Empfehlungen basierend auf "Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women"

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by the New York Times, The Week, Vulture, Elle, and The MillionsA piercing blend of memoir, criticism, and biography examining how women writers across the centuries carved out intellectual freedom for themselves—and how others might do the sameI took off my wedding ring for the last time—a gold band with half a line of “Morning Song” by Sylvia Plath etched inside—and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn’t fling the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free. . . .A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever—desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.In A Life of One’s Own, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling with: Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another?This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took—their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.

What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers?Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories—stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence.Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human.Lesser has walked two main paths in her life—the spiritual path and the feminist one—paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate.Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength.” Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one—woman or man—is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted.Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.

The first comprehensive biography of Adrienne Rich, feminist and queer icon and internationally revered National Book Award winning poet.Adrienne Rich was the female face of American poetry for decades. Her forceful, uncompromising writing has more than stood the test of time, and the life of the woman behind the words is equally impressive. Motivated by personal revelations, Rich transformed herself from a traditional, Radcliffe-educated lyric poet and married mother of three sons into a path-breaking lesbian-feminist author of prose as well as poetry. In doing so, she emerged as both architect and exemplar of the modern feminist movement, breaking ranks to denounce the male-dominated literary establishment and paving the way for the many queer women of letters to take their places in the cultural mainstream. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Rich's correspondence and in-depth interviews with numerous people who knew her, Hilary Holladay digs deep into never-before-accessed sources to portray Rich in full dimension and vivid, human detail.

The first book devoted entirely to women in bluegrass, Pretty Good for a Girl documents the lives of more than seventy women whose vibrant contributions to the development of bluegrass have been, for the most part, overlooked. Accessibly written and organized by decade, the book begins with Sally Ann Forrester, who played accordion and sang with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys from 1943 to 1946, and continues into the present with artists such as Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent, and the Dixie Chicks. Drawing from extensive interviews, well-known banjoist Murphy Hicks Henry gives voice to women performers and innovators throughout bluegrass's history, including such pioneers as Bessie Lee Mauldin, Wilma Lee Cooper, and Roni and Donna Stoneman; family bands including the Lewises, Whites, and McLains; and later pathbreaking performers such as the Buffalo Gals and other all-girl bands, Laurie Lewis, Lynn Morris, Missy Raines, and many others.

Is it possible to be a Christian and a feminist?The hot topic of feminism has been well documented and debated in mainstream media and yet, as Christians we come to the conversation from a slightly different vantage point. For starters, we have the benefit of a personal relationship with our creator plus the ultimate handbook in the Bible to work out what is right and just when it comes to equality. So why do many Christians feel the Bible presents a barrier rather than a boost when it comes to championing equality between the sexes?Lauren Windle draws upon her years as a journalist to weave together a wide range of voices on a subject that society has been wrestling with but, in the Church, few are brave enough to probe too deeply for fear of what they might find. This book isn't here to tell you what to think. The views it presents are intended to inform, not form, your opinion on key topics, including: defining feminism, the lessons we teach boys, female preachers, a woman's place in the household, beauty standards and #ChurchToo.Notes On Feminism features contributions from several high-profile women:- Writer and model Katie Piper on true beauty- Olympian Abigail Irozuru on women's bodies- Comedian Cassandra Maria on why people think women aren't funny- Author Tiffany Bluhm on why people don't believe women- Journalist Delphine Chui on why she isn't a feminist.If feminist stirrings feel like a barrier to your faith, let Notes on Feminism help you unpick the confusion and ongoing debate, while keeping God at the centre.

In Unbowed, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai recounts her extraordinary journey from her childhood in rural Kenya to the world stage. When Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, she began a vital poor people’s environmental movement, focused on the empowerment of women, that soon spread across Africa. Persevering through run-ins with the Kenyan government and personal losses, and jailed and beaten on numerous occasions, Maathai continued to fight tirelessly to save Kenya’s forests and to restore democracy to her beloved country . Infused with her unique luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai’s remarkable story of courage, faith, and the power of persistence is destined to inspire generations to come.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Blending the journalistic rigor of Masha Gessen with the call to action of We Should All Be Feminists, a searing denunciation of Putin’s Russia, revealing how modern Russia’s history of weaponizing sexual violence against women plays a crucial role in its strategy to retain political influence and dominanceOn March 22, 2023, the Swedish Academy organized a conference on threats to freedom of expression and democracy, featuring a roster of stellar speakers, including Arundhati Roy, Timothy Snyder, and Sofi Oksanen. Oksanen’s address—“Putin's War on Women”—generated such interest that the acclaimed Finnish writer used it as the basis for a larger, in-depth look at Putin’s threat to women. The result is Same River, Twice, a devastating expose that builds on the themes and arguments introduced in Oksanen’s urgent and incisive speech.During the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Oksanen's great aunt was arrested and brutally interrogated—a terrifying experience that permanently traumatized her, leaving her silent for the rest of her life. Same River, Twice uses this family story to illustrate the systematic crimes perpetrated by Russian soldiers and the Russian government for nearly a century. From the Russian military's entry into Berlin in 1945 to its modern invasion of Ukraine, Russia has continually employed violence against women when fighting its enemies—including using rape as an instrument of war. But as Oksanen reveals, such violence has never before been used on such a widespread scale. Life for women in Putin's Russia is little better; gender equality is in decline, women are silenced by the legal system, and rape is used to humiliate victims, especially women in media.Oksanen's sober analysis exposes how, under Putin, genocide and misogyny are inextricably linked: misogyny undergirds Russia’s international alliances, threatening the rights of women and minorities worldwide. As Oksanen ominously reminds us, “In Ukraine, sexual violence is an integral part of genocide. In domestic politics, misogyny is a tool used by the Kremlin to prevent women from rising to power. In international politics, it is a tool of Russian imperialism.”As the threats to democracy grow stronger around the globe, this powerful and timely book is a warning that must not be ignored.Translated from the Finnish by Owen F. Witesman

A swashbuckling novel by the author of The Three Musketeers Set in the same period as his best-known novel, Alexandre Dumas’s “forgotten masterpiece” (Le Monde) features two steely and preternaturally modern heroines fighting on opposite sides of the wars that ravaged seventeenth-century France. An unabashed page-turner, humorous, dramatic, and crackling with panache, this new English translation—the first in more than 100 years—shows Dumas at the peak of his powers.

The author investigates the most vital component of a healthy personality--self-esteem--drawing on her own experience with low self-esteem and that of such luminaries as Mahatma Gandhi.

The Living Goddesses crowns a lifetime of innovative, influential work by one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable scholars. Marija Gimbutas wrote and taught with rare clarity in her original—and originally shocking—interpretation of prehistoric European civilization. Gimbutas flew in the face of contemporary archaeology when she reconstructed goddess-centered cultures that predated historic patriarchal cultures by many thousands of years.This volume, which was close to completion at the time of her death, contains the distillation of her studies, combined with new discoveries, insights, and analysis. Editor Miriam Robbins Dexter has added introductory and concluding remarks, summaries, and annotations. The first part of the book is an accessible, beautifully illustrated summation of all Gimbutas's earlier work on "Old European" religion, together with her ideas on the roles of males and females in ancient matrilineal cultures. The second part of the book brings her knowledge to bear on what we know of the goddesses today—those who, in many places and in many forms, live on.