This book critically examines recent theories of fashion which have sought to legitimize its pleasures and defend it as an avenue for self-expression. Through a series of essays which address different aspects of fashion in postmodern culture including the wearing of makeup, cosmetic surgery, tattoos, the role of ornament in dress and the blurring of gender boundaries, it is argued that the greatest concern today lies not in the failure to acknowledge the pleasures of fashion, but, on the contrary, in the tendency to elevate it to a dominant position in everyday life where the cultivation of one's physical appearance supplants all other sources of identity formation.

Feminists have argued that the Barbie doll perpetuates unrealistic standards of feminine beauty and undermines the credibility of women - that her long, slender plastic limbs and tiny waist fetishize the female body in unnatural ways and that her mature, overtly fashionable image promotes consumerism and superficiality over and above womens liberty and intellect. Depending on the viewer, Barbie is either a malign symbol of the strategies of the capitalist system or she is a symbol of glamour, high fashion and style, a fascinating indice of cultural change and nostalgic memory. Yet both Barbies fans and detractors assume that she stands alone.In reality she is the most high profile of a series of iconic dolls that over the past century and a half have been intimately connected to notions of fashionability. The prominence of haute couture in popular culture suggests that the link between fashion marketing and dolls should be an obvious one. Yet to date this connection has not been systematically explored. Doll collecting has been viewed as an enthusiasts or curatorial preserve, while the volumes these artefacts speak about culture and identity has not been adequately interrogated. Peers original and shrewd analysis fills a major gap in cultural studies by examining in depth the dolls associations with concepts of femininity and fashionability.

Since the Cuban revolution in 1959, male homosexuality has been a controversial aspect of Cuban society. In this account of homosexual life, Ian Lumsden explores the treatment of male homosexuality under Castro within the framework of pre-revolution prejudices and preconceptions. This first-hand report links the cultural history and current erosion of traditional machismo, the correlation between traditional women's roles and the relationships between gay men, and homosexuality as defined by the law and as presented in typical sex education. From the international controversy over state-imposed sanatoriums for HIV/AIDS patients, to the underground gay social scene, to the issues affecting gay life and family ties, Lumsden sheds light on a little-known and misunderstood aspect of modern Cuban society.

This book highlights the intersection between theory and lived experience, academic description and the personal narrative of Lou Sullivan. Sullivan puzzled in his diaries over the conundrum of his desire to transition from female to male in order to be a gay man. The reader will follow Sullivan as he struggles with his feelings of maleness, in his troubled relationship with his lover, Tom, through his many sexual escapades, and finally, as he begins taking hormones. Alongside the diaries is an engagement with body and gender theories, accessible to the introductory reader, yet also taking up current debates especially in transgender studies.

This ground-breaking work provides the first history of ideas about the sexual child in modernity. Beginning with twenty-first century panics about sexualization, the authors address why the sexual child excites such powerful emotions in the Anglophone west. Historical analysis of the past two centuries offers some challenging and insightful answers. Drawing on a wide range of different materials from enlightenment philosophy, medicine, social purity sexual hygiene, psychoanalysis and child development, this book illustrates that current panics have a consistent and fascinating history. Egan and Hawkes strive to progress beyond the current impasse of fear and anxiety.

This collection of multiple perspectives on the "war on terror" and the new imperialism provides a depth of analysis. Looking at the imperialism and the "war on terror" through a lens focused on gender and race, the contributors expose the limitations of the current popular discourse and help to uncover possibilities not yet apparent in that same discourse.

Customers based in the US and Canada, please order from: https://www.sas.ac.uk/envisionthisAmerica Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future. Customers in the USA and Canada can purchase the book from here: https://bit.ly/2KBk0V2

Repression receives little attention in philosophical literature. This study of cases of repression that inhibit an agent's deliberative access to his reasons argues that an agent cannot correctly deliberate about a reason to overcome repression as if he did so, he would already have overcome repression and so would have no reason to do so.

Exploring the implications of the internet and bio-technologies for intimate and sexual life, this book discusses the concept of citizenship in relation to the extension of public health through the internet, and reveals concerns that sexually transmitted infections and HIV are associated with such technologies.

