Women's Press of Canada – förlag

Feminisms and Womanisms brings together theory and practical application, so that feminist discourse interacts as a partner with the lived experience of women's social action. The selections combine classics in feminist thought with work from modern theorists and offer a solid foundation in international feminism.The conceptual understanding embedded in the terms feminism and womanism contributes to feminist discourse, a carefully differentiated focus on the ideological uses of language to define relationships that have been historically mired in domination. The terms also define the way gender often has been used to signify and support domination. Given that feminism and womanism are interpretive concepts, there is always a sense that knowledge-making is in progress; for there is nothing static or stagnant about feminism, feminist theory and feminist action.The formative nature of the feminist movement has, of necessity, a parallel interpretive theory. This reader embraces both the formative nature of the movement and the accompanying interpretive theories. It also pays attention to the chronological, cultural, geopolitical, racial and ethnic landscapes and sites where women live, carry out social action and theorize issues of equality. For both the general and academic reader, this book will be edifying while providing exposure to the feminist, womanist voices that inform the scholarship.

This much-needed collection of original articles invites the reader to examine the key issues in the lives of women with chronic illnesses. The authors explore how society reacts to women with chronic illness and how women living with chronic illness cope with the uncertainty of their bodies in a society that desires certainty. Additionally, issues surrounding women with chronic illness in the workplace and the impact of chronic illness on women's relationships are sensitively considered.

The evolution of feminist therapy involves the reconstruction of therapeutic goals, values, frameworks, and theory, as well as an acknowledgement that there is no single reality, no one ""right"" feminist theory or epistemological position about women. This collection of original articles addresses a range of topics relevant to understanding contemporary Canadian women's experiences. The contributors are, like the women who enter into counselling relationships, from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and speak in a variety of voices.Features:discusses multiculturalism, motherhood, women's sexuality, woman abuse, violence against women, dominance relationships, and mental health concerns affecting Aboriginal women's realitiesconsiders embodiment, lesbianism, ethics, social justice, crisis counselling, storytelling, and women who are mandated to seek counselling

Becoming Girl interrogates the everyday of girlhood through the collaborative feminist methodology of collective biography. Located within the emergent interdisciplinary field of girlhood studies, this scholarly collection demonstrates how memories can be used to investigate the ways in which girlhood is culturally, historically, and socially constructed. Narrative vignettes of memory are produced and collaboratively investigated to explore relations of power, longing, and belonging, and to critically examine the ways in which girlhood is constituted. These are snapshot moments that, when analyzed, expose the social, embodied, and affective processes of “becoming girl,” making them visible in new ways. Incorporating the concepts of Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault, the authors investigate food, popular culture, sexuality, difference, literacy, family photographs, and trauma.Bringing together international and interdisciplinary girlhood scholars, this volume provides an innovative, inclusive, and collaborative method for understanding the relationship between the individual and the collective.

What ideas are overlooked in contemporary feminist politics? How do particular issues become part of the feminist agenda? Why do we need to think about how feminists imagine and actualize their political objectives?This book explores these questions through the notion of oversight—a concept used both to consider what has been overlooked and to examine how particular objects of feminist politics become visible in the first place. Through chapters that focus on realities lived by trans women, Viviane Namaste explores diverse case studies and facets of political life: women’s labour, the archiving of everyday life, the history of HIV, urban development and displacement, bisexualities, and the culture of feminist activists themselves.Oversight suggests that feminists need to engage in careful, deep reflection on how feminist knowledge comes into being. This book will be of interest to scholars in women’s and gender studies, community development, sociology, social work, geography, history, and sexuality studies. Its accessible tone, pedagogical questions, and suggested readings make it well suited to classroom use. Its exploration of activist culture will be of particular interest to advocates of social justice both inside and outside of the university.All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to the Emergency Relief Fund of PASAN—Prisoners’ HIV/AIDS Support Action Network. This fund helps support individuals who are newly released from jail and who need financial resources for housing, food, medications, and the replacement of identity documents.

