This landmark text introduces readers to the field of women's studies by analyzing the contradictions between social and cultural "givens" and the realities that women face in society. Written collectively by nine authors from various disciplines, Women's Realities, Women's Choices, Fourth Edition, has been updated to incorporate the latest research and statistics in the field. Covering the most recent developments in politics, labor, family life, religion, and culture, the book also features extensive research on relevant social issues, such as the impact of the post-Soviet world on women's lives, the experience of homosexuality in family life, and the effects of economic globalization on women worldwide. Examining women as individuals, as family members, and as a force in the greater social fabric, Women's Realities, Women's Choices remains the most timely, comprehensive, and compelling introduction to the field of women's studies.
New to This Edition
* An updated conceptual organization
* A focus on transnational feminism and globalization
* An entire chapter devoted to intersectionality and differences among women
* Updates to every chapter, reflecting changes in the field and in the world

"Take a tour around Black Liverpool, where race, sexuality, nation, and gender emerge from docksides, demonstrations, and dancehalls. Jacqueline Brown's "Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail" presses forward a new anthropology of place, in which place emerges with a cultural agency of its own. Blacks become 'Liverpool born, ' and the local is simultaneously global and so very English. In this compelling account, Liverpool's place--and the making of race--come to life."--Anna Tsing, author of "Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection" and "In the Realm of the Diamond Queen"

""Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail" is one of the most nuanced, sophisticated, and ethnographically rigorous works on the process of racial formation available, stretching the analysis of 'race' well beyond the by now familiar somatic and political points of reference and theoretical debates. It is also an important and original contribution to our understanding of the spatial constitution of subjectivity and the African diaspora in a fascinating and little-researched ethnographic location."--Steven Gregory, Columbia University, author of "Black Corona: Race and the Politics of Place in an Urban Community"

"This eloquently written work engages with a variety of issues encompassing not just the discipline of anthropology but also sociology, race and ethnic studies, and black history. While acknowledging the contributions of others, Brown also contributes something new, both in terms of the theoretical underpinning she employs to the subject and in the fascinating ethnographic details she so expertly draws out of her subjects. This material is exciting and very significant."--Diane Frost, University of Liverpool, author of "Work and Community among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century"

The presence of Blacks in a number of European societies has drawn increasing interest from scholars, policymakers, and the general public. This interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary collection penetrates the multifaceted Black presence in Europe, and, in so doing, complicates the notions of race, belonging, desire, and identities assumed and presumed in revealing portraits of Black experiences in a European context. In focusing on contemporary intellectual currents and themes, the contributors theorize and re-imagine a range of historical and contemporary issues related to the broader questions of blackness, diaspora, hegemony, transnationalism, and "Black Europe" itself as lived and perceived realities.

Contributors are Allison Blakely, Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Tina Campt, Fred Constant, Alessandra Di Maio, Philomena Essed, Terri Francis, Barnor Hesse, Darlene Clark Hine, Dienke Hondius, Eileen Julien, Trica Danielle Keaton, Kwame Nimako, Tiffany Ruby Patterson, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Stephen Small, Tyler Stovall, Alexander G. Weheliye, Gloria Wekker, and Michelle M. Wright.