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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies
Anita Superson challenges the traditional picture of the skeptic
who asks, "Why be moral?" While holding that the skeptic's position
is important, she builds an argument against it by understanding it
more deeply, and then shows what it would take to successfully
defeat it. Superson argues that we must defeat not only the action
skeptic, but the disposition skeptic, who denies that being morally
disposed is rationally required, and the motive skeptic, who
believes that merely going through the motions in acting morally is
rationally permissible. We also have to address the amoralist, who
is not moved by moral reasons he recognizes. Superson argues for
expanding the skeptic's position from self-interest to privilege to
include morally unjustified behavior targeting disenfranchised
social groups, as well as revising the traditional expected utility
model to exclude desires deformed by patriarchy as irrational.
Lastly she argues that the challenge can be answered if it can be
shown that it is, in an important way, inconsistent and therefore
irrational to privilege oneself over others.
How do men's and women's paths to political office differ? Once in
office, are women's powers more constrained that those of men?
Drawing on longitudinal interviews, government records, and
personal narratives, feminist sociologist Lisa Brush examines the
intersection of work, welfare, and battering. Brush contrasts
conventional wisdom with illuminating analyses of social change and
social structures, highlighting how race and class shape women's
experiences with poverty and abuse and how "domestic" violence
moves out of the home and follows women to work.
Greta Thunberg. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anita Sarkeesian. Emma Gonzalez. When women are vocal about political and social issues, too-often they are flogged with attacks via social networking sites, comment sections, discussion boards, email, and direct message. Rather than targeting their ideas, the abuse targets their identities, pummeling them with rape threats, attacks on their appearance and presumed sexual behavior, and a cacophony of misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic stereotypes and epithets. Like street harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace, digital harassment rejects women's implicit claims to be taken seriously as interlocutors, colleagues, and peers. Sarah Sobieraj shows that this online abuse is more than interpersonal bullying-it is a visceral response to the threat of equality in digital conversations and arenas that men would prefer to control. Thus identity-based attacks are particularly severe for those women who are seen as most out of line, such as those from racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups or who work in domains dominated by men, such as gaming, technology, politics, and sports. Feminists and women who don't conform to traditional gender norms are also frequently targeted. Drawing on interviews with over fifty women who have been on the receiving end of identity-based abuse online, Credible Threat explains why all of us should be concerned about the hostile climate women navigate online. This toxicity comes with economic, professional, and psychological costs for those targeted, but it also exacts societal-level costs that are rarely recognized: it erodes our civil liberties, diminishes our public discourse, thins the knowledge available to inform policy and electoral decision-making, and teaches all women that activism and public service are unappealing, high-risk endeavors to be avoided. Sobieraj traces these underexplored effects, showing that when identity-based attacks succeed in constraining women's use of digital publics, there are democratic consequences that cannot be ignored.
This book is a philosophical exploration of disorientation and its significance for action. Disorientations are human experiences of losing one's bearings, such that life is disrupted and it is not clear how to go on. In the face of life experiences like trauma, grief, illness, migration, education, queer identification, and consciousness raising, individuals can be deeply disoriented. These and other disorientations are not rare. Although disorientations can be common and powerful parts of individuals' lives, they remain uncharacterized by Western philosophers, and overlooked by ethicists. Disorientations can paralyze, overwhelm, embitter, and misdirect moral agents, and moral philosophy and motivational psychology have important insights to offer into why this is. More perplexing are the ways disorientations may prompt improved moral action. Ami Harbin draws on first person accounts, philosophical texts, and qualitative and quantitative research to show that in some cases of disorientation, individuals gain new forms of awareness of political complexity and social norms, and new habits of relating to others and an unpredictable moral landscape. She then argues for the moral and political promise of these gains. A major contention of the book is that disorientations have 'non-resolutionary effects': they can help us act without first helping us resolve what to do. In exploring these possibilities, Disorientation and Moral Life contributes to philosophy of emotions, moral philosophy, and political thought from a distinctly feminist perspective. It makes the case for seeing disorientations as having the power to motivate profound and long-term shifts in moral and political action. A feminist re-envisioning of moral psychology provides the framework for understanding how they do so.
