"You are about to embark on a journey that will take you places you've never been before and you will learn much about things you don't even know exist." The words flowed out of Patricia Beirne's hand and onto the paper in front of her. Subsequent sessions of automatic writing encouraged her and gave suggestions. "I never felt alone again," she says about the beginning of her extraordinary voyage of discovery.

To the outside world, Patricia seemed to have it all: an athletic, successful husband, two beautiful daughters, and a home in the San Diego area. Raised with rigid ideas about what women should be, she worked to be the perfect wife, hostess, mother, and homemaker. But as the years went by, Patricia could no longer ignore the growing restlessness and unsettling dreams stirring inside her. She knew she was being called to discover the meaning of her life ... but what was it?

Within a five-year period, both daughters were in serious car accidents, one struggled with drug use, and the other fought depression and a mysterious illness that took her to the hospital-all while Patricia's marriage deteriorated. It was then that she discovered she had a gift. She could trust the divine, loving Voice that directed her, and she could use her gift to help her daughters as well as others. Her story is a testament to what can happen when we listen, trust, and open ourselves to new ways of hearing and healing.

Each morning we establish an image and an identity for ourselves through the simple act of getting dressed. Why Women Wear What they Wear presents an intimate ethnography of clothing choice. The book uses real women's lives and clothing decisions-observed and discussed at the moment of getting dressed - to illustrate theories of clothing, the body, and identity. Woodward pieces together what women actually think about clothing, dress and the body in a world where popular media and culture presents an increasingly extreme and distorted view of femininity and the ideal body. Immediately accessible to all those who have stood in front of a mirror and wondered 'does my bum look big in this?', 'is this skirt really me?' or 'does this jacket match?', Why Women Wear What they Wear provides students of anthropology and fashion with a fresh perspective on the social issues and constraints we are all consciously or unconsciously negotiating when we get dressed.

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"The result of Miller's information lode is aa]sometimes uplifting book. It is possible for government and private-sector programs to alleviate the violence against females, Miller believes--but not if those in charge lack the will and refuse to allocate the resources."
--"St. Louis Post Dispatch"

aMiller gives us a detailed examination of the violence experienced by Black inner city girls whose victimization is based on multiple dimensions of their lives: because they are Black, because they live in extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods, and because they are women. Milleras careful, rich, detailed field work documents and analyzes the complex realities of these young womenas lives that set the context for the struggles they routinely contend with. The voices of these young people have been ignored for too long. Getting Played has given them an opportunity to be heard that is long overdue.a
--Robert Crutchfield, University of Washington

aGetting Played shows powerfully how gender, class, and race inequality expose girls in disadvantaged urban communities to violent and sexual victimization, both in neighborhoods and in schools. Miller expertly analyzes how extreme social and economic disadvantage combine with pervasive normative codes to create a context in which girls face high risks of victimization at the hands of boys and men. Getting Played is masterful.a
--Karen Heimer, co-editor of "Gender and Crime: Patterns in Victimization and Offending"

aBy giving us a better understanding of how the neighborhoods and the peer culture of poor African American youth increase the risk of agendered victimization, a GettingPlayed challenges both academics and policymakers to face the role of structured discrimination in the perpetuation of violence toward women.a
--Candace Kruttschnitt, co-author of "Marking Time in the Golden State: Womenas Imprisonment in California"

aThis is a significant and timely book. Miller has taken on a vitally important, but understudied, topic--violence against young Black girls in economically depressed urban settings.a
--Dana M. Britton, author of "At Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization"

aMiller grabs readers' attention with the stark reality of the widespread occurrence of violent victimization among the girls she studies.a
--From the Foreword by Ruth D. Peterson, Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The Ohio State University

Much has been written about the challenges that face urban African American young men, but less is said about the harsh realities for African American young women in disadvantaged communities. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, and even gang rape are not uncommon experiences. In Getting Played, sociologist Jody Miller presents a compelling picture of this dire social problem and explores how inextricably, and tragically, linked violence is to their daily lives in poor urban neighborhoods.

Drawing from richly textured interviews with adolescent girls and boys, Miller brings a keen eye to the troubling realities of a world infused with danger and gender-based violence. These girls are isolated, ignored, and often victimized by those considered family and friends. Community institutions such as the police and schools that are meant to protect them often turn a blind eye, leaving girls to fend for themselves. Miller draws a vivid picture of the race and gender inequalities that harm these communities--and how these result in deeply and dangerously engrained beliefs about gender that teach youths to see such violence--rather than the result of broader social inequalities--as deserved due to individual girlsa flawed characters, i.e., ashe deserved it.a

Through Milleras careful analysis of these engaging, often unsettling stories, Getting Played shows us not only how these young women are victimized, but how, despite vastly inadequate social support and opportunities, they struggle to navigate this dangerous terrain.

