All Things Women
Find your focus and strengths in times of crisis.
View Rights PortalWhile there is increasing interest in the lives of medieval women, the documentary evidence for their activities remains little known. This book provides a collection of sources for an important and influential group of women in medieval England, and examines changes in their role and activities between 1066 and 1500. For most noble and gentry-women, early marriage led to responsibilities for family and household, and, in the absence of their husbands, for the family estates and retainers. Widowhood enabled them to take control of their affairs and to play an independent part in the local community and sometimes further afield. Although many women's lives followed a conventional pattern, great variety existed within family relationships, and individuality can also be seen in religious practices and patronage. Piety could take a number of different forms, whether a woman became a nun, a vowess or a noted philanthropist and benefactor to religious institutions. This volume provides a broad-ranging and accessible coverage of the role of noble women in medieval society. It highlights the significant role played by these women within their families, households, estates and communities.
Exile, its pain and possibility, is the starting point of this book. Women's experience of exile was often different from that of men, yet it has not received the important attention it deserves. Women in exile in early modern Europe and the Americas addresses that lacuna through a wide-ranging geographical, chronological, social and cultural approach. Whether powerful, well-to-do or impoverished, exiled by force or choice, every woman faced the question of how to reconstruct her life in a new place. These essays focus on women's agency despite the pressures created by political, economic and social dislocation. Collectively, they demonstrate how these women from different countries, continents and status groups not only survived but also in many cases thrived. This analysis of early modern women's experiences not only provides a new vantage point from which to enrich the study of exile but also contributes important new scholarship to the history of women.
Women and Pilgrimage presents scholarly essays that address the lacunae in the literature on this topic. The content includes well-trodden domains of pilgrimage scholarship like sacred sites and holy places. In addition, the book addresses some of the less-well-known dimensions of pilgrimage, such as the performances that take place along pilgrims' paths; the ephemeral nature of identifying as a pilgrim, and the economic, social and cultural dimensions of migratory travel. Most importantly, the book's feminist lens encourages readers to consider questions of authenticity, essentialism, and even what is means to be a "woman pilgrim". The volume's six sections are entitled: Questions of Authenticity; Performances and Celebratory Reclamations; Walking Out: Women Forging Their Own Paths; Women Saints: Their Influence and Their Power; Sacred Sites: Their Lineages and Their Uses; and Different Migratory Paths. Each section will enrich readers' knowledge of the experiences of pilgrim women. Readers' understanding will be further enhanced by the book's: · interdisciplinary nature: The contributors hail from a wide range of disciplines, including Anthropology, Political Science, French, Spanish, Fine Art, and Religious Studies; · uniqueness: The text brings together previously scattered resources into one volume; · feminist perspective: Much of the subject matter utilizes feminist theories and methodologies and argues that further research will be welcome. The book will be of interest to scholars of pilgrimage studies in general as well as those interested in women, travel, tourism, and the variety of religious experiences.
This book provides a detailed analysis of women's involvement in litigation and other legal actions within their local communities in late-medieval England. It draws upon the rich records of three English towns - Nottingham, Chester and Winchester - and their courts to bring to life the experiences of hundreds of women within the systems of local justice. Through comparison of the records of three towns, and of women's roles in different types of legal action, the book reveals the complex ways in which individual women's legal status could vary according to their marital status, different types of plea and the town that they lived in. At this lowest level of medieval law, women's status was malleable, making each woman's experience of justice unique.
This book collects stories of 41 outstanding women representatives who participated in the movement during the 1911 Revolution and the New Democracy Revolution, and focuses on the contribution they made to national liberation, people' freedom, and emancipation of women. It is aimed at presenting the revolutionnary spirit and commemorating those heroines.
What kind of mindset do you really need to succeed as a Helicopter Pilot in Afghanistan? Kate Munari really wanted to fly helicopters, and she really wanted to go into a combat zone. What it took to get her there, how she coped with everything from enrolment, to pilot training courses, preparation for deployment to one of the most dangerous places in the world, for anyone to be in 2008. Three successful tours of Afghanistan was the highlight of a 17 year career as a helicopter pilot for Kate, and she shares her stories to inspire anyone wanting to know more about the mindsets she employed during that time, and for her life in general. It’s a riviting tale of determination, courage, and ambition. Her personal stories include insights into: 12 hours per day transporting troop in Helmand Province while being shot at. Advanced training and formation flying that will leave you breathless. Flying under extreme pressure in various parts of the world. Enounters with Royalty, Tribal Chief's, and Interrogators. This book is perfectly targeted at Leaders who are either in business or running teams of any size in any industry, based on Kate's development and insights as a military person. It is also ideally targeted at young women - 15-30 years of age who want to be inspired to either join up, punch well above their weight in any career path, and navigate a journey into what's truly possible for women any where in the world, in any industry based on a resilience and capability focused mindset. As a full time presenter, Kate speaks to audiences throughout Australia and New Zealand about her perspectives on leadership borne out of her experiences both in the Navy and as a civilian. Her book is due for release in 2024.