Out from the Shadows showcases the work of 18 analytical feminists from a variety of traditional areas of philosophy: social and political philosophy, normative ethics, virtue theory, metaethics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science. The collection is unique both in its focus on analytical feminism and in its breadth across the subdisciplines within philosophy. The book highlights successful uses of concepts and approaches from traditional philosophy, and illustrates the contributions that feminist approaches have made and could make to the analysis of issues in key areas of traditional philosophy, while also demonstrating that traditional philosophy ignores feminist insights and feminist critiques of traditional philosophy at its own peril.
Victim's Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights takes on a set of questions suggested by the worldwide persistence of human rights abuse and the prevalence of victims' stories in human rights campaigns, truth commissions, and international criminal tribunals: What conceptions of victims are presumed in contemporary human rights discourse? How do conventional narrative templates fail victims of human rights abuse and resist raising novel human rights issues? What is empathy, and how can victims frame their stories to overcome empathetic obstacles and promote commitment to human rights? How can victims' stories be used ethically in the service of human rights? The book addresses these concerns by analyzing the rhetorical resources for and constraints on victims' ability to articulate their stories and by clarifying how their stories can contribute to enlarged understandings of human rights protections and deepened commitments to realizing human rights. It theorizes the normative content that victims' stories can convey and the bearing of that normative content on human rights. Throughout the book, published victims' stories-including stories of torture, slavery, genocide, rape in wartime, and child soldiering-are analyzed in conjunction with philosophical arguments. This book mobilizes philosophical theory to illuminate victims' stories and appeals to victims' stories to enrich the philosophy of human rights.
In recent decades there has been an explosion in work in the social and physical sciences describing the similarities between human and nonhuman as well as human and non-animal thinking. This work has explicitly decentered the brain as the sole, self-contained space of thought, and it has found thinking to be an activity that operates not only across bodies but also across bodily or cellular membranes, as well as multifaceted organic and inorganic environments. For example, researchers have looked at the replication and spread of slime molds (playfully asking what would happen if they colonized the earth) to suggest that they exhibit 'smart behavior' in the way they move as a potential way of considering the spread of disease across the globe. Other scholars have applied this model of non-human thought to the reach of data mining and global surveillance. In The Biopolitics of Alphabets and Embryos, Ruth Miller argues that these types of phenomena are also useful models for thinking about the growth, reproduction, and spread of political thought and democratic processes. Giving slime, data and unbounded entities their political dues, Miller stresses their thinking power and political significance and thus challenges the anthropocentrism of mainstream democratic theories. Miller emphasizes the non-human as highly organized, systemic and productive of democratic growth and replication. She examines developments such as global surveillance, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning, which have been characterized as threats to the privacy, dignity, and integrity of the rational, maximizing and freedom-loving democratic citizen. By shifting her level of analysis from the politics of self-determining subjects to the realm of material environments and information systems, Miller asks what might happen if these alternative, nonhuman thought processes become the normative thought processes of democratic engagement.
Women remain dramatically underrepresented in elective office, including in entry-level political offices. While they enjoy the freedom to stand for office and therefore have an equal legal footing with men, this persistent gender imbalance raises pressing questions about democratic legitimacy, the inclusivity of American politics, and the quality of political representation. The reasons for women's underrepresentation remain the subject of much debate. One explanation-that the United States lacks sufficient openings for political newcomers-has become less compelling in recent years, as states that have adopted term limits have not seen the expected gains in women's office holding. Other accounts about candidate scarcity, gender inequalities in society, and the lingering effects of gendered socialization have some merit; however, these accounts still fail to explain the relatively low numbers. This book argues that a major problem with current accounts exists in their underlying assumption that there is a single model of candidate emergence. The prediction is that women's office holding will rise automatically as women acquire the same backgrounds as men and assimilate to men's pathways to office. In this view, the main reasons for women's political underrepresentation can be found in society rather than in politics. Carroll and Sanbonmatsu argue for a new approach that considers women on their own terms and that focuses on the political origins of women's representation. Drawing upon an original and comparative survey of women state legislators across all fifty states, from 1981 and 2008, and follow-up surveys after the 2008 elections, the authors find that gender differences in pathways to the legislatures, first evident in 1981, have been surprisingly persistent over time. They found that, while the ambition framework better explains men's decisions to run for office, women are much more reliant on the existence of organizational and party support. By rethinking the nature of women's representation, this study calls for a reorientation of academic research on women's election to office and provides insight into new strategies for political practitioners concerned about women's political equality.
