Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Gender Studies

In July 2012, aged 30, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery and felt for the first time that her body matched the person she felt she had been since childhood. Through university and then in a series of dead end clerical jobs, Jacques felt out of place with her surroundings, and with who she really was. Living in Brighton, trying to launch a career as a writer, she navigates the hostilities and misunderstandings of growing up in a time when the mainstream media - and even feminism - fail to acknowledge transgender identity.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

This groundbreaking book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work; that migrants who sell sex are passive victims; and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín argues that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' disempowers them.

Double standards are nothing new. Women deal with them every day. Take the common truism that women who sleep around are sluts while men are studs. Why is it that men grow distinguished and sexily gray as they age while women just get saggy and haggard? Have you ever wondered how a young woman is supposed to both virginal and provocatively enticing at the same time?

The Bengalis are the third largest ethno-linguistic group in the world, after the Han Chinese and the Arabs. A quarter of a billion strong and growing, the community has produced three Nobel laureates, world-class scientists, legendary political leaders, iconic movie stars and directors and an unending stream of writers, philosophers, painters, poets and musicians of the first rank. But, bald facts aside, just who are the Bengalis? What is the community all about? In order to find the answers, the author delves deep into the culture, literature, history and social mores of the Bengalis.

An international TED Talk speaker, Tony Porter challenges manhood and male socialization, which he defines as the "man box". Tony Porter works closely with the NFL, the NBA, the MLB, the US military, colleges, universities, and numerous other organizations to prevent violence against women and girls by promoting healthy, respectful manhood.

There is a human genetic fluke that is surprisingly common, due to a change in a key pair of chromosomes. In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is malformed and shrunken beyond recognition. The result is a shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression. It is called maleness.

What does it mean to grow up with pink bits between your legs? Writer Kat George takes you on a journey of self-discovery from the moment you're pushed out of a vagina, to the moment you realize you have one, and the ongoing struggle of figuring out what it all means. From her first period, to sex in a hostel cloakroom, to fully lucid cervical biopsies, Kat's charming, sometimes painful yet hilarious stories of feminine exploration will have you giggling, squirming, and hopefully feeling a little bit less alone when you're face-to-face with your own sexuality.

A proud working-class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Featuring photographs and a new introduction by the author, this classic collection which intimately accounts the lesbian, feminist and civil rights movements through personal essays is available again for the first time in years.

No hubo nunca mejor época que ésta para ser mujer: ahora existen el voto femenino y la píldora, y desde 1727 ya no envían a las mujeres a la hoguera por brujas. Pero ¿cómo ser mujer? Ésa es precisamente la gran, eterna pregunta a la que Caitlin Moran se propone responder en una obra que aborda a calzón quitado - a veces literalmente -, con inteligencia, desvergüenza e ironía y también una salvaje franqueza, los principales aspectos de la condición femenina.

Un llamamiento a la unidad frente a la fragmentación promovida por el actual activismo o cómo el neoliberalismo fragmentó la identidad de la clase trabajadora....

Depuis quelque temps, les deux sexes semblent s'affronter et la masculinité toxique est au cœur de tous les débats. Mais qu'en disent les hommes ? Que veulent-ils ? Quels rapports entretiennent-ils aux femmes, et à eux-mêmes ? Aurélie Lévy s'appuie sur son expérience de réalisatrice de documentaires et décide de leur donner la parole, pour tenter de les comprendre, sans parti pris et sans jugement. Ils sont artiste, universitaire, paysan, banquier, chômeur, détective privé.

¿Qué implicaciones tiene ser madre, parir y dar de mamar? Las mujeres nos enfrentamos a una doble presión, ser mamás, como dicta el mantra patriarcal, y triunfar o sobrevivir como podamos en el mercado de trabajo: un ejercicio casi imposible de malabarismos cotidianos. A lo largo de la historia, la maternidad ha sido utilizada como instrumento de control y supeditación de las mujeres. Pero, una vez conquistado el derecho a no ser madres, tenemos pendiente reapropiarnos de la experiencia materna.

Using bisexuality as a frame, Go the Way Your Blood Beats questions the division of sexuality into straight and gay, in a timely exploration of the complex histories and psychologies of human desire. A challenge to the idea that sexuality can either ever be fully known or neatly categorised, it is a meditation on desire's unknowability.

Women have bravely served in the US Navy for nearly a century, but they have been allowed to serve in combat roles for only the last 25 years. When the combat exclusion law was lifted in 1993, women in the navy soon had a new range of opportunities available to them. The repeal of the law finally gave women the chance to serve on combatant ships for the first time. Among the first women to step onto these warships as a new crewmember was Joanna Sprtel Walters.

Sahar Amer's evenhanded approach is anchored in sharp cultural insight and rich historical context. Addressing the significance of veiling in the religious, cultural, political, and social lives of Muslims, past and present, she examines the complex roles the practice has played in history, religion, conservative and progressive perspectives, politics and regionalism, society and economics, feminism, fashion, and art.

In December 2012, the violent gang rape of a young Indian woman in Delhi shocked the world. India was a country of booming modernisation twinned with centuries-old cultural riches. Was the cruelty of the assault indicative of something profoundly disturbing lurking beneath the surface? Sunny Hundal's arresting exploration of how Indian society treats its women argues exactly this. As a country, India has a disproportionate amount of men to women. They are financial and often social burdens upon their parents.

For fans of The Astronaut Wives Club, The Mercury 13 reveals the little-known true story of the remarkable women who trained for NASA space flight. In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America’s first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by the boys’ club at NASA and on Capitol Hill.

Boys is an anthology of essays showcasing the voices, stories, and lives of gay, queer, and trans men from around the world. Through these essays, listeners are allowed an intimate glimpse into moments like the time one of the boys accidentally came out as gay on MySpace, another was kidnapped by his mother who wanted to "pray the gay away", to the first time a boy went to a leather bar after transitioning to male and before he became a famous porn artist and performer. Boys shows listeners that at the end of the day, there isn't one type of boy in the world, but lots of boys with all their own stories.

Banning gay propaganda can backfire. Spectacularly. In the 1980s, when the UK Government of Margaret Thatcher outlawed the "promotion" of homosexuality, gays were still semi-criminal. As well as immoral, ridiculous, disgusting, diseased, and after your kids. Since then, however, UK gays have been promoted more rapidly and giddily than almost any persecuted, despised group in history. In just a generation or so they have achieved legal equality, civil rights, and even respectability. Today they are gay married by the Conservative Prime Minister, no less. Homosexuality has joined the golf club.