Anti-porn

The Resurgence of Anti-porn Feminism

Julia Long

Anti-porn feminism is back. Countering the ongoing ‘pornification’ of Western culture and society, anti-porn movements are powerfully re-emerging among a new generation of feminist activists in the UK and worldwide. The Resurgence of Anti-Porn Feminism examines the ways in which the new feminist arguments and campaigns around pornography are articulated, deployed and received. Drawing on original, ethnographic research, it provides an in-depth analysis of the ideological stance, tactical… (more information)

Through the Maze of Motherhood

Empowered Mothers Speak

Erika Horwitz

This is a unique book that is based and expands on qualitative research that explored the experience of mothers who resist the current discourse on mothering. Through the Maze of Motherhood conveys what it is like to resist a strong societal discourse and how some mothers have managed to navigate the intricacies of the process of resistance. This book also dispels the belief that there is one right way to mother and, therefore, suggests that a process of questioning and resisting the current myths… (more information)

Governing Girls

Rehabilitation in the Age of Risk

Christie Barron

In recent years there has been significant media hype and moral panic over assaults and violent crimes perpetrated by young women. The governmental response to control crime and to provide protection to citizens has taken various, often contradictory, forms. The current research agenda on controlling youth violence in Canada, especially in light of provisions in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is focused on risk assessment. The approach, however, ignores how “risk” is a socio-cultural… (more information)

Maternal Pedagogies

In and Outside the Classroom

Edited by Deborah Byrd, Fiona Green

Maternal pedagogies is a term the co-editors use to describe scholarship that examines from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, cultures, and subject positions (1) ways in which culturally dominant ideologies about motherhood are taught or challenged, (2) ways in which various paradigms of maternal thinking, being, and acting are constructed, embedded, enacted or resisted in specific teaching and learning situations—including those that take place outside classroom and school settings, (… (more information)

Men & Women and Tools

Bridging the Divide

Marcia Braundy

Although there have been many equity initiatives to encourage women to train and work in the trades, Canadian women still represent less than 3 percent of tradesworkers. Why does this disparity continue to exist? In Men & Women and Tools, Marcia Braundy — herself a tradesperson — explores this issue by focusing on male resistance to the inclusion of women in technical work. Early in her research, Braundy conducted an interview with several male and female tradespeople. Finding this… (more information)

Women, Violence and Tradition

Taking FGM and Other Practices to a Secular State

Edited by Tamsin Bradley

Is the practice of FGM on the rise in the UK and US? Why? What happens to religious and cultural traditions when they are taken from their context into a new, often secular, state? Women, Violence and Tradition is a fascinating look into the life histories of women from ethnic minority communities in the West, focusing specifically on their experiences of under-researched cultural practices. The book gives close insight into how ethnic minority women today navigate between their religious and cultural… (more information)

Forced Marriage

Introducing a Social Justice and Human Rights Perspective

Edited by Sundari Anitha , Aisha Gill

Forced Marriage brings together leading practitioners and researchers from the disciplines of criminology, sociology and law. Together the contributors provide an international, multi-disciplinary perspective that offers a compelling alternative to prevailing conceptualisations of the problem of forced marriage. The volume examines advances in theoretical debates, analyses existing research and presents new evidence that challenges the cultural essentialism that often characterises efforts to explain… (more information)

African Sexualities

A Reader

Edited by Sylvia Tamale

This groundbreaking volume, the first of its kind written by African activists themselves, aims to inspire a new generation of students and teachers to study, reflect and gain fresh and critical insights into the complex issues of gender and sexuality. It opens a space – particularly for young people – to think about African sexualities in different ways. This accessible but scholarly multidisciplinary text, from a distinctly African perspective, is built around themed sections each… (more information)

The 21st Century Motherhood Movement

Mothers Speak Out on Why We Need to Change the World and How to Do It

Edited by Randle W. Nelsen, Andrea O’Reilly

This anthology, the first on the 21st century motherhood movement, includes seven sections: Becoming a Mother; Maternal Identities; Maternal Advocacy; Maternal Activism; Violence, Militarism, War and Peace; Social Change and Social Justice; Writing/Researching/Performing Motherhood—and features more than eighty motherhood organizations from around the globe. Each chapter discusses the context, history, mandate of the organization and examines the organization’s activities, challenges… (more information)

Class and Gender in British Labour History

Renewing the Debate (or starting it?)

