Right on the heels of Black History Month arrives Women’s History Month, an opportunity to learn about and revel in the accomplishments and adventures of many talented, determined and interesting individuals. It is also a time to reflect on the challenges and obstacles women experience today. The publishers affiliated with DiverseBooks.net offer a wide variety of titles suitable for personal reading, research or classroom use in women’s studies and other disciplines. Here are summaries of a select few available on our site at discounts off the list price:
African Women and Globalization – Dawn of the 21st Century, by Jepkorir Rose Chepyator-Thomson, $25.46, (list price $29.95), Africa World Press, Inc. (January 2005), ISBN: 1592213545.
Contributors writing from a variety of perspectives and disciplines explore the place of African women in the shift toward globalization. Topics covered include education, agriculture, sports and environmental conservation. Among contributors are Filomina Chioma Steady (Sierra Leone), Caroline Lang’at-Thoruwa (Kenya), Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka (Nigeria) and N’Dri Assie-Lumumba (Côte d’Ivoire).
Alice Faye: A Life Beyond the Silver Screen, by Jane Lenz Elder, $25.50, (list price: $30), University of Mississippi Press, (March 2011) ISBN: 9781578062102, pp. 328.
Alice Faye was the queen of musicals at 20th Century Fox and a Number One box-office attraction until she walked out on her movie studio contract in 1945 to the astonishment of the Hollywood establishment. She concentrated on her private life and launched a successful career in radio. Thirty-five years after leaving the movie industry, she became national spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company pitching healthy lifestyles to the aging. She remains a legend with a cult following. The author explores her career, her appeal and her endurance.
Autobiography of a Female Slave, by Mattie Griffith, $21.25, (list price: $25), University of Mississippi Press (October 2010) ISBN: 9781578060474, pp. 408.
This book was once accepted for publication by a leading abolitionist as an authentic narrative of woman who had been emancipated from slavery. However, the author acknowledged that it was fiction soon after it was printed. Hers was not the only fake “slave narrative,” but it is the only one currently in print through this edition from University of Mississippi Press. Its author was a white Kentucky woman who had inherited a half-dozen slaves. She wrote this account to lobby for abolition and to raise funds to emancipate her people and send them to free territory. Even after her ruse became widely known, the writer was well regarded in the abolitionist, women’s suffrage and temperance movements.
Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons, by Robin Roberts, University of Mississippi Press, $23.80, (list price: $28), (August 2007), ISBN: 9781578069989, pp. 240.
This is a biography of one of the first women to achieve international success writing science fiction and the first author of that genre to have a novel (The White Dragon) on The New York Times hardcover bestseller list. She is the author of the Dragonriders of Pern series. McCaffrey’s biographer, an associate dean and professor of gender studies at Louisiana State University, interviewed the writer, her children, friends, and colleagues to fill out her research on the woman and the influences she draws on for her science fiction.
Beyond Access, by Sheila Aikman and Elaine Unterhalter, $20.36, (list price: $23.95), OxFam Publishing, (October 2005), ISBN: 9780855985295, pp. 172.
The authors argue that expanding access to schooling for girls is not enough to help them reach their full potential in a world in which poverty, prejudice and social disadvantage often cripple them. The authors examine the causes and effects of inequality in education, policy implications for governments and possible solutions.
Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters, by Patricia A. Turner, $29.75, (list price: $35), University of Mississippi Press, (January 2009) ISBN: 9781604731316, pp. 240.
The author profiles quilters, eight women and a man, of different generations, backgrounds and places. She explores their art form and the various ways it has been practiced, depicted and exploited. The writer is a professor and vice provost at the University of California, Davis. She is also the author of Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture.
Courtship and Love among the Enslaved in North Carolina, by Rebecca J. Fraser, $42.50, (list price: $50), University of Mississippi Press (November 2007), ISBN: 9781934110072, pp. 160.
Love will find a way is the underlying message of the study of courtship under the rigors of slavery. The book offers a unique window into the intimate lives of African Americans forced to live in bondage, as well as into the ways gender, power relations and sexuality interconnected in the slave system. By choosing whom to love and entering love relationships, often in secret and with distant partners, the enslaved people could exercise some measure of control over their own lives.
Gender and Technology, by Caroline Sweetman, $12.33, (list price: $14.51), Oxfam Publishing, (November 1999) ISBN: 9780855984229, pp. 88.
Technology can be harnessed to further the progress of women and ease their labors, or it can be an instrument of oppression, harnessed by the existing power structure to maintain inequities. The applications of technology in developing countries can be pivotal in restructuring gender roles for the betterment of all. Articles by various authors in this text consider the uses and misuses of various technologies as they relate to women in society.
In Their Own Words: a Sexual Abuse Workbook for Teenage Girls, by Lulie Munson and Karen Riskin, $9.31, (list price: $10.95), Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), (May 1995) ISBN: 9.78088E+12, pp. 79.
This book was written by two therapists, and it is suitable for use in individual or group therapy with those who have suffered sexual abuse. The authors describe the experiences of abused women to frame discussions of various related topics and present questions to guide examination of the issues.
A Look in the Mirror: Freeing Yourself from the Body Image Blues, by Valerie Rainon McManus $12.71, (list price: $14.95), Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), (July 2004) ISBN 9.78088E+12, pp. 110.
This is a workbook compiled by a licensed clinical social worker to help young women sort through the maze of issues related to body image. Fed by toxic media and societal messages that the thinner and prettier they are, the better, many girls become dissatisfied with their bodies at an early age. They try desperately to meet unrealistic standards in their quest to achieve the “ideal” look. The book offers powerful antidotes with advice and information about media stereotypes, gender roles, diet and health to help women develop positive self-images and exert control over their bodies.