This is a timely collection exploring the politics of female celebrity across a range of contemporary, historical, media and national contexts. "In the Limelight and Under the Microscope" is a timely collection exploring the politics of female celebrity across a range of contemporary, historical, media and national contexts. Amidst concerns about the apparent 'decline' in the currency of modern fame ('famous for being famous'), as well as debates about the shifting parameters of public/private visibility, it is female celebrities who are positioned as the most active discursive terrain. This collection seeks to interrogate such phenomena by forging a greater conceptual, theoretical and historical dialogue between celebrity studies and critical gender studies. It takes as its starting point the understanding that female celebrity is a particularly fraught cultural phenomenon with ideological and industrial implications that warrant careful scrutiny. In moving across case studies from the 19th century to the present day, this book works from the assumption that the case study should play a crucial role in generating debate about the dialogue between 'past' and 'present', and the individual essays will seek to reflect this spirit of enquiry.

Women Don't Owe You Pretty will tell you to... love sex, hate sexism, protect your goddamn energy, life is short, dump them, and that you owe men nothing, least of all pretty.

Florence's debut book will explore all progressive corners of the feminist conversation; from insecurity projection and refusing to find comfort in other women's flaws, to deciding whether to date or dump them, all the way through to unpacking the male gaze and how it shapes our identity.

Women Don't Owe You Pretty is an accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. In a world that tells women we're either not enough or too much, it's time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to reshape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society.

Florence's book will help you to tackle and challenge the limiting narrative you have been bombarded with your whole life, and determine feminism on your own terms.

"This is simply the most significant analysis of contemporary Mexican cinema to date, and it will make an incalculably important contribution to the field.... Rashkin's incisive analyses and brilliant juxtaposition of cultural and socio-political determinants will become the new standard that other scholars will seek to emulate." -- Ana M. Lo pez, Associate Professor of Film Studies and Communication, Tulane University

Women filmmakers in Mexico were rare until the 1980s and 1990s, when women began to direct feature films in unprecedented numbers. Their films have won acclaim at home and abroad, and the filmmakers have become key figures in contemporary Mexican cinema. In this book, Elissa Rashkin documents how and why women filmmakers have achieved these successes, as she explores how the women's movement, film studies programs, governmental film policy, and the transformation of the intellectual sector since the 1960s have all affected women's filmmaking in Mexico.

After a historical overview of Mexican women's filmmaking from the 1930s onward, Rashkin focuses on the work of five contemporary directors-- Marisa Sistach, Busi Corte s, Guita Schyfter, Mari a Novaro, and Dana Rotberg. Portraying the filmmakers as intellectuals participating in the public life of the nation, Rashkin examines how these directors have addressed questions of national identity through their films, replacing the patriarchal images and stereotypes of the classic Mexican cinema with feminist visions of a democratic and tolerant society.

Epsilon Phi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, has a long and distinguished history of which we are very proud. From its inception to present day, this chapter has provided service to all mankind in an exemplary and noteworthy manner. This is not only reflected in various awards and accolades bestowed upon the membership, but also through its longevity and growth in membership. Furthermore, the tremendous impact this chapter has had in diverse sectors of the community also emphasizes the outstanding works of this chapter. This distinct history will be chronicled through reflective summaries of the chartering of Epsilon Phi Omega and national, regional, and local programs. In addition, there are highlights of chapter membership, celebrations, community outreach, and awards. These narratives begin with notable events during the administration of the chapter's first basileus, Velma Daye. Through her leadership Epsilon Phi Omega was chartered. The history will also include a recapping of current initiatives carried out under the leadership of Dr. Tesha Isler.

Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City explores the survival strategies of poor, HIV-positive Puerto Rican women by asking four key questions: Given their limited resources, how did they manage an illness as serious as HIV/AIDS? Did they look for alternatives to conventional medical treatment? Did the challenges they faced deprive them of self-determination, or could they help themselves and each other? What can we learn from these resourceful women? Based on her work with minority women living in Newark, New Jersey, Sabrina Marie Chase illuminates the hidden traps and land mines burdening our current health care system as a whole. For the women she studied, alliances with doctors, nurses, and social workers could literally mean the difference between life and death. By applying the theories of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to the day-to-day experiences of HIV-positive Latinas, Chase explains why some struggled and even died while others flourished and thrived under difficult conditions. These gripping, true-life stories advocate for those living with chronic illness who depend on the health care "safety net." Through her exploration of life and death among Newark's resourceful women, Chase provides the groundwork for inciting positive change in the U.S. health care system.

