Showing results for "Looking for Jane" in Gender Issues

Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn't have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in college, she became the first protégé of El Paso's Richard Guy and Rex Holt, known as the "Kings of Beauty"—just as the 1970's counterculture movement began to take off.

Stories about witches are by their nature stories about the most basic and profound of human experiences—healing, sex, violence, tragedies, aging, death, and encountering the mystery and magic of the unknown. In academia, studies of witches rarely emerge from scholars who are themselves witches and/or embedded in communities of witchcraft practitioners. The Witch Studies Reader brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners who examine witchcraft from a critical decolonial feminist perspective.

We often think of the enduring tropes of the Gothic in terms of fiction and film—breath-catching escapes that tap into our fears, anxieties, forbidden desires, and unsettling dreams. But what if some of these chilly vibes are rooted in the experiences of real and tragic people who danced a macabre waltz with love and death? That's why we're here. Take the case of teenage Mercy Brown, victim—or was it predator?—of Rhode Island's vampire hysteria of the 1890s. Marguerite de la Roque, a French noblewoman condemned for "sexual crimes" to Canada's long-lost Isle of Demons.

Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on-guy action is not a myth but a reality: There's fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other's penises and stick fingers up their fellow members' anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men.

Women over 55 are of the generation that changed everything. We didn't expect to. Or intend to. We weren't brought up much differently from the women who came before us, and we rarely identified as feminists, although almost all of us do now. Accidental Feminists is our story. It explores how the world we lived in - with the pill and a regular pay cheque - transformed us and how, almost in spite of ourselves, we revolutionised the world. It is a celebration of grit, adaptability, energy and persistence.

Economist and award-winning author Sylvia Ann Hewlett blends vivid stories with powerful new data in assessing the impact of the #MeToo movement in corporate America and provides concrete action to help executives and companies create more inclusive and safe work environments for women, people...

Heterosexuality is in crisis. Reports of sexual harassment, misconduct, and rape saturate the news in the era of #MeToo. Straight men and women spend thousands of dollars every day on relationship coaches, seduction boot camps, and couples' therapy in a search for happiness. In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane Ward smartly explores what, exactly, is wrong with heterosexuality in the 21st century, and what straight people can do to fix it for good.

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, the odd axe-murderess—America's female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after death. Here are the stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful. A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.

The first and only comprehensive collection of writings by Elizabeth Garver Jordan, the groundbreaking journalist, suffragist, and editor whose fearless reporting on women preceded the #MeToo movement and popularized the true-crime genre A Penguin Classic The Case of Lizzie Borden and Other...

ONE OF BILLBOARD'S "100 GREATEST MUSIC BOOKS OF ALL TIME": The provocative transgender advocate and lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me! provides a searing account of her search for identity and her true self. It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager...

You already know Mr. Darcy—at least you think you do! The romantic hero of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy initially insults and ignores the witty heroine but eventually succumbs to her charms. It’s a classic enemies-to-lovers plot and one that has profoundly influenced our cultural ideas about courtship. But what if this classic isn’t just a grand romance but a horror novel about how scary love and marriage can be for women? In The Darcy Myth, literature scholar Rachel Feder unpacks Austen’s Gothic influences and how they have led us to a romantic ideal that is halfway to being a monster story.

In Regency England the eldest son usually inherited almost everything—while his younger brothers, left with little inheritance, had to make a crucial decision: What should they do to make an independent living? Historian Rory Muir weaves together the stories of many obscure and well-known young men of good family but small fortune, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Regency society. This is the first scholarly yet accessible exploration of the lifestyle and prospects of these younger sons.

Rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters, and panoramic in its sweep, this magnificent, comprehensive work tells for the first time the complete story of the American woman from the Pilgrims to the 21st-century In this sweeping cultural history, Gail Collins explores the...

Disgrace is the first truly global history of sexual violence. The book explores how sexual violence varies widely across time and place, from nineteenth-century peasant women in Ireland who were abducted as a way of forcing marriage, to date-raped high-school students in twentieth-century America, and from girls and women violated by Russian soldiers in 1945 to Dalit women raped by men of higher castes today.

The Second Half explores how the second half of life is experienced by women from many different cultures. From a French actress to a British novelist, from an Algerian nomad to a Saudi Arabian doctor, and an American politician, Ellen Warner traveled all over the world to interview women about their lives. She asked them what they learned in the first half that was helpful in the second, and what advice they would give to younger women. Their revealing and inspiring stories are enlightening for all listeners.