Despite significant accomplishments over the past 35 years,
antiviolence activists know that justice for most abused women
remains elusive. Most victims do not call the police or seek help
from the courts, making it crucial to identify new ways for
survivors to find justice. This path-breaking book examines new
justice practices for victims that are being used in the United
States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These informal,
dialogue-based practices, referred to as "restorative justice,"
seek to decrease the role of the state in responding to crime, and
increase the involvement of communities in meeting the needs of
victims and offenders. Restorative justice is most commonly used to
address youth crimes and is generally not recommended or disallowed
for cases of rape, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse.
Nevertheless, restorative practices are beginning to be used to
address violent crime.
Rarely did ancient authors write about the lives of women; even more rarely did they write about the lives of ordinary women: not queens or heroines who influenced war or politics, not sensational examples of virtue or vice, not Christian martyrs or ascetics, but women of moderate status, who experienced everyday joys and sorrows and had everyday merits and failings. Such a woman was Monica-now Saint Monica because of her relationship with her son Augustine, who wrote about her in the Confessions and elsewhere. Despite her rather unremarkable life, Saint Monica has inspired a robust controversy in academia, the Church, and the Augustine-reading public alike: some agree with Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who knew Monica, that Augustine was exceptionally blessed in having such a mother, while others think that Monica is a classic example of the manipulative mother who lives through her son, using religion to repress his sexual life and to control him even when he seems to escape. In Monica: An Ordinary Saint, Gillian Clark reconciles these competing images of Monica's life and legacy, arriving at a woman who was shrewd and enterprising, but also meek and gentle. Weighing Augustine's discussion of his mother against other evidence of women's lives in late antiquity, Clark achieves portraits both of Monica individually, and of the many women like her. Augustine did not claim that his mother was a saint, but he did think that the challenges of everyday life required courage and commitment to Christian principle. Monica's ordinary life, as both he and Clark tell it, showed both. Monica: An Ordinary Saint illuminates Monica, wife and mother, in the context of the societal expectations and burdens that shaped her and all ordinary women.
Hollywood film music is often mocked as a disreputably 'applied'
branch of the art of composition that lacks both the seriousness
and the quality of the classical or late-romantic concert and
operatic music from which it derives. Its composers in the 1930s
and '40s were themselves often scornful of it and aspired to
produce more 'serious' works that would enhance their artistic
reputation.
Audre Lorde was not only a famous poet; she was also one of the
most important radical black feminists of the past century. Her
writings and speeches grappled with an impressive broad list of
topics, including sexuality, race, gender, class, disease, the
arts, parenting, and resistance, and they have served as a
transformative and important foundation for theorists and activists
in considering questions of power and social justice. Lorde
embraced difference, and at each turn she emphasized the importance
of using it to build shared strength among marginalized
communities.
For two hundred years the provision of military security has been a central and defining function of the modern nation-state. The increasing reliance on private military and security companies in contemporary conflict marks a fundamental transformation in the organization of military violence, and it raises issues of accountability and ethics that are of particular concern to feminists. This privatization of force not only enables states to circumvent citizens' democratic control over questions of war and peace, but also undermines women's and minority groups' claims for greater inclusion in the military sphere. Gender and Private Security in Global Politics brings together key scholars from the fields of international relations, security studies, and gender studies to argue that privatization of military security is a deeply gendered process. The chapters employ a variety of feminist perspectives, including critical, postcolonial, poststructuralist, and queer feminist perspectives, as well as a wide range of methodological approaches including ethnography, participant-observation, genealogy, and discourse analysis. This is the first book to develop an extended feminist analysis of private militaries and to draw on feminist concerns regarding power, justice and equality to consider how to reform and regulate private forces.
