Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Gender Studies

According to the Leisure Studies Department at the University of Iowa, true leisure is “that place in which we realize our humanity.” If that’s true, argues Brigid Schulte, then we're doing dangerously little realizing of our humanity. In Overwhelmed, Schulte, a staff writer for The Washington Post, asks: Are our brains, our partners, our culture, and our bosses making it impossible for us to experience anything but “contaminated time”?

As a man, you may often feel the pressure of fulfilling many roles in life: husband, father, son, businessman, member of the church community. Now, T. D. Jakes comes to your aid with a guidebook to help you understand your own needs for emotional and spiritual support. He offers practical, sound answers to assist you in expressing your needs and having them met in healthy and wholesome ways by those you love. This is a candid, no-holds-barred look at sexuality, spirituality, and the seldom mentioned but extremely important emotions that shape success in every area of a man’s life.

At a time when most of the public discourse was dominated by men, Anna Julia Cooper’s writings offered a blistering rebuke to that status quo. The essays and speeches collected here anticipated the debates about racism, sexism, and intersectionality that we are still having today. Cooper argues in particular for the importance of Black women’s participation in identifying and combating the structures of oppression that surrounded them - and that made life so much more difficult for many other groups as well.

Flyover country, the middle of nowhere, the space between the coasts. The American Midwest is a place beyond definition, whose very boundaries are a question. It's a place of rolling prairies and towering pines, where guns in bars and trucks on blocks are as much a part of the landscape as rivers and lakes and farms. Where girls are girls and boys are boys, where women are mothers and wives, where one is taught to work hard and live between the lines.

Women are steadily showing up in powerful positions, and better communication and public speaking give women the ability to develop their full potential, seize every opportunity, and realize their aspirations. Whether pitching for new business, delivering a talk at a conference, raising money for a non-profit, or communicating one-on-one with coworkers, women can become effective, powerful communicators when they learn to speak with authenticity and confidence.

In 1954, Joyce Johnson’s Barnard professor told his class that most women could never have the kinds of experiences that would be worth writing about. Attitudes like that were not at all unusual at a time when “good” women didn’t leave home or have sex before they married; even those who broke the rules could merely expect to be minor characters in the dramas played by men. But secret rebels, like Joyce and her classmate Elise Cowen, refused to accept things as they were.

In her first book of comic strips, Emma reflects on social and feminist issues by means of simple line drawings, dissecting the mental load, ie all that invisible and unpaid organizing, list-making and planning women do to manage their lives, and the lives of their family members. Most of us carry some form of mental load - about our work, household responsibilities, financial obligations and personal life; but what makes up that burden and how it's distributed within households and understood in offices is not always equal or fair.

Thousands of women have stepped inside Becker’s Bridal in Fowler, Michigan, to try on their dream dresses in the Magic Room, a special space with soft lighting, a circular pedestal, and mirrors that carry a bride’s reflections into infinity. The women bring with them their most precious expectations about romance, love, fidelity, permanence, and tradition. Each bride who passes through has a story to tell - one that carried her there, to that dress, that room, that moment.

Three years ago, John Schwartz, a national correspondent for the New York Times, got the call that every parent hopes never to receive: His 13-year-old son, Joe, was in the hospital following a suicide attempt. Mustering the courage to come out to his classmates, Joe had delivered a tirade about homophobic and sexist attitudes that was greeted with unease and confusion by his fellow students. Hours later, he took an overdose of pills.

When it comes to negotiation, there is an ugly double standard. As women, if we make concessions to further a deal, we're viewed as weak. But if we play hardball, we can be seen as overly aggressive - and the strategy backfires. No wonder most women hate negotiating.

For decades, we've discussed our insecurities in the face of idealized, retouched, impossibly perfect images. We've worried primping and preening are a distraction and a trap. But have we focused too much on beauty's negative influence? In Face Value, journalist Autumn Whitefield-Madrano thoughtfully examines the relationship between appearance and science, social media, sex, friendship, language, and advertising to show how beauty actually affects us day to day.

Set against a backdrop of social change during the 1970s, State is a compelling first-person account of what it was like to live through both traditional gender discrimination in sports and the joy of the very first days of equality - or at least the closest that one high school girls’ basketball team ever came to it.

The Time Has Come offers a plainspoken and forthright look at why and how men need to actively fight for gender equality. As the cofounder of the White Ribbon Campaign, the largest international coalition of men seeking to end violence against women, Michael Kaufman is a global advocate for gender equality. Kaufman’s new book explores how a culture based in toxic masculinity hurts people (and their children), how men can become better allies in smashing the patriarchy, and how real gender equality creates advancements in both the workplace and the global economy.

Women Who Don’t Wait in Line is an urgent wake-up call from politico and activist Reshma Saujani. The former New York City Deputy Public Advocate and founder of the national nonprofit Girls Who Code argues that aversion to risk and failure is the final hurdle holding women back in the workplace. Saujani advocates a new model of female leadership based on sponsorship - where women encourage each other to compete, take risks, embrace failure, and lift each other up personally and professionally.

As the category of women's spirituality continues to grow, The Buddha's Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment.

On August 6, 1993, twenty-year-old Natasha Alexenko was assaulted at gunpoint. After nearly a decade, her backlogged rape kit was finally tested and her rapist, who roamed free for ten years, was brought to justice. On the day he was sentenced, Alexenko vowed that she would no longer be a statistic and would do whatever she could to help police on behalf of other rape victims. In 2011, she founded Natasha’s Justice Project (NJP), a nonprofit committed to ending the rape-kit backlog. This unflinching memoir chronicles her journey from trauma to triumph.

The Woman's Book of Courage is a little audiobook with a big message - we can take charge of our lives, stop trying to please all of the (other) people all of the time, and live happily with ourselves and others right now. Since it was first published, The Woman's Book of Courage has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of women.

Jamil Jivani recounts his experiences working as a youth activist throughout North America and the Middle East, drawing striking parallels between ISIS recruits, gangbangers, and Neo-Nazis in the West. Having narrowly escaped a descent into crime and gang violence in his native Toronto, Jivani has devoted his life to helping other at-risk youths avoid this fate in cities across North America. After the Paris terrorist attacks of 2016, he traveled to Europe and the Middle East to assist Muslim community outreach groups focused on deterring ISIS recruitment.

Egyptian-born and London-raised, Alya Mooro grew up between two cultures and felt a pull from both. Where could she turn for advice and inspiration when it seemed there was nobody else like her? Today, Mooro is determined to explore and explode the myth that she must identify either as ‘Western’ or as one of almost 400 million other ‘Arabs’ across the Middle East.

The dramatic inside story of the rise of women in elected office over the past quarter-century, from the pioneering founder of three-million-member EMILY's List - one of the most influential players in today's political landscape.