Iraqi women in Denmark is an ethnographic study of ritual performance and place-making among Shi'a Muslim Iraqi women in Copenhagen. The book explores how Iraqi women construct a sense of belonging to Danish society through ritual performances, and investigates how this process is interrelated with their experiences of inclusion and exclusion in Denmark. The findings refute the all too simplistic assumptions of general debates on Islam and immigration in Europe that tend to frame religious practice as an obstacle to integration in the host society. In sharp contrast to the fact that the Iraqi women's religious activities in many ways contribute to categorising them as outsiders to Danish society, their participation in religious events also localises them in the city. Written in an accessible, narrative style, this book addresses both an academic audience and the general reader interested in Islam in Europe and immigration to Scandinavia. ;
Based on the original and authoritative Revels texts, Plays on women brings together four plays which dramatise the lives of women in Shakespeare's England The only available anthology focusing on women and including the four plays most often discussed. . . . ;
Women before the court offers an innovative, comparative approach to the study of women's legal rights during a formative period of Anglo-American history. It traces how colonists transplanted English legal institutions to America, examines the remarkable depth of women's legal knowledge and shows how the law increasingly undermined patriarchal relationships between parents and children, masters and servants, husbands and wives. The book will be of interest to scholars of Britain and colonial America, and to laypeople interested in how women in the past navigated and negotiated the structures of authority that governed them. It is packed with fascinating stories that women related to the courts in cases ranging from murder and abuse to debt and estate litigation. Ultimately, it makes a remarkable contribution to our understandings of law, power and gender in the early modern world.
How has it happened that from being politely ignored or marginalized just half a century ago, women writers in Italy are now at the centre of literary activity? To what extent does writing by women reflect the successes and failures of Italy in the post-war period? What form did the feminist movement in Italy take, and how did this affect what - and how - women wrote? And how are women who write responding to a more fragmented post-modern age? These are just some of the questions asked of the relationship between women and fiction in post-war Italy in this anthology. It includes stories by Cialente, Ginzburg, Ortese, Morante, Romano, Maraini and Duranti as well as Bompiani, Sanvitale, Mizzau, Scaramuzzino, Capriolo and Petrignani. The thirteen stories presented offer a range of style and content indicative of the wealth and diversity of writing by women, and their reading is supported by critical notes and an extensive vocabulary. This is a clear and challenging introduction to the rich field of women and fiction in Italy. ;
This is the first book to consider the difference women MPs make for women constituents in Britain by comparing women parliamentarians' activities, priorities and perceptions to those of their male colleagues. It uncovers complicated gender dynamics that have been neglected in other works because of an exclusive focus on the activities of women MPs, and mounts a systematic challenge to the idea that a critical mass of women is necessary for women's presence to matter. By comparing the representation received by women from a parliament with few women to that received from a parliament with many women, Anna Dionne leads the reader to understand why numbers are not magic. Her empirical research includes interviews with over eighty parliamentarians in London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the amassing of an unprecedented and comprehensive database of representatives' legislative activities. She compares how men and women and different political parties introduce and support bills and motions, ask parliamentary questions, participate in committee and floor debates, and work behind the scenes for cross-party consensus and on constituency casework. The analysis considers gender similarities and differences throughout the policy process and explains the gender dynamics with a new sensitivity to their fluctuation. ;
This book is about the lives of refugee women in Britain and France. Who are they? Where do they come from? What happens to them when they arrive, while they wait for a decision on their claim for asylum, and after the decision, whether positive or negative? It shows how laws and processes designed to meet the needs of men fleeing political persecution often fail to protect women from persecution in their home countries and fail to meet their needs during and after the decision-making process. It portrays refugee women as resilient, resourceful and potentially active participants in British and French social, political and cultural life. It exposes the obstacles that make active participation difficult. The book is an authoritative and thorough synthesis of all available material on refugee women in Britain and France. The style is accessible and highly readable, making this an ideal book for academics, students and interested readers. ;
At once pervasive and marginal, appealing and repellent, exemplary and atypical, the women of the Bible provoke an assortment of readings across early modern literature. Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550-1700 draws attention to the complex ways in which biblical women's narratives could be reimagined for a variety of rhetorical and religious purposes. Considering a confessionally diverse range of writers, working across a variety of genres, this volume reveals how women from the Old and New Testaments exhibit an ideological power that frequently exceeds, both in scope and substance, their associated scriptural records. The essays explore how the Bible's women are fluidly negotiated and diversely redeployed to offer (conflicting) comment on issues including female authority, speech and sexuality, and in discussions of doctrine, confessional politics, exploration and grief. As it explores the rich ideological currency of the Bible's women in early modern culture, this volume demonstrates that the Bible's women are persistently difficult to evade. ;