During the past several decades, the fetus has been diversely represented in political debates, medical textbooks and journals, personal memoirs and autobiographies, museum exhibits and mass media, and civil and criminal law. Ourselves Unborn argues that the meanings people attribute to the fetus are not based simply on biological fact or theological truth, but are in fact strongly influenced by competing definitions of personhood and identity, beliefs about knowledge and authority, and assumptions about gender roles and sexuality. In addition, these meanings can be shaped by dramatic historical change: over the course of the twentieth century, medical and technological changes made fetal development more comprehensible, while political and social changes made the fetus a subject of public controversy. Moreover, since the late nineteenth century, questions about how fetal life develops and should be valued have frequently intersected with debates about the authority of science and religion, and the relationship between the individual and society. In examining the contested history of fetal meanings, Sara Dubow brings a fresh perspective to these vital debates.
Sex, Politics, and Putin investigates how gender stereotypes and sexualization have been used as tools of political legitimation in contemporary Russia. Despite their enmity, regime allies and detractors alike have wielded traditional concepts of masculinity, femininity, and homophobia as a means of symbolic endorsement or disparagement of political leaders and policies. By repeatedly using machismo as a means of legitimation, Putin's regime (unlike that of Gorbachev or Yeltsin) opened the door to the concerted use of gendered rhetoric and imagery as a means to challenge regime authority. Sex, Politics, and Putin analyzes the political uses of gender norms and sexualization in Russia through three case studies: pro- and anti-regime groups' activism aimed at supporting or undermining the political leaders on their respective sides; activism regarding military conscription and patriotism; and feminist activism. Arguing that gender norms are most easily invoked as tools of authority-building when there exists widespread popular acceptance of misogyny and homophobia, Sperling also examines the ways in which sexism and homophobia are reflected in Russia's public sphere.
The civil wars that brought down the Roman Republic were fought on more than battlefields. Armed gangs infested the Italian countryside, in the city of Rome mansions were besieged, and bounty-hunters searched the streets for "public enemies." Among the astonishing stories to survive from these years is that of a young woman whose parents were killed, on the eve of her wedding, in the violence engulfing Italy. While her future husband fought overseas, she staved off a run on her father's estate. Despite an acute currency shortage, she raised money to help her fiance in exile. And when several years later, her husband, back in Rome, was declared an outlaw, she successfully hid him, worked for his pardon, and joined other Roman women in staging a public protest. The wife's tale is known only because her husband had inscribed on large slabs of marble the elaborate eulogy he gave at her funeral. Though no name is given on the inscriptions, starting as early as the seventeenth century, scholars saw saw similarities between the contents of the inscription and the story, preserved in literary sources, of one Turia, the wife of Quintus Lucretius. Although the identification remains uncertain, and in spite of the other substantial gaps in the text of the speech, the "Funeral Speech for Turia" (Laudatio Turiae), as it is still conventionally called, offers an extraordinary window into the life of a high-ranking woman at a critical moment of Roman history. In this book Josiah Osgood reconstructs the wife's life more fully than it has been before by bringing in alongside the eulogy stories of other Roman women who also contributed to their families' survival while working to end civil war. He shows too how Turia's story sheds rare light on the more hidden problems of everyday life for Romans, including a high number of childless marriages. Written with a general audience in mind, Turia: A Roman Woman's Civil War will appeal to those interested in Roman history as well as war, and the ways that war upsets society's power structures. Not only does the study come to terms with the distinctive experience of a larger group of Roman women, including the prudence they had to show to succeed , but also introduces readers to an extraordinary tribute to married love which, though from another world, speaks to us today.
This is a revised edition of Walker's well-known book in feminist
ethics first published in 1997. Walker's book proposes a view of
morality and an approach to ethical theory which uses the critical
insights of feminism and race theory to rethink the epistemological
and moral position of the ethical theorist, and how moral theory is
inescapably shaped by culture and history. The main gist of her
book is that morality is embodied in "practices of responsibility"
that express our identities, values, and connections to others in
socially patterned ways. Thus ethical theory needs to be
empirically informed and politically critical to avoid reiterating
forms of socially entrenched bias. Responsible ethical theory
should reveal and question the moral significance of social
differences. The book engages with, and challenges, the work of
contemporary analytic philosophers in ethics.