Mary Davis

Politics constructs gender and gender constructs politics: this is a central theme in this collection of essays which seek not only to write a history that focus on women’s experiences but seeks also to analyze those dynamic forces that have shaped that history. It examines the ‘making’ of the other half of the working class women- as workers, trade unionists and political activists, and seeks to weave together intricate relationships between class and gender, particularly within… (more information)

Women and Security Governance in Africa

Edited by Awino Okech, ‘Funmi Olonisakin

When United Nations Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security was adopted in October 2000, it was hailed by policy analysts and international observers alike as a pathbreaking move. It was the first time that the security concerns of women in situations of armed conflict and their role in peace building were placed on the agenda of the UN Security Council. In the field of international security there is a tendency to relegate discussions on women and children to the margins. This book addresses… (more information)

Women in Israel

Race, Gender and Citizenship

Nahla Abdo

Women in Israel provides a fresh, gendered analysis of citizenship in Israel. Working from a framework of Israel as a settler-colonial regime, this important, insightful book presents historical and contemporary comparative approaches to the lives and experiences of Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Palestinian Arab women citizens. Nahla Abdo shows that no solution to the problems of the region can be found without changing existing racial and gender boundaries to citizenship. ‘Nahla Abdo… (more information)

Mothering Canada: Interdisciplinary Voices

La maternité au Canada: voix interdisciplinaires

Edited by Shawna Geissler, Lynn Loutzenhiser, Jocelyne Praud, Leesa Striefler

A multidisciplinary, bilingual anthology of mothering research in Canada that illustrates facets of Canadian mothering through different disciplinary lenses including social sciences, literature, and visual arts. The anthology confirms that issues of mothering are prevalent in the Canadian psyche, and in much need of research, communication, and change. ”A wonderfully rich collection of material on what we know and what we still need to know about mothering. Mothering Canada illustrates… (more information)

Maternity Rolls

Pregnancy, Childbirth and Disability

Heather Kuttai

Heather Kuttai is a 40-year-old white, heterosexual woman. She is married and is the mother of two children. Living in a quiet, middle-class neighbourhood, her life is, in many ways, seemingly the quintessential picture of what many consider to be traditional. However, her life is not as conventional as it appears: she is a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair for mobility. Her disability dramatically changes the picture. Much of the writing about the experiences of women and mothers excludes the stories… (more information)

Reclaiming the F Word

The New Feminist Movement

Kristin Aune, Catherine Redfern

Discover the demands of the new feminist movement. In today’s “post-feminist” society, women and men are considered equal. For younger women and men, feminism is often portrayed as unfashionable and irrelevant. But since the beginning of the new millenium a revitalized feminist movement has emerged to challenge these assumptions and assert a vibrant new agenda. This groundbreaking book reveals the what, why and how of the new feminist movement and what it has to say about women… (more information)

Pathways, Bridges and Havens

The Psychosocial Determinants of Women’s Health

Edited by Suzanne Cooper, Joanne Gallivan

In recent years, health research and policy have come to new understandings of human health through the framework based on knowledge of the determinants of health. This framework has inspired new efforts to explore the impact of psychosocial factors on health. This collection of recent research addresses a variety of psychosocial and social factors in women’s health: pathways to wellness and healing; bridges for physical health determinants; coping mechanisms that provide havens for… (more information)

Victim No More

Women’s Resistance to Law, Culture and Power

Edited by Ellen Faulkner, Gayle MacDonald

This book challenges the idea that women are simply victims. It celebrates women’s resistance. It explores the moments beyond victimization. It argues that women do not stay crushed and broken, but move on, build and grow. The contributors to this edited edition celebrate the various forms of resistance: political resistance at both the collective and individual levels, legal resistance and resistance to cultural forms and labels. The editors argue that “Women-as-victim is not an emancipatory… (more information)

Between Hope and Despair

Women Learning Politics

Donna M. Chovanec

This book is an empirical account of political learning in social movements based on a study of a women’s movement in Arica, Chile. In the first part of the book the author tells the story of how the women of Arica organized to oppose the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. This gripping narrative, told through the women’s own words and experiences, paints a graphic picture of their courage and determination. The second part focuses on the political learning and educational processes… (more information)