Schooling Diaspora relates the previously untold story of twentieth-century female education and Chinese students living overseas in British Malaya and Singapore. Traversing more than a century of British imperialism, Chinese migration, and Southeast Asian nationalism, this book explores the pioneering English- and Chinese-language girls' schools in which these women studied and worked, drawing on school records, missionary annals, colonial reports, periodicals, and oral interviews. The history of educated overseas Chinese girls and women reveals the surprising reach of transnational female affiliations and activities in an age commonly assumed to be male dominated. These women created and joined networks in schools, workplaces, associations, and politics. They influenced notions of labor and social relations in Asian and European societies. They were at the center of political debates over language and ethnicity, and were vital actors in struggles over twentieth-century national belonging. Their education empowered them to defy certain socio-cultural conventions, in ways that school founders and political authorities did not anticipate. At the same time, they contended with an elite male discourse that perpetuated patriarchal views of gender, culture, and nation. Even as their schooling propelled them into a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic public space, Chinese girls and women in diaspora often had to take sides as Malayan and Singaporean society became polarized-sometimes falsely-into mutually exclusive groups of British loyalists, pro-China nationalists, and Southeast Asian citizens. They negotiated these constraints to build unique identities, ultimately contributing to the development of a new figure: the educated transnational Chinese woman.

The past thirty years have seen the emergence of a broad-ranging feminist theological critique of Christology. Speaking out of a range of Christian traditions, feminist theologians have exposed the androcentric character of classical Christology, drawing attention to the fact that women's voices in Scripture and in the history of theology have often gone and continue to go unheard. The theological consequences have been grave: Christ's liberating message of the full humanity of both women and men has been compromised by the patriarchal bias of its interpreters. Feminists have also argued that of all Christian doctrines Christology has been most often turned against women. Christological arguments have been used to reinforce an exclusively male image of God, and thus to legitimate men's superiority over women. Further, the image of Christ on the cross has contributed to women's acceptance of abuses of power, as it has often been interpreted as a model of passive submission to unjust suffering. Some feminists have argued for the total rejection of the doctrine of the cross. Others have concluded that Christianity and feminism are incompatible.
In this book, Arnfriour Guomundsdottir provides a lucid survey and analysis of the full range of such criticisms, as well as her own explicitly feminist retrieval and reconstruction of a theology of the cross. She argues that there is a redemptive message hidden in the cross of Christ that is valuable to women today. Despite its potential for abuse and its well-documented history of misuse against women, a theology of the cross can also affirm Jesus as a divine co-sufferer who brings good news to all who are poor and oppressed. Such a theology, Guomundsdottir contends, offers women meaning and strength from a God who takes human form and enters redemptively into their suffering."

The transformations that are now taking place in women's lives are of great interest to social scientists and policy makers, yet we know very little about the impact of this social change over time. This new study uses longitudinal data - information gathered over a considerable period of time - to provide new insights into the changing dynamics of lives of women today. In particular, it explores the potential of longitudinal or life course analysis as a powerful tool for appreciating the gender dimension of social life. The contributors view the data from a policy perspective and use comparative analysis from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan to expand our understanding of women's life courses in relation to both men and women and the system of inequality.

The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and characterful women in a way that no era had been before. Elizabeth Norton explores the seven ages of the Tudor woman, from childhood to old age, through the diverging examples of women such as Elizabeth Tudor, Henry VIII's sister who died in infancy; Cecily Burbage, Elizabeth's wet nurse; Mary Howard, widowed but influential at court; Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of a controversial queen; and Elizabeth Barton, a peasant girl who would be lauded as a prophetess. Their stories are interwoven with studies of topics ranging from Tudor toys to contraception to witchcraft, painting a portrait of the lives of queens and serving maids, nuns and harlots, widows and chaperones.

The volume is the first comprehensive compilation of texts on gender constructions, normative gender orders and their religious legitimizations, as well as current gender policies in Islamic Southeast Asia, which besides the Islamic core countries of Malaysia and Indonesia also comprises southern Thailand and Mindanao (the Philippines). The authors trace the impact of national development programmes, modernization, globalization, and political conflicts on the local and national gender regimes in the twentieth century, and elaborate on the consequences of the revitalization of a conservative type of Islam. The book, thus, elucidates the boundary lines of cultural and political processes of negotiation related to state, society, and community. It employs a broad analytical framework, offers rich empirical data and gives new insights into current debates on gender and Islam. Contributors include Nelly van Doorn-Harder, Farish A. Noor, Siti Musdah Mulia, Amporn Marddent, Maila Stivens, Alexander Horstmann, Amina Rasul-Bernardo, Monika Arnez, Susanne Schroeter, Nurul Ilmi Idrus, Vivienne S.M. Angeles and Birte Brecht-Drouart.

Part social commentary, part autobiography, part personal growth tutorial, this book is not for the faint of heart. It will disturb provincial sensibilities. If you are up for a story of radical transformation; from the gritty to the graceful, this book is for you. This Darling Princess was conceived by violent rape and abused as a child. By fourteen years old she entered prostitution and other criminal activity. She was pregnant by age seventeen by an organized crime boss and told to have an abortion or be killed. Find out how she became a faithful wife, mother of five, trusted nurse and competent business owner.