating.

This collection looks from a variety of angles at the human body as it resists the determinations of gender, sexuality, socialization, and history. Ranging from classical hermaphrodites, Bruegel's blind faces and Weimar transgender surgery, via Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, state-socialist sport and Proust, to Barbie, Lari Pittman, American Psycho, IVF, and video dance, the 16 essays question the relationship between politics, culture, and desire.

Conjugal Rites explores the legal shape of marriage as it has been determined by countless decisions concerning entry and exit into the ancient rite. Heather Brook examines the countless rules and protocols governing marriage that make it valid in the eyes of the law. She argues that the various sexual performatives associated with marriage can establish, reinforce, or rupture conjugal unity while exploring the historical and politcal regulations and prohibitions marriage has faced. Brook unites past and present, public and private, to investigate the changing meanings and effects of conjugality, and challenge the way we think about sex, gender and relationships.

Debra A. Hope The Nebraska Symposium on Motivation is steeped in history and tradition. Over the years the series editors have striven to maintain the highest standards of a- demic excellence and to highlight some of the most important trends in psychology. Perusing the chapter titles in the first 53 volumes shows the shifting emphasis as the science of psychology developed in the latter half of the twentieth century. All of the most important topics are there - drive theory, social learning, the cognitive revolution, developing perspectives on understanding individual differences and the role of culture, and the increasing role of neuroscience. The key figures are there as well - Harry Harlow, Kenneth Spence, Raymond Cattell, George Kelly, Albert Bandura, Carl Rogers, Carroll Izard, Walter Mischel, Sandra Bem, Sandra Spence, Herbert Simon, David Barlow, and many others. In late 2004, I met with a group of interested graduate students, and together we developed a proposal to join this long and proud tradition with a volume on sexual orientation. Our motivation stemmed, in part, from the events around us. The same-sex m- riage debate was covered extensively in the media, reflecting a rapid and important discussion about sexual orientation that we were having (and are still having) as a society. Psychology and related fields have much to offer on many of the issues raised in this debate.

This book contributes to an understanding of the complex relationship of gender and language alongside religion and religious life as experienced by various religious groups around the world. The intention is to put forward current studies in the field of linguistics and explore how gender and various religions intersect with language use. The universal and diverse experience of religion provides for this unique collection of papers concerning the use of language in religious liturgy, in religious communities, and in interaction with identity. As such, the book will attract students and researchers in discourse, gender studies and religious studies.

For every woman who wants to know what her man is thinking.

Internationally syndicated radio superhost and columnist, controversial psycho-therapist, and author of the break-out New York Times bestsellers How Could You Do That?! and Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives, Dr. Laura Schlessinger is back with Ten Stupid Things Men Do to Mess Up Their Lives.

In ten vital, compelling chapters, Dr. Laura speaks her mind on:

1. Stupid Chivalry
   By getting involved with the wrong woman (weak, flaky, damaged, needy, desperate, stupid, untrustworthy, immature, etc.) you think that your love will save/transform her.

2. Stupid Independence
   Unwilling to admit "need" for bonding and intimacy, you hide in excesses of work, play, drink, drugs, porn, and meaningless sex.

3. Stupid Ambition
   Unable to comfortably and proudly accept your inherent importance to society and family as husband and father, you bow to the false idols of money, toys, power, and status.

4. Stupid Strength
   Uncomfortable with feeling weak, vulnerable, useless, powerless, or rejected, you use intimidation, force, or passive-aggressiveness to regain control.

5. Stupid Sex
   Taking an attraction, opportunity, or erection as a "sign," you measure your masculinity and power by sexual conquests, infidelities, and orgasms.

6. Stupid Matrimony
   Lacking a mature sense of the purpose, meaning, or value of marriage, you realize too late you've gone down the aisle with the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and feel helpless to "fix it."

7. Stupid Husbanding
   Thinking that marriage is the honorable discharge from loving courtship, you continue to live as though you were single and your "mommy-wife" will take care of everything else.

8. Stupid Parenting
   Believing that only women/mothers nurture children, you withdraw from hands-on parenting to assert your masculine importance, missing out on the true "soul food" of a child's hug.

9. Stupid Boyishness
   Having not yet worked out a comfortable emotional and social understanding with your mother, you form relationships with women that become geared to avenge, resolve, or protect you from your ties to Mommy.

10. Stupid Machismo
    Understanding the true and meaningful difference between being male and a man, you can become a man.

During the past decade governments around the globe have introduced institutional mechanisms to promote the advancement of women, including measures to increase women's political participation rates and to incorporate women's interests into policy-making. Why have they done so? How successful have these initiatives been? What are the emerging agendas facing gender equality advocates now? In the New Politics of Gender Equality Judith Squires examines the origins, evolution and key features of three strategies that have been employed across the world in pursuit of gender equality - quotas, policy agencies and gender mainstreaming. The author critically examines each strategy to see how far they transform political institutions and agendas and to what extent they lead rather to the assimilation of women in male-defined structures. Squires argues that a multi-pronged approach, drawing on democratic rather than technocratic strategies, offers the best potential for advancing gender equality. She highlights too the limitations of approaches that ignore inequalities among women and the challenges of developing equality initiatives to address multiple and cross-cutting inequalities between groups. Judith Squires is Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol. She has written, researched and published widely in the field of gender politics and gender equality.

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.

Trollope and the Magazines examines a serial publication of several of Trollope's novels in the context of the gendered discourses circulating in a range of Victorian magazines--including Cornhill, Good Words, Saint Pauls, and the Fortnightly Review. It highlights the importance of the periodical press in the literary culture of Victorian Britain, and argues that readers today need to engage with the lively cultural debates in the magazines, in order to appreciate more fully the complexity of Trollope's popular fiction.

Henry James remained throughout his life focused on his boyhood and early manhood, and correspondingly on younger boys and men, and John R. Bradley illustrates how it is in the context of such narcissism that James consistently dealt with male desire in his fiction. He also traces a more subtle but related trajectory in James's writing from a Classical to a Modernist gay discourse, which in turn is shown to have been paralleled by a shift in James's fiction from naturalistic beginnings to later stylistic evasion and obscurity. This radical book, which covers the whole of James's career, will quickly be recognized as a defining text in this emerging field of James studies.