Some of the books women's studies faculty have enjoyed recently:
Halving it all: How equally shared parenting works by F. Deutsch.
Research based book that really explores the mechanics of sharing
parenting.
Colonize this: Young women of color on today's feminism, edited by D. Hernandez & B. Rehman.
A collection of essays exploring the construction of feminism and personal experiences growing up as a young
woman of color in the US. Third wave perspectives that really speaks to students.
Feminism is for everybody by bell hooks.
Should be a required reading for every WS course!
Color of Violence: The INCITE Anthology.
This is a really powerful collection of essays that explore the multiple ways that women of
color are often violated by the system and society.
Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition by B. J. Risman.
Excellent model of what "fair families" can look like and how they can benefit everyone in the family.
Gendered Lives by J. Wood.
This is an incredibly comprehensive resource that highlights the ways the gender and culture influence
communication at all levels of society.
Getting Off: Pornography and The End of Masculinity by Robert Jensen.
So far I have just read a review and am HUGELY impressed. This is written by a man who has a revelation
that the dominant liberal discourse about porn being "progressive" and "empowering" is obscuring critical
information about the industry. It includes ground level research about the REAL level of sexual violence
and dominance/submission happening in films along with personal identity transformation as a man dealing
with his privilege.http://www.alternet.org/sex/63671/
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy.
This gives excellent critical thinking skills about why women seemingly "choose" to sexualize themselves via
Girls Gone Wild and consuming porn, supporting stripping as 'empowering', etc. It puts the analysis of this
behavior on a race platform, comparing it to African Americans and "Uncle Tomming", in that women who
identify with male sexual aggression against women gain (illusory) status - and how this ultimately is part of
their gender oppression.
Bodies and Pleasures by Ladelle McWhorter.
Sexual identities are dangerous, Michel Foucault tells us categories of desire harden into stereotypes by
which the forces of normalization hold us and judge us. In Bodies and Pleasures, Ladelle McWhorter reads
Foucault from an original and personal angle in order to examine the differences her reading experience has
made in her life. McWhorter's analysis advances discussion of key issues in Foucault scholarship: the genealogical
critique, the status of the subject and humanism, essentialism versus social construction, and the relationships
between identity, community, and political action.
Sexing the Brain by Lesley Rogers (1999) examines claims about sex differences based on
genes and hormones and argues that the studies tell us more about the cultures of the researchers than about
sex differences. Although this book is not brand new, it presents a very strong argument for why we should
be sceptical of claims that seem to support conventional ideas about gender.
Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England by Sharon Marcus (2007)
argues that Victorian women were expected to have close ties with other women and that these relationships
were seen as supporting marriage rather than competing with it. Women in stable, long-term relationships
with female partners were treated like married couples and not considered "gender outlaws," according to Marcus.
The theory supports her original analysis of novels by Dickens and Anthony Trollope, as well as her examination
of fashion and consumer culture.
History of the Breast By Marilyn Yalom.
The image of the nurturing Madonna, invented in 14th-century Italy, resurrected an earlier tradition of big-breasted
Paleolithic figurines representing fertility or nursing goddesses, Yalom claims. But beginning in the Renaissance,
she says, the breast, stripped of its relation to the sacred, became the playground of male desire, taking on in the
West a predominantly erotic meaning that it has not possessed in other eras and cultures. According to Yalom,
writings on the breast by Rousseau, Freud, Jung and novelist Philip Roth reflect a male-centered, sexist worldview.
With wit and dispassionate scholarship, Stanford researcher and feminist scholar Yalom decodes the social constructions
of the breast as political symbol of liberty in the French Revolution, idealized domestic comforter in the Dutch
golden age, modern advertising commodity and source of titillation in the arts, entertainment, erotica and
pornography. She charts women's increasing involvement in the sexual politics of controlling their bodies and
breasts, from 1960s bra-burning to today's growing concern about breast cancer. Intriguingly and amply
illustrated with reproductions of paintings, sculpture, prints, posters, ads and photographs, this enlightening,
often surprising cultural history will compel men and women to think differently about the breast. -- Publishers Weekly.
History of Women Photographers by Naomi Rosenbloom.
In this landmark volume, Rosenblum (A World History of Photography) examines sympathetically the achievements
of women in photography since its invention in 1839, and highlights society's failure to give them appropriate recognition.
One research obstacle the author encountered was the 19th-century practice of men taking credit for work done by
women. Here is work from 250 female camera artists, from Julia Margaret Cameron (b. 1815) to
Annie Leibovitz (b. 1949), who, despite strong cultural resistance, mastered everything from early wet-plate views
and portraits to 35 millimeter photojournalism, often initiating aesthetic and commercial improvements. Her chronicle
of women's part in each era's artistic movements and media transitions, plus capsule biographies with an in-depth
bibliography and index, make this a seminal reference work. The author's choice of 263 photographs seems to favor
the esoteric, bringing to light a largely unknown world in vivid originality and broad
archival conception. -- Publishers Weekly.
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