This extensively illustrated book discusses the representation of women in the art of the late Middle Ages in Northern Europe. Drawing on a wide range of different media, but making particular use of the rich plethora of woodcuts, the author charts how the images of women changed during the period and proposes two basic categories - the Virgin and Eve, good and evil. Within these, however, we discover attitudes to sinful, foolish, married and unmarried women and the style and use of these images exposes the full extent of the misogyny entrenched in medieval society. ;
‘In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat’ is a book that traces the life of an unknown Egyptian writer who died in 1963, four years before the release of her only novel. The book does not follow a traditional style to present the biography of Al-Zayyat, or to restore consideration for a writer who was denied her rights. Mersal refuses to present a single story as if it is the truth and refuses to speak on behalf of the heroine or deal with her as a victim, but rather takes us on a journey to search for the individuality that is often marginalised in Arab societies. The book searches for a young woman whose family burned all her personal documents, including the draft of her second novel, and was completely absent in the collective archives. The narration derives its uniqueness from its ability to combine different literary genres such as fictional narration, academic research, investigation, readings, interviews, fiction, and fragments of the autobiography of the author of the novel. The book deals with the differences between the individuality of Enayat, who was born into an aristocratic family, graduated from a German school and wrote her narration during the domination of the speeches of the Nasserism period, and that of Mersal, a middle-class woman who formed her consciousness in the 1990s and achieved some of what Enayat dreamed of achieving but remained haunted by her tragedy. The book deals with important political, social and cultural issues, as we read the history of psychiatry in modern Egypt through the pills that Enayat swallowed to end her life on 3 January 1963, while her divorce summarises the continuing suffering of women with the Personal Status Law. We also see how the disappearance of a small square from her neighbourhood reveals the relationship between modernity and bureaucracy, and how the geography of Cairo changes, obliterated as the result of changes in political regimes. In the library of the German Archaeological Institute, where Enayat worked, we find an unwritten history of World War II and, in her unpublished second novel, we see unknown stories of German scientists fleeing Nazism to Cairo. We also see how Enayat’s neglected tomb reveals the life story of her great-grandfather, Ahmed Rashid Pasha, and the disasters buried in the genealogy tree.
Popular Victorian women writers considers a diverse group of women writers within the Victorian literary marketplace. It looks at authors such as Ellen Wood, Mary Braddon, Rhoda Broughton and Charlotte Yonge as well as less well-known writers including Jessie Fothergill and Eliza Meteyard. Each essay sets the individual author within her biographical and literary context and provides refreshing insights into their work. Together they bring the work of largely unknown authors and new perspectives on known authors to critical and public attention. Accessible and informative, the book is ideal for students of Victorian literature and culture as well as tutors and scholars of the period. ;
This volume examines the films of Hispanic and Lusophone women filmmakers from the 1930s to the present day. It establishes productive connections between film practices across these geographical areas by identifying common areas of concern on the part of these female filmmakers. Focusing on aesthetic, theoretical and socio-historical analyses, it questions the manifest or latent gender and sexual politics that inform and structure the emerging cinematic productions by women filmmakers in Portugal, Spain, Latin America and the US. With a combination of scholars from the UK, the US, Spain and Latin America, the volume documents and interprets a fascinating corpus of films made by Hispanic and Lusophone women and proposes research strategies and methodologies that can expand our understanding of socio-cultural and psychic constructions of gender and sexual politics. An essential resource to rethink notions of gender identity and subjectivity, it is a unique contribution to Spanish and Latin American Film Studies and Film Studies. ;
This volume examines the films of Hispanic and Lusophone women filmmakers from the 1930s to the present day. It establishes productive connections between film practices across these geographical areas by identifying common areas of concern on the part of these female filmmakers. Focusing on aesthetic, theoretical and socio-historical analyses, it questions the manifest or latent gender and sexual politics that inform and structure the emerging cinematic productions by women filmmakers in Portugal, Spain, Latin America and the US. With a combination of scholars from the UK, the US, Spain and Latin America, the volume documents and interprets a fascinating corpus of films made by Hispanic and Lusophone women and proposes research strategies and methodologies that can expand our understanding of socio-cultural and psychic constructions of gender and sexual politics. An essential resource to rethink notions of gender identity and subjectivity, it is a unique contribution to Spanish and Latin American Film Studies and Film Studies.
In Germany, 132 women were murdered by their (ex-)partners over the past year, according to police statistics. An attempted murder happened every other day – the real figure is in all probability much higher. Julia Cruschwitz and Carolin Haentjes unveil their book on femicides in Germany with research from interviews with academics, criminologists, police officers, social workers, lawyers, survivors, witnesses and relatives and their analysis of scientific reports. Their work highlights how the issue of femicides affects the whole of society, but there are sensible ways to protect women more effectively from male violence. All we must do is take steps to follow these.