Women S Realities Women S Choices

This book examines women as individuals, as family members, and as a force in the greater social fabric. It is multidisciplinary approach reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the field of women's and gender studies while providing depth of knowledge and experience.

This volume counters the prevailing Western views and stereotypes of Muslim women - usually projected through male interpretations - by presenting a cross-cultural perspective of their experiences and choices in contemporary Muslim communities. The main theme running through these papers is the manner in which Muslim women consciously as well as unconsciously manipulate religious belief to negotiate their gender roles within the context of their lives.

Current public health promotion of breastfeeding relies heavily on health messaging and individual behavior change. Women are told that “breast is best” but too little serious attention is given to addressing the many social, economic, and political factors that combine to limit women’s real choice to breastfeed beyond a few days or weeks. The result: women’s, infants’, and public health interests are undermined. Beyond Health, Beyond Choice examines how feminist perspectives can inform public health support for breastfeeding. Written by authors from diverse disciplines, perspectives, and countries, this collection of essays is arranged thematically and considers breastfeeding in relation to public health and health care; work and family; embodiment (specifically breastfeeding in public); economic and ethnic factors; guilt; violence; and commercialization. By examining women’s experiences and bringing feminist insights to bear on a public issue, the editors attempt to reframe the discussion to better inform public health approaches and political action. Doing so can help us recognize the value of breastfeeding for the public’s health and the important productive and reproductive contributions women make to the world.

The 1992 American election saw more women running for office, at both local and national level, than ever before. The number of women elected increased by 50% in the House of Representatives and by a staggering 300% in the Senate. This book describes these key races, revealing the underlying tales of voter and institutional reactions to the women candidates and highlights the unprecedented levels of support garnered on their behalf.

Rachel E. Dubrofsky examines the reality TV series The Bachelor and The Bachelorette in one of the first book-length feminist analysis of the reality TV genre. The research found in The Surveillance of Women on Reality TV: Watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette meets the growing need for scholarship on the reality genre. This book asks us to be attentive to how the surveillance context of the program impacts gendered and racialized bodies. Dubrofsky takes up issues that cut across the U.S. cultural landscape: the use of surveillance in the creation of entertainment products, the proliferation of public confession and its configuration as a therapeutic tool, the ways in which women's displays of emotion are shown on television, the changing face of popular feminist discourse (notions of choice and empowerment), and the recentering of whiteness in popular media.

Planning is currently a male profession, but an analysis of a century of town planning reveals this to be a new development; women have been central to the planning movement since it began. Women and Planning is the first comprehensive history and analysis of women and the planning movement, covering the philosophical, practical and policy dimensions of `planning for women'. Beyond the marginalization of women, modern, scientific planning hides a story of past links with eugenics, colonialism, artistic, utopian and religious movements and the occult. Central to the discussion is the questioning of how male planners have rewritten planning in their own image, projecting patriarchal assumptions in their creation of `urban realities'. Issues of class, sexuality, ethnicity and disability are raised by the fundamental question of `Who is being planned for?'

Defines the Female System as an emerging reality--a system in which women are valued, first-class citizens. Now with a new foreword by Carol S. Pearson.