Showing titles in Gender Studies

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past 50 years, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, "essential" notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category "woman" and continues in this vein with examinations of "the masculine" and "the feminine." Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.

Humanity's journey from poverty to prosperity is filled with men who have become household names, but how many female entrepreneurs, merchants and industrialists can you name? You would be forgiven for thinking that, until very recently, there were none. But what about Phryne, the richest woman in Ancient Athens, who offered to pay to rebuild the walls of Thebes after the city was razed to the ground by Alexander the Great? Or the canny businesswoman Khadijah, better known as the first wife of Muhammad, who employed him to look after her troop of trading caravans?

Positive Masculinity is the newest in a series designed to give men actionable information to build better lives for themselves based on realistic, objective understanding of intersexual dynamics. The audiobook outlines four key themes: red-pill parenting, the feminine nature, social imperatives, and positive masculinity.

A sacred priestess of the ancient Womb Rites, Mary Magdalene was at the center of a great and enduring Mystery tradition, one that touched on a stream of perennial spiritual wisdom as old as humanity. Worshipped as the human embodiment of the Goddess, the earthly Sophia, her womb was the spiritual luminatrix that anointed and empowered Jesus, transforming him into the Christ. As a priestess of the Goddess, Mary Magdalene knew how to embody the light and the dark, how to harness the magic potency of sacred sexual energy, and how to cleanse, awaken, and resurrect the soul.

There is a war on masculinity, and everywhere we look—on every front we hold sacred—we can see the painful reminders of this collapsing order. The chaos and crisis we are experiencing today should be a signal for men everywhere to rise up; to fight to preserve our way of life by once again walking the ancient paths. But this isn’t a journey that need be taken alone.

When Kaya Wilson came out to his parents as transgender, a year after a near-death surfing accident and just weeks before his father's death, he was met with a startling family history of concealed queerness and shame. As Beautiful As Any Other weaves this legacy together with intimate examinations of the forces that have shaped Wilson's life, and his body: vulnerability and power, grief and trauma, science and narrative. In this powerful and lyrical memoir, Wilson makes a case for the strength we find when we confront the complexities of our identity with compassion.

For nearly three thousand years, Helen of Troy has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that it can wield. Held responsible for both the Trojan War and enduring the enmity between East and West, for millennia she has been viewed as an exquisite agent of extermination. But who was she really? Focusing on the 'real' Helen, bestselling historian Bettany Hughes reconstructs the true life for this elusive Green Bronze age princess and places her alongside the heroes and heroines of myth and history.

When the goddess culture was stolen and buried, so too were women's rites of passage into our wild, intuitive femininity and maturity. With Maiden to Mother, Sarah Durham Wilson excavates these ancient rites, guiding us through a sacred and crucial initiation from the immature Maiden into the archetypal Mother—the powerful, safe, compassionate, full-bloom feminine life force that exists within all of us.

In the first-ever history of the world's female buccaneers, Pirate Women: the Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas tells the story of women, both real and legendary, who through the ages sailed alongside - and sometimes in command of - their male counterparts. These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom.

This powerful book uncovers the untold stories of 30 extraordinary African queens and heroines whose courage, wisdom, and resistance shook empires and shaped nations. From warrior leaders who stood against colonial invasion to visionary rulers who built thriving kingdoms, these women are the forgotten architects of history.

Brought to you by Penguin. *Shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay* Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, Observer, The Millions and Emerald Street 'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine...

"There is a promise Holy Mother makes to us," explains Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, "that any soul needing comfort, vision, guidance or strength, can cry out to her, flee to her protection, and Blessed Mother will immediately arrive with veils flying. She will place us under her mantle for refuge, and give us the warmth of her most compassionate touch, and strong guidance about how to go by the soul's lights." Untie the Strong Woman is Dr. Estes' invitation to come together under the shelter of The Mother - whether she appears to us as the Madonna, Our Lady of Guadalupe....

A formidable follow up to her award-winning debut poetry collection, Len Pennie’s poyums annaw is just like her: defiant, angry and trailblazing. These poems are a call to arms, confronting ideas of patriarchy, gender-based violence and societal injustice with equal parts tenderness, quick-wit and righteous fury. poyums annaw firmly cements Len as a defining voice in contemporary Scots poetry.

This classic work on the rules of sex - updated for a new generation - is still as provocative as the day it was published, providing simple explanations for any and all questions about what happens in the bedroom.

This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A single journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, too-often-overlooked, manifold histories of women. Through the variety and nuance in all these objects, Annabelle Hirsch has created a new history – teeming, unexpected, witty and always illuminating.

Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. In her exciting new book, mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie explores these archetypes, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples, women can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and their elder years as a path to dynamic power.

In Living a Feminist Life Sara Ahmed shows how feminist theory is generated from everyday life and the ordinary experiences of being a feminist at home and at work. Building on legacies of feminist of color scholarship in particular, Ahmed offers a poetic and personal meditation on how feminists become estranged from worlds they critique - often by naming and calling attention to problems - and how feminists learn about worlds from their efforts to transform them.

Abby Wambach became a champion because of her incredible talent as a football player. She became an icon because of her remarkable wisdom as a leader. As the cocaptain of the 2015 Women's World Cup Champion Team, she created a culture not just of excellence but of honour, commitment, resilience, and sisterhood. She helped transform a group of individual women into one of the most successful, powerful and united Wolfpacks of all time.

This is the story of Tenzin Palmo, the daughter of a fishmonger from London's East End who became a Tibetan nun. After meditating for 12 years in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas, she became a world-renowned spiritual leader and champion of the right of women to achieve spiritual enlightenment.

In this pioneering contribution to the men's movement, Robert Moore, a Jungian psychoanalyst and Douglas Gillette, a mythologist, examine the inner "King"—one of the four archetypes of the male psyche. The King Within both responds to the needs formulated by the men's movement and addresses the larger questions of male psychology.