Politics constructs gender and gender constructs politics: this is a central theme in this collection of essays which seek not only to write a history that focus on women's experiences but seeks also to analyse those dynamic forces that have shaped that history.It examines the 'making' of the other half of the working class - women - as workers, trade unionists and political activists, and seeks to weave together intricate relationship between class and gender, particular within the process of industrialization. It is because the class/gender relationship has often been either ignored or misunderstood that it has been possible to write general histories of the labour movement in which women are hardly mentioned. Featuring contributions from leading and up-and-coming women labour historians, essays are in three sections: the labour market/work (typical and atypical); trade unions; and politics

Jesus didn't say that the world would know we are his followers by our biting rhetoric, our political leanings, our charity work, or even by our knowledge of Scripture. He said the world would know us by our love for one another. Yet it's so easy to put others at arm's length, to lash out, to put up walls. Deidra Riggs wants us to put our focus on self-preservation aside and, like Jesus, make the first move toward reconciliation. In One, Riggs shows readers that when Jesus offered himself up in our place, he was not only purchasing our salvation but also setting an example for us to follow. She helps readers understand that they are secure in God's inexhaustible love, making them free to love others lavishly--not just in what they do but in what they say, what they don't say, what they will endure, and what they will forgive. Anyone who longs for unity in the church, in their family, and in their community will find in this book both inspiring examples of loving done well and encouragement to begin the often unnoticed hard work of building bridges with those around them.

This book describes and analyses the different roles women have played in the Islamic world, past and present. Starting with Sharia regulations and their applications in societies throughout history, it addresses the obstacles and opportunities women have faced, and still face, in various Islamic societies. The last chapter addresses women's participation in the Arab Spring and their hopes and disappointments. The result is a vivid portrait of the different worlds of women in Islam, encompassing religion and law, sexuality and love, literature and the arts, law and professional life, and politics and power.

This book describes southern womanhood and liberal northern education.From the end of Reconstruction and into the New South era, more than one thousand white southern women attended one of the Seven Sister colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe, and Barnard. Joan Marie Johnson looks at how such educations - in the North, at some of the country's best schools - influenced southern women to challenge their traditional gender roles and become active in woman suffrage and other social reforms of the Progressive Era South.Attending one of the Seven Sister colleges, Johnson argues, could transform a southern woman indoctrinated in notions of domesticity and dependence into someone with newfound confidence and leadership skills. Many southern students at northern schools imported the values they imbibed at college, returning home to found schools of their own, women's clubs, and woman suffrage associations. At the same time, during college and after graduation, southern women maintained a complicated relationship to home, nurturing their regional identity and remaining loyal to the Confederacy.Johnson explores why students sought a classical, liberal arts education, how they prepared for entrance examinations, and how they felt as southerners on northern campuses. She draws on personal writings, information gleaned from college publications and records, and data on the women's decisions about marriage, work, children, and other life-altering concerns.In their time, the women studied in this book would eventually make up a disproportionately high percentage of the elite southern female leadership. This collective biography highlights their important role in forging new roles for women, especially in social reform, education, and suffrage.

When Lydia Rychner-Reich took her first breath in 1927, no one could have predicted the horrors she would face in her life. Born just before the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany, she personally experienced the atrocities of the time and shares them in this memoir for the whole world. In "Desperation," Lydia recounts the harrowing story of her life under Nazi rule. The torment began in 1938 when, at the age of eleven, the Nazis deported Lydia and her family to Poland, where they struggled daily to survive in a Jewish ghetto. In 1943, the Nazis tore Lydia away from her parents, sending her to detention centers and later to toil in a slave labor camp. It was at the end of 1944 that Lydia was truly tested. The Nazis forced her and the other prisoners on the Death March to Bergen-Belsen, where she spent the remainder of her imprisonment and where she met and befriended Anne Frank. While at Bergen-Belsen, Lydia wrote and hid notes to document the horrors she witnessed. This heart-wrenching account includes photos and official documentation from the Nazi era. Of her family, Lydia alone survived the concentration camps; her parents and sisters died there. She tells her tale so the world won't forget the innocent victims.

This second of two volumes continues the exploration of the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. Seventeen essays written by established and emerging scholars recover the stories and voices of a diverse group of women, from the transition from slavery to freedom in the period following the Civil War through the struggle to secure rights for gay and lesbian women in the late twentieth century. Placing their subjects in their larger historical contexts, the authors show how the experiences of Virginia women varied by race, class, age, and marital status, and also across both space and time. Some essays examine the lives of well-known women-such as Ellen Glasgow and Patsy Cline-from a new perspective. Others introduce readers to historical figures who are less familiar: freedmen schoolteacher Caroline Putnam; reformer Orra Gray Langhorne; Sadie Heath Cabaniss, the founder of professional nursing in Virginia; and Marie Kimball, an early preservationist. Essays on cotton textile workers in the late nineteenth century and home demonstration agents in the early twentieth examine women's collective experiences in these important areas. Altogether, the essays in this collection offer readers an engaging and personal window into the experiences of women in the Old Dominion.