Slavery in the United States continues to loom large in our national consciousness and is a major curricular focus in African American studies, during Black History Month, and for slavery units. This is the first encyclopedia to focus on the typical experiences and roles and material life of female slaves in the United States from Colonial times to Emancipation. More than 150 essay entries written by a host of experts offer a unique perspective on the material life, events, typical experiences, and roles of enslaved women and girls in both their interactions with their owners and the little private time they could manage. This groundbreaking volume is an exciting focus for research and general browsing and belongs in all American History, Women's Studies, and African American Studies collections.

The coverage includes entries illuminating women's work, on the plantation, from the big house to the field and slave cabin as well as individual entrepeneurialship. Aspects of daily life such as food procurement and meals, folk medicine and healing, and hygiene are revealed. Material life is uncovered through entries such as Auction Block, Clothing and Adornments, and Living Quarters. Life cycle events from pregnancy and birthing to childcare to holidays and death and funeral customs are discussed. The resistance to slavery and its horrors are enumerated in many entries such as Abolition, Sexual Violence, and the Underground Railroad. A wider understanding of the different ways that slavery played out for various enslaved women can be seen in entries regarding African origins and that depict regions in the North and South such as Low Country and groups such as Maroon Communities. Profiles of noted female slaves and their works are also included. Accompanying the entries are suggestions for further reading. Further scholarly value is added with a chronology and selected bibliography. Numerous photos and sidebars complement the essays, with quotations from oral history and literature plus document excerpts.

This essential text for newcomers and experts alike combines a broad survey of African American women's writing with a vivid critique by Sandi Russell, inspired by her discovery of her own cultural inheritance.

This was the first book to focus on the full scope of African American women's writing and creativity. It has now been completely revised and is reissued with a new introduction. Filling as it does the growing demand for critical work on black women's writing, it is particularly suited to undergraduate courses in literature, women's studies and American studies.

This book explores the inter-relationships between Agatha Christie and her works to seek the wholeness in the Christie experience. The authors perceive an integration in personal experience and moral and aesthetic values between the woman and her art.

This book considers what work and retirement mean for older women, how each is experienced, and how working fits with other facets of their lives. The authors draw on data collected from women themselves, employers, industry stakeholders and older workers' advocates, to explore older women's experiences of work and retirement against a backdrop of current policy efforts to extend working lives in response to ageing societies. Contrary to common representations of the situation of older workers, the data reveal how workplaces can be seen as relatively benign, and retirement viewed positively. It contributes to academic debate regarding identity, purpose and meaning in later life, identifying challenges for work-focused public policy. Students and scholars of human resource management, sociology, gerontology and social policy will appreciate the extension of understanding older women's life course trajectories that the book offers. Public policy-makers will benefit from the different representations of older women in the book, and the identification of where they would benefit from policy changes.

Today, women everywhere clamor for the latest erotic bestselling novels--their scenes of daring sexual exploits have fired up our collective imagination. But before we turned to fiction for our turn-ons, Nancy Friday unleashed a sexual revolution with her collections of uninhibited writings--the "real "fantasies of "real "women, in books that broke "all "the rules. . . .
FORBIDDEN FLOWERS
After "My Secret Garden," Nancy Friday's first boundary-shattering collection, rocked America and freed women to put their most private longings and secret desires into words for all to read, hundreds more were inspired to do just that: From the seeds sown in "My Secret Garden "grew "Forbidden Flowers," an even more explicit and colorful gathering of daring imaginings, uninhibited dreamings, and real-life experimental encounters experienced by women just like you. More fun than fiction, more supremely sexy than you ever imagined, here are the kinds of fantasies that dare you to cross a line and pluck some forbidden flowers of your very own.

Following her internationally bestselling book The Good Women of China, Xinran has written one of the most powerful accounts of the lives of Chinese women. She has gained entrance to the most pained, secret chambers in the hearts of Chinese mothers--students, successful businesswomen, midwives, peasants--who, whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions, or hideous economic necessity, have given up their daughters. Xinran beautifully portrays the "extra-birth guerrillas" who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold on to more than one baby; naive young girl students who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the "pebble mother" on the banks of the Yangtze River still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can't produce a male heir; and Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but confiscated by the state.
For parents of adopted Chinese children and for the children themselves, this is an indispensable, powerful, and intensely moving book. Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother is powered by love and by heartbreak and will stay with readers long after they have turned the final page.

