Gender-Critical Feminism

Gender-Critical Feminism
Author: Holly Lawford-Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2022
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0198863888

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-287) and index.

Women in Late Life

Women in Late Life
Author: Martha Holstein
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2015-03-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1442222883

Contemporary old age is fraught with contradiction and complexity—women portrayed either as incompetent and cuddly grandmothers or as young women trapped in old bodies, images that rarely reflect how women actually see themselves. Women in Late Life explores the thorny issues related to gender and aging, including prevailing but problematic cultural expectations, body image, ageism, the experience of chronic illness, threats to Social Security and the very possibility of a secure retirement while challenging a long-term care system that disadvantages women. Author Martha Holstein writes from a critical feminist perspective, drawing on her many years of experience in gerontology, as well as interviews and personal experience as a woman now in her seventies. The book highlights how women’s experience of late life is shaped by the effects of lifelong gender norms, by contemporary culture—from gender stereotypes to ageism—and by the political context. The book blends critique with proposals aimed at resisting damaging inequities resulting from being simultaneously old and a woman. She focuses on changes needed on multiple levels—societal, cultural, political, and individual. This interdisciplinary look at key questions around gender and aging is nuanced and beautifully written.

Material Girls

Material Girls
Author: Kathleen Stock
Publisher: Fleet
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2022-04-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780349726625

'A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book' Evening Standard 'A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don't always end well' Sunday Times Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex. Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir's statement that, 'One is not born, but rather becomes a woman' (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler's claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection. Material Girls makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.

A Critical Woman

A Critical Woman
Author: Ann Oakley
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2011-06-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1849664706

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Barbara Wootton was one of the extraordinary public figures of the twentieth century. She was an outstanding social scientist, an architect of the welfare state, an iconoclast who challenged conventional wisdoms and the first woman to sit on the Woolsack in the House of Lords. Ann Oakley has written a fascinating and highly readable account of the life and work of this singular woman, but the book goes much further. It is an engaged account of the making of British social policy at a critical period seen through the lens of the life and work of a pivotal figure. Oakley tells a story about the intersections of the public and the private and about the way her subject's life unfolded within, was shaped by, and helped to shape a particular social and intellectual context.

Women and Madness

Women and Madness
Author: Phyllis Chesler
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 164160039X

Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler's pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly fifty years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this landmark book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women's psychology. Now back in print, this completely revised and updated edition adds perspectives on eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation, and more.

Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction

Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction
Author: Carlen Lavigne
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0786466537

This analysis of cyberpunk science fiction written between 1981 and 2003 positions women's cyberpunk in the larger cultural discussion of feminist issues. It traces the origins of the genre, reviews the critical reactions and outlines the ways in which women's cyberpunk advances points of view that are specifically feminist. Novels are examined within their cultural contexts; their content is compared to broader controversies within contemporary feminism, and their themes are revealed as reflections of feminist discourse around the turn of the 21st century. Chapters cover topics such as globalization, virtual reality, cyborg culture, environmentalism, religion, motherhood and queer rights. Interviews with feminist cyberpunk authors are provided, revealing both their motivations for writing and their experiences with fans. The study treats feminist cyberpunk as a unique vehicle for examining contemporary women's issues and analyzes feminist science fiction as a complex source of political ideas.

Comfort Women Activism

Comfort Women Activism
Author: Eika Tai
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9888528459

Comfort Women Activism follows the movement championed by pioneer activists in Japan to demonstrate how their activism has kept a critical interpretation of the atrocities against women committed before and during World War II alive. The book shows how the challenges faced by the activists have evolved from the beginning of their uphill battles all the way to contemporary times. They were able to change social attitudes and get their message across. Yet the ambiguous position of post–World War II Japan’s government—which has consistently rejected any sign of guilt over its imperialist past—has kept the activists on their toes. Pivotal and serendipitous turning points have also played a crucial role. In particular, in the early 1990s, the post-Soviet world order assisted in creating the appropriate conditions for the movement to gather transnational support. These conditions have eroded over time; yet due to the activists’ fidelity to survivors, the movement has persisted to this day. Tai uses the activists’ narratives to show the multifaceted aspects of the movement. By measuring these narratives against scholarly debates, she argues that comfort women activism in Japan could be called a new form of feminism. “A manuscript of this depth covering such a range of material about the comfort women movement has not previously been available in English. I am deeply impressed by the author’s scholarly commitment and humanitarian compassion. The accounts provided in the book are particularly moving, putting a human face on the transnational comfort women movement that has had a global impact.” —Peipei Qiu, Vassar College “Eika Tai urges a postcolonial understanding of how activists in Japan came to embrace the issue of ‘comfort women,’ make it their own, and engage on a transnational, multigenerational effort. Her book is an absolutely clear rejection of those who portray this historical topic as activism meant to ‘hate Japan.’ Instead, she claims that this issue is at the heart of a divided Japan.” —Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut

The Plough Woman

The Plough Woman
Author: Rachel Katznelson-Shazar
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1932
Genre: Jewish women
ISBN:

"The Plough Woman reveals a fascinating chapter in the history of pioneer Palestine. First published in 1932 ... this ... edition throws light on the complex arena of Palestine and Zionism as well as the intersection between the early Jewish nationalist movement and radical feminists at the turn of the 19th and 20h centuries. The voices, prose, memoirs, and literature of young Zionist women who emigrated to Palestine in these decades offer an intimate look at life on a veritable frontier. Memoirists discuss tensions in communal living, unsentimentally disclosing the hardships of working and raising families in underserved and isolated agricultural colonies. But as their narratives indicate, these pioneer women were keenly motivated by the vision of a creating a future Jewish homeland, an egalitarian society that would foster and celebrate individual growth, sustain family life, and provide a secure future for all"--From publisher's description (a later edition).