Ascent Of Women

This book is about the final frontier for women: having control over your own body, whether in zones of conflict, in rural villages, on university campuses or in your own kitchen. Recent studies by economists such as Jeffrey Sachs and social scientists such as Isobel Coleman claim that women who gain such control--who are not oppressed--are the key to economic justice and the end to violence in developing countries around the world. Ascent of Women will describe the perilous journey that brought women to this point. It will tell the dramatic and empowering stories of change-makers and examine the stunning courage, tenacity and wit they are using to alter the status quo. It is the story of a dawning of a new revolution, whose chapters are being written in mud-brick houses in Afghanistan; on Tehrir Square in Cairo; in the forests of the Congo, where women still hide from their attackers; and in a shelter in northern Kenya, where 160 girls between 3 and 17 are pursuing a historic court case against a government who did not protect them from rape. Women revolutionaries in Toronto and Nairobi, Kabul and Caracas, New York City and Lahore are making history. Women the world over are marching to protest honour killing, polygamy, stoning and a dozen other religiously or culturally sanctified acts of violence. Sally Armstrong will bring us these voices from the barricades, inspiring and brave.

The story of the fight to gain the vote for women is about much more than a skirmish around the introduction of universal suffrage. It is a story of social and sexual revolutionary upheaval, and one which has not yet ended. The movement for women's suffrage in the late-19th and early 20th centuries prefigured to a startling extent the controversies which rage today around the role of women.

"A different version of this book was previously published under the title Ascent of Women by Random House Canada"--Title page verso.

This book is an account of the history of women's progress and empowerment, highlighting individual women and their achievements. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A celebration of feminine beauty, athleticism, wisdom, and skill—Women Who Dare profiles twenty of America’s most inspiring women climbers ranging from legends like Lynn Hill to the rising stars of today, with stunning color photography by veteran adventure photographer Chris Noble.

Eight years after the Taliban was ousted from government, an insurgency rages in Afghanistan, drug barons and war lords rule the turf, and the truth remains unspoken. In Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women, author Sally Armstrong confronts unspoken truths and unravels the threads that are strangling Afghanistan's attempts to join the twenty-first century. A veteran reporter, Armstrong interviews women and girls from all walks of life, focusing on the change-makers—the women activists, journalists, politicians, and lawyers who have taken on the dangerous task of altering the status quo and yanking Afghanistan out of its primitive past. Combining the personal stories of women with the analysis of experts and the grassroots efforts of Canadians, Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots is an accurate and impassioned portrayal of the contemporary lives of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Increasingly, our world is becoming incomprehensible. Many people, societies, even countries, behave in strange ways: America turns intolerant toward its own whistleblowers, Arabia leads the world in opening a women-only university, Britain turns largely un-Christian, India increasingly buries herself under a surfeit of democracy, and China under communism. This book is about the emerging mega-picture, a reinterpretation of world history along Darwinian lines. In order to survive in the biological food web, humans needed connectivity, which our religions provided. It goes into the evolution and dissolution of religions, across centuries, as our biggest connecting and integrating factors yet, and how these weakening faiths are now being replaced by new, robust connectors: democracy, science, technology. Of course, we still have many devout around, but their beliefs have shorter shelf life. These silent but gigantic changes are restructuring our societies. With the change in emphasis in the very infrastructure of the human society, the entire edifice is undergoing transformation and renovation—it is nothing less than the Ascent of Women, the Fourth Wave, for the first time since the dawn of civilization some ten thousand years ago. This book is for those who would enter this New World!