How would you feel, as a guest, about sitting in a suburban living room that is for women only? What if you wanted a baby but as a single woman could not have one outside of a marriage? Could you stay home to mourn a husband for four months and ten days? Headstrong Daughters takes us inside the lives of Muslim women in Australia today. They are working professionals, mothers, and students. At home they are finding ways to stay true to their faith as well as to themselves, navigating the expectations of their families and the traditions they brought with them to their new country. But things are not always what they seem. These candid, moving and sometimes surprising stories reveal a side to Australian life that is little known and often misunderstood. Inspiring, warm and determined, these women are the new face of Islam in Australia.

The conflict between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law has existed throughout all of history. In the Old Testament, Rebekah complained that her daughters-in-law were making her so miserable, she'd rather be dead. Now, thousands of years later, we're still complaining about our in-laws, often even hoping they really won't ever come visit.In Mothers-in-Law vs. Daughters-in-Law, author Elisabeth Graham examines this in-law conflict with aims to draw readers into a different perspective: that women will learn to recognize their in-laws as a beneficial relationship--a gift--to and for the entire family.With sound biblical wisdom and clever insights, Graham teaches women to find peace in all aspects of their relationships with their in-laws.

Have you struggled to get diagnosed, be believed or get the right treatment for endometriosis? This book is for you.

We still don't know what causes endometriosis, and we don't know how to cure it either. What we do know is that it can cause debilitating pain and seriously affect mental health. Endometriosis is not 'just a bad period', it is a whole-body disease which is as common as asthma or diabetes, affecting 1 in 10 women. Yet it is barely covered in medical school, leaving sufferers repeatedly dismissed when trying to access care.

Backed with up-to-date scientific knowledge and interviews with endometriosis specialists and those affected by the condition, Jen Moore gives you all the tools you need to:

• Understand what endometriosis is (and what it is not)
• Deal with the system and get a diagnosis
• Navigate the ins and outs of surgery
• Cope with physical and mental pain
• Fight for better endometriosis care

This beacon of hope is your go-to guide to endometriosis, getting the care you deserve and finally feeling seen and heard.

The Beauty Trade takes seriously the frequently maligned and trivialized beauty economy, just as it has become one of the most important worldwide industries. Through the lens of beauty products, practices, and ideas of youth in Guadalajara, Mexico, the book analyzes whether and how beauty norms are changing in relation to the globalizing beauty economy. It looks at who benefits and who loses from beauty globalization and what this means for gender norms among youth. Weaving together fascinating ethnographic research on beauty practices, global political economy, and feminist analysis, the book presents a feminist analysis of the global economy of beauty. Rather than a sign of frivolity, the beauty economy is intimately connected to youth's social and economic development. Cosmetic makeovers have become a modern rite of passage for girls, enabling social connections and differentiations, as well as entrepreneurial activities. The global beauty economy is a phenomenon generated by young people, mostly women, laboring in, teaching, and consuming beauty. Globalization in the beauty economy is a phenomenon propelled by youth, eager for belonging and originality, using every mechanism at their disposal to look good. Contrary to popular wisdom, globalization in the beauty economy is not homogenizing beauty standards to a Western ideal; it is diversifying beauty standards. The Beauty Trade explains how globalization, combined with youth's desires for uniqueness, is enabling the spread of a diversity of beauty cultures, including alternative visions of gender appropriate looks and behavior.

The bestselling author of The XX Brain shows women how to navigate menopause successfully and come out the other side with an even better brain.

Menopause and perimenopause are still baffling to most doctors, leaving patients exasperated as they grapple with symptoms ranging from hot flashes to insomnia to brain fog. As a leading neuroscientist and women's brain health specialist, Dr Mosconi unravels these mysteries by revealing how menopause doesn't just impact the ovaries - it's a hormonal show in which the brain takes centre stage.

The decline of the hormone estrogen during menopause influences everything from body temperature to mood to memory, potentially paving the way for cognitive decline later in life. To conquer these challenges successfully, Dr. Mosconi brings us the latest approaches - explaining the role of cutting-edge hormone replacement therapies like 'designer estrogens,' hormonal contraception and key lifestyle changes encompassing diet, exercise and self-care.

Best of all, Dr Mosconi dispels the myth that menopause signifies an end, demonstrating that it's actually a transition. Contrary to popular belief, if we know how to take care of ourselves during menopause, we can emerge with a renewed, enhanced brain - ushering in a meaningful and vibrant new chapter of life.