One of the most fascinating figures of seventeenth-century music, composer and singer Antonia Padoani Bembo (c.1640 - c.1720) was active in both Venice and Paris. Her work provides a unique cross-cultural window into the rich musical cultures of these cities, yet owing to her clandestine existence in France, for almost three centuries Bembo's life was shrouded in mystery. In this first-ever biography, Clare Fontijn unveils the enthralling and surprising story of a remarkable woman who moved in the musical, literary, and artistic circles of these European cultural centers. Rebuffed in the attempt to divorce her abusive husband, Bembo fled to Paris, leaving her children in Venice. Joining ranks with composers glorifying Louis XIV, her song charmed the Sun King and won over his court's sympathy to the cause of women. She obtained his sponsorship to live in a semi-cloistered community in Paris, where she wrote music for the spiritual and worldly needs of the royal family. Offering fine examples of sacred and secular vocal repertory for chamber settings and large ensembles, Bembo's oeuvre reveals her preoccupation with female agency through dynamic portrayals of such powerful figures as the Virgin Mary and the Duchess of Burgundy. The genres in which she worked-love song, opera, motet, cantata, trio sonata, and air-testify to the magic of her voice and to her place alongside Strozzi, Jacquet de La Guerre, and other major women composers of her time. Expertly engaging with musicology, history, and gender studies, Claire Fontijn tells the story of a brave and daring woman while providing a valuable key to a long-hidden treasure trove of music. A groundbreaking biography, Desperate Measures details the compelling life and music of a woman with courage, determination, and talent who thrived within the dictates of society and culture.
Just as Latin American countries began to transition to democracy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the region also saw gains in social, cultural and economic gender equality. In accordance with modernization theories, women in the region have also made significant inroads into elected office. However, these gains vary a great deal between countries in Latin America. They also vary significantly at different levels of government even within the same country. Inside government arenas, representation is highly gendered with rules and norms that advantage men and disadvantage women, limiting women's access to full political power. While one might expect these variations to map onto socioeconomic and cultural conditions within each country, they don't correlate. This book makes, for the first time, a comprehensive comparison of gender and representation across the region - in seven countries - and at five different levels: the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. Overall, it argues that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in democratic institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing the region. Institutions and political context not only influence the number of women and men elected to office, but also what they do once in office, the degree of power to which they gain access, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society, more broadly. Drawing on the expertise of scholars of women, gender, and political institutions, this book is the most comprehensive analysis of women's representation in Latin America to date, and an important resource for research on women's representation worldwide. The causes, consequences, and challenges to women's representation in Latin America are not unique to that region, and the book uses Latin American patterns to draw broad conclusions about gendered representation in other areas of the world.
STRONGER MUSCLES AND BONES, INCREASED MOBILITY, LIFELONG INDEPENDENCE
AND A NEW MENTALITY FOR AGEING WITH POWER.
Including a six-week, master exercise protocol to jumpstart skeletal and muscular strength, critical information about baseline blood and mobility tests that will help you understand your current health state, and twenty easy, anti-inflammatory recipes, Unbreakable is an invaluable guide to adding more vibrantly healthy life to your years.
"I will always be somebody." This assertion, a startling one from a nineteenth-century woman, drove the life of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only American woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor. President Andrew Johnson issued the award in 1865 in recognition of the incomparable medical service Walker rendered during the Civil War. Yet few people today know anything about the woman so well-known--even notorious--in her own lifetime. Theresa Kaminski shares a different way of looking at the Civil War, through the eyes of a woman confident she could make a contribution equal to that of any man. She takes readers into the political cauldron of the nation's capital in wartime, where Walker was a familiar if notorious figure. Mary Walker's relentless pursuit of gender and racial equality is key to understanding her commitment to a Union victory in the Civil War. Her role in the women's suffrage movement became controversial and the US Army stripped Walker of her medal, only to have the medal reinstated posthumously in 1977. |
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