Rethinking Language and Gender Research is the first book focusing on language and gender to explicitly challenge the dichotomy of female and male use of language. It represents a turning point in language and gender studies, addressing the political and social consequences of popular beliefs about women's language and men's language and proposing new ways of looking at language and gender. The essays take a fresh approach to the study of subjects such as language and sex and the use of language to produce and maintain power and prestige. Topics explored in this text include sex and the brain; the language of a rape hearing; teenage language; radio talk show exchanges; discourse strategies of African American women; political implications for language and gender studies; the relationship between sex and gender and the construction of identity through language. A useful introductory chapter sets the articles in context, explaining the relationships that exist between them, and full cross-referencing between articles and an extensive index allow for easy access to information. The interdisciplinary approach of the text, the wide-range of methodologies presented, and the comprehensive review of the current literature will make this book invaluable reading for all upper-level undergraduate students, postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics, gender and cultural studies.

In eighteenth-century Spain, just as in Britain and France, the term "Enlightenment" implied both a spirit of criticism and the dissemination of new scientific and philosophical modes of thought. But in Spain this new way of thinking also required the incorporation of ancient epistemologies, in particular practices and ideas concerning the healing, training, and experience of the body. In Embodying Enlightenment, Rebecca Haidt investigates this distinctly Spanish fascination with the cultural construction of bodies during the Enlightenment, particularly masculine bodies. Haidt interlaces a host of disciplines in her analysis of key works of eighteenth-century literature and art, including medical treatises, visual imagery, poetry, and erotica. She then traces the classical knowledge that informed the literature of the gendered, medicalized, and politicized male body in eighteenth-century Spanish culture. What results is an original and revealing study of the body in Spanish culture and thought, and a new look at the Spanish Enlightenment from a very unique angle.

Using the Peruvian internal armed conflict as a case study, this book examines wartime rape and how it reproduces and reinforces existing hierarchies. Jelke Boesten argues that effective responses to sexual violence in wartime are conditional upon profound changes in legal frameworks and practices, institutions, and society at large.

Written by a biopsychologist, this book describes and explains transsexualism and transgenderism (TSTG) from a scientific vantage point. Why does a male violate cultural gender rules and dress and act as a woman? Why does a female violate cultural rules to dress and act as a man? Why do some males and females undergo radical medical procedures in order to permanently change their bodies so that they are closer, respectively, to female and male bodies? In this book, a Princeton University-trained physiological psychologist explores dozens of theories about what may spur transsexual and transgender (TSTG) thinking, exposes the myths of fetishism, homosexuality, prenatal hormones, or child rearing as causes, and explains the two causes that are supported by current science. Covering a breadth of topics that include neuroanatomy, choice, psychodynamics, and transsexual transition, author Thomas E. Bevan, PhD, synthesizes the pertinent research regarding transsexualism and transgenderism across 22 scientific disciplines. The book covers various gender systems from antiquity to historical and contemporary cultures that support the biological basis of transsexualism and transgenderism, addresses human development from the time prior to conception through adulthood and potential transsexual transition, and corrects common myths and assumptions about TSTG individuals, such as that crossdressing is basically motivated by a desire for sexual arousal. The book also includes sections that cite definitions of key terms and identify related reading, organizations for support, and current TSTG events worldwide. Provides an unprecedented comprehensive coverage of transsexual and transgender science Enables readers ranging from the general public to medical professionals, experimental and clinical psychologists, and policymakers with a broad understanding of transsexualism and transgenderism (TSTG) based on available scientific knowledge Underscores how the conventional wisdom regarding the causes of transsexualism and transgenderism is wrong, and that the causal factors supported by scientific evidence are genetics and epigenetics Supplies a balanced depiction of transsexual transition as a process that has proven to generate positive results but involves some specific health risks Explains how the biology of TSTG people is different from non-TSTG people

Ambivalence in Hardy challenges the Hardy canon through the analysis of two "minor" novels: The Hand of Ethelberta and Two on a Tower, and with the help of manuscript evidence a revolutionary re-reading of The Woodlanders is offered. Generous references to Hardy's letters, autobiography, literary notebooks, marginalia, and the letters of his two wives, seek to blend a biographical approach with a feminist reading. Parallelisms between Hardy's fiction and that of contemporary women writers, especially his protégés and his "scribbling" wives, are discussed in unprecedented detail. An analysis of the short stories makes a case for Hardy as the champion of "Woman as Victim," while his changing responses to the Suffrage movement suggest a deep-rooted ambivalence that makes any glib appropriation of Hardy under the feminist banner too simplistic. This book thus highlights the tensions and contradictions between Hardy and the apologist for women and Hardy the alleged misogynist.