The Mean Girl Motive

Negotiating Power and Femininity

Nicole E.R. Landry

Prior to the 1980s, girls were completely excluded from research on childhood aggression, presumably because their ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’ made them averse to aggression. Not only were girls missing from research, their voices are frequently absent in current ‘girl aggression’ discourse. Despite this, ‘mean’ girls have received growing attention, especially in psychology. Besides conclusions that boys and girls aggress differently, much work has… (more information)

Grace, Tenacity and Eloquence

The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa

Edited by Partrick Burnett, Shereen Karmali, Firoze Manji

The articles first appeared in the prize-winning weekly electronic newsletter, Pambazuka News. They provide students, activists and others with an easy-to-read introduction to the struggle for women’s rights in Africa. The traditional perception of African women is that they toil day and night amidst grinding poverty while facing harsh cultural, traditional and social prejudices. Yet while it is true that, like elsewhere in the world, African women are not yet equal to men, this is only… (more information)

With Child

Substance Use During Pregnancy, A Woman-Centred Approach

Edited by Susan C. Boyd, Lenora Marcellus

Drug use is among the behaviours that are associated with or a consequence of poverty. The contributors to this volume propose that those who provide services for pregnant drugusing women must recognize that care of women with social problems that affect pregnancy outcome should be approached in the same way as care for women with medical problems that have obstetric consequences. This book provides practitioners and researchers with valuable information about maternal drug use, best practices and… (more information)

Criminalizing Women

Gender and (In)justice in Neoliberal Times

Edited by Gillian Balfour, Elizabeth Comack

This book introduces readers to the key issues addressed by feminists in their engagement with criminology over the past four decades. It explores the narratives of women’s lives as “errant females,” sex trade workers, “gang” members and drug traffickers to map out the connections between the choices women make and the conditions of their lives. It shows how criminalized women and girls have been disciplined, managed, corrected and punished as prisoners, patients, mothers… (more information)

Changing Tides

Gender, Fisheries and Globalization

Edited by Marian Binkley, Siri Gerrard, Christina Maneschy, Barbara Neis

Fisheries are among the most globalized economic sectors in the world. Relying largely on wild resources and employing millions of people and feeding many millions more, fisheries provide a unique vantage point from which to view contemporary globalization, which is co-occurring with a major ecological revolution triggered by resource degradation and associated with the development of intensive aquaculture. Globalization is intensifying the export orientation and use of joint ventures between rich… (more information)

The Global Women’s Movement

Origins, Issues and Strategies

Peggy Antrobus

The spread and consolidation of the women’s movement in North and South over the past 30 years looks set to shape the course of social progress over the next generation. The author draws on her long experience of feminist activism to set women’s movements in their changing national and global context. Her analysis will be an invaluable aid to reflection and action for the next generation of women as they carry through the unfinished business of women’s emancipation. (more information)

Healing Wounded Hearts

Fyre Jean Graveline

Healing Wounded Hearts brings together stories, poems and artwork that illustrate the struggles and strengths that Fyre Jean has, as a Métis Woman, living everyday in intersecting, parallel, sometimes colliding, socio-cultural realities. Baring her Heart and Soul, she shares personal, painful, spiritual discoveries of how life and worlds work, through Stories that have grown her into who she is. Through a blend of original research, reflective journals and creative use of dialogue, people… (more information)

Gender and Collaboration

Communication Styles in the Engineering Classroom

Sandra Ingram, Anne Parker

As more women enter male-dominated faculties such as engineering, there is a growing need to understand the set of social processes that impact upon them and the continuing need for curriculum reform. This understanding is crucially important for engineering students because of the increasing demand put on them to work in team-based environments in which they will need the collaborative skills of shared interaction, decision-making and responsibility. (more information)

The Fourth World

An Indigenous Perspective on Feminism and Aboriginal Women’s Activism

Grace Ouellette

This book is not about feminism. Rather, feminism is the basis of the discussion, an example of how understanding oppression must consider a number of barriers. Euro-Canadian feminists rarely address the circumstances that are unique to First Nations’ women, instead working with the assumption that all women are a part of a similar struggle. Ouellette attempts to confront these barriers. Throughout interviews with a number of women, she highlights the following four questions. To what extent… (more information)