This book investigates the extent of gender inequality in the division of labor in the modern household. Through comparisons of the time allocations of single couple families without children, couple families with children and lone parents, a comprehensive account of the evolution of gender inequality over a typical lifecourse is presented.

Actresses and Mental Illness investigates the relationship between the work of the actress and her personal experience of mental illness, from the late nineteenth through to the end of twentieth century. Over the past two decades scholars have made great advances in our understanding of the history of the actress, unearthing the material conditions of her working life, the force of her creative agency and the politics of her reception and representation. By focusing specifically on actresses' encounters with mental illness, Fiona Gregory builds on this earlier work and significantly supplements it. Through detailed case studies of both well-known and neglected figures in theatre and film history, including Mrs Patrick Campbell, Vivien Leigh, Frances Farmer and Diana Barrymore, it shows how mental illness - actual or supposed - has impacted on actresses' performances, careers and celebrity. The book covers a range of topics including: representing emotion on stage; the 'failed' actress; actresses and addiction; and actresses and psychiatric treatment. Actresses and Mental Illness expands the field of actress studies by showing how consideration of the personal experience of the actress influences our understanding of her work and its reception. The book underscores how the actress can be perceived as a representative public woman, acting as a lens through which we can examine broader attitudes to women and mental illness.

This timely study offers a radical rereading of Conrad's work in light of contemporary theories of masculinity. Drawing on feminism, gay studies, film theory and literary theory, the author shows that Conrad's fiction, even as it reflects certain assumptions of its day about gender roles, offers striking insights into the instability of the "masculine." The book explores the relationship of masculinity with imperialism, modernity, the visual and the body in a wide range of Conrad's less-known fiction.

Family Policy Paradoxes examines the political regulation of the family in Sweden, between 1930 and today. The book draws attention to the political attempts to create a 'modern family,' and the aspiration to regulate the family and install gender equality. It looks at historic and current developments in gender equality and family policy, and it sheds light on the ongoing policy processes within Europe and how these can be understood in the light of a particular political experience. Based on original research, Family Policy Paradoxes builds on rich and varied sources, including interviews with key actors and policy documents. It will contribute to the literature of gender, family, and welfare policies.

This book is about the struggles of female and male descendants of Indian indentured migrants in Trinidad in the first half of the twentieth century, each desiring to preserve some aspects of the gender system brought from India between 1845 and 1917, which were important to their continued definition of ethnic identity and community in Trinidad. At the same time the situation of migration allowed for challenges to the caste system of Hinduism and, for women and some men, new opportunities to confront the more restricting aspect of Indian patriarchy which followed them across the seas from India.

In Chinese societies where both "money" and "gender" confer power, can a woman's economic success relative to her husband's bring about a more equal division of household labor? Lui's qualitative study of "status-reversed" Hong Kong families, wherein wives earn more than their husbands, examines how couples re-negotiate household labor in ways that perpetuate male dominance within the family even when the traditional gender expectation that "men rule outside, women rule inside" (nanzhuwai, nuzhunei) is challenged. Going beyond the dyadic negotiation of household labor, this important study also explores the role of "third parties," namely the couples' children and parents, who actively encourage couples to conform to traditional gender norms, thereby reproducing an unequal division of household labor. Based upon the experiences of families with stay-at-home dads, Lui further identifies a new mechanism of deconstructing gender, by which couples concertedly construct new norms of "work" and "gender" that they maintain through daily interactions to fit their atypical relative earnings. As a result, there are sparks of hope that both men and women can be liberated from a set of traditional social norms. Re-negotiating Gender: Household Division of Labor When She Earns More than He Does is essential reading in the fields of family and gender studies, sociology, psychology, and East Asian studies.

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

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.