Anti-Racist Feminism

Critical Race and Gender Studies

Edited by Agnes Calliste, George Dei

This collection adds to our understanding and critical engagement of how gendered and racially minoritized bodies can and do negotiate their identities and politics across several historical domains and contemporary spheres. The contributors explore the relational aspects of difference and the implications for re-conceptualizing anti-racism discourse and practice. The strength of this book lies in its centring the experience of racial minority women (and other racialized bodies) in a variety of… (more information)

Mothering for the State

The Paradox of Fostering

Baukje (Bo) Miedema

Foster care is the most important component of child welfare services in Canada. Currently, foster care services are portrayed negatively with a continuous stream of stories in the media about poor foster care services. But who are foster care givers and what happens to a family when a foster child enters their family? Baukje (Bo) Miedema’s research reveals that the most important care giver in foster care is the foster mother. Why do these women care for seriously traumatized children on… (more information)

Feminism and Families

Critical Policies and Changing Practices

Edited by Meg Luxton

The absence of a specific “family politics” has ceded an important political space to anti-feminist movements and weakened the capacity of the feminist movement to intervene effectively in the debates and struggles of the current period. Despite significant changes in family, domestic and interpersonal relations, the prevailing ideology of the heterosexual nuclear family as the norm still shapes social, economic and legal practices. This book argues for feminist debates in all areas… (more information)

The Women, Gender & Development Reader

Edited by Lynne Duggan, Laurie Nisonoff, Nalini Visvanathan

Third World women, long the undervalued and ignored actors in the development process, are now recognized by scholars, practitioners and policy makers alike as playing a critical role. This book is a comprehensive reader for undergraduates and development practitioners, presenting the best of the now vast body of literature that is grown up along side this acknowledgement. Five parts cover respectively a review of the history of the theoretical debates, the status of women in the household and family… (more information)

Smoke Screen

Women’s Smoking and Social Control

Lorraine Greaves

Smoke Screen looks at the range of ways in which tobacco affects women: the evolution of cultural pressures on women’s smoking; the meanings of smoking to women; the benefits for socities of keeping women smoking; and the impact of health and tobacco policy on women’s smoking prevention and cessation. (more information)

In the Open

Women Survivors of Abuse Tell Their Stories

Edited by Kathleen Tudor

“Like all the women who took part in this book, I have a message for you. Please remember that no matter how desperate and hopeless your situation may get, there is a way out. I found my way out and for the first time in nine years I feel free! “I wish all of you the power and strength it takes to discover your own freedom, and I pray that all of the pain that you endure until then will form a path to your independence and freedom.” —Jean Marie MacDonald “If anyone… (more information)

Maid in the Market

Women’s Paid Domestic Labour

Edited by Sedef Arat-Koç, Wenona Giles

Even when done in “public” and for pay, the work of housekeeping and caregiving in capitalist society is problematic. This book shows how the work of reproduction is subordinated and devalued in the marketplace as well as at home. ”These essays explore the topic in useful ways and offer a refreshingly nuanced assessment...”–Margaret Conrad, Canadian Book Review Annual (more information)

Divorce and Disengagement

Patterns of Fatherhood Within and Beyond Marriage

Edward Kruk

This book’s purpose is to better portray divorced fatherhood and to provide family practitioners and policy-makers with an empirically-based understanding of the impact of divorce on non-custodial fathers, and of fathers’ disengagement from their children after divorce. (more information)

Feminism and the Politics of Difference

Sneja Gunew, Anna Yeatman

Among the issues posed for feminism by the politics of difference are ones of voice and representation; who is authorised to speak for whom? Increasingly, “western: feminism is being challenged to confront the multiple characters of dominations and exploitation, usually conceived of as gender, class, race and ethnicity. This innovative and timely collection reveals exciting contemporary theorising raising and exploring the problems posed by identity politics and the possibilities for… (more information)

Ecofeminism as Politics

Nature, Marx and the Postmodern

Areil Salleh

This book explores the philosophical and political challenge of ecofeminism. It shows how the ecology movement has been held back by conceptual confusion over the implications of gender difference, while much that passes in the name of feminism is actually an obstacle to ecological change and global democracy. The author argues that ecofeminism reaches beyond contemporary social movements, being a political synthesis of four revolutions in one: ecology is feminism is socialism is post-colonial struggle… (more information)