Now in its second edition, this groundbreaking work of literary and cultural criticism analyzes representations of Indigenous women in Canadian literature. By deconstructing stereotypical images of the “Indian princess” and “easy squaw,” Janice Acoose calls attention to the racist and sexist depictions of Indigenous women in popular literature. Blending personal narrative and literary criticism, this revised edition draws a strong connection between the persistent negative cultural attitudes fostered by those stereotypical representations and the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Acoose decolonizes written English by interweaving her own story with reflections on the self-determination of her female ancestors and by highlighting influential Indigenous female writers who have resisted cultural stereotypes and reclaimed the literary field as their own. This important text urges both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to move beyond words to challenge the harmful attitudes that condone violence against Indigenous women.Thoroughly updated and featuring new photographs, questions for critical thought, and a discussion of Indigenous women’s literary voices that have emerged in the past twenty years, the second edition of Iskwewak is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of Indigenous studies, women’s studies, and literature.

Over 15 years ago, Kim Anderson set out to explore how Indigenous womanhood had been constructed and reconstructed in Canada, weaving her own journey as a Cree/Métis woman with the insights, knowledge, and stories of the forty Indigenous women she interviewed. The result was A Recognition of Being, a powerful work that identified both the painful legacy of colonialism and the vital potential of self-definition.In this second edition, Anderson revisits her groundbreaking text to include recent literature on Indigenous feminism and two-spirited theory and to document the efforts of Indigenous women to resist heteropatriarchy. Beginning with a look at the positions of women in traditional Indigenous societies and their status after colonization, this text shows how Indigenous women have since resisted imposed roles, reclaimed their traditions, and reconstructed a powerful Native womanhood.Featuring a new foreword by Maria Campbell and an updated closing dialogue with Bonita Lawrence, this revised edition will be a vital text for courses in women and gender studies and Indigenous studies as well as an important resource for anyone committed to the process of decolonization.

Drawing on the diary entries of twenty young women living in Kibera, a large slum outside of Nairobi, Kenya, Women’s Voices from the Margins is an in-depth investigation into women’s experiences of gender-based violence in the Global South. Elizabeth Swart employs relevant theory and feminist scholarship to ground her analysis in the broader context of globalization, while also attending to the specific responses and strategies used by these diarists to cope with gender-based violence.Highlighting the implications of this qualitative study for policy practice and future research, this text considers the critical possibilities of localized interventions and is a valuable resource for students interested in women and violence, international social work, and women in the developing world.

A critical introduction to key theories and concerns, Gender and Women’s Studies celebrates a range of influential feminist thought on topics of race, class, ability, age, rights, and sexuality. Broad in scope, this collection features multiple genres of work and covers an array of disciplinary focuses with Indigenous, racialized, disabled, and queer voices prominent among the variety of perspectives included.This thoroughly updated second edition contains more photos, infographics, and artworks as well as updated reflections on developments in the media and activist movements. In addition, new chapters have been added on issues surrounding sex work as labour, the politics of veiling in Canada, trans and gender queer-identities, and Indigenous sovereignty. Concerned with the past, present, and future of gender identity and gendered representation, this remarkable anthology is perfect for use in introductory courses in gender studies and women’s studies at universities across Canada. Features:comprised of scholarly articles, news clips, fact sheets, poetry, fiction, and blog postsfeatures essays by Jessica Valenti, bell hooks, Afua Cooper, Gloria Steinem, and Tyra Banks

Lee Maracle’s Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel tells the narrative of an Indigenous woman raised in North America who finds her strength despite the forces that challenge and oppress her. Grippingly honest, Lee’s autobiographical exploration of post-colonial tensions in Toronto circa 1960-1980 sheds light on the existing racist and sexist sentiments affecting Indigenous women. Reflective of the struggles Indigenous communities face today, this book continues to hold a place within contemporary Indigenous and women’s studies classrooms.New and updated, this edition features a preface by Lee Maracle.

Set along the Pacific Northwest Coast in the 1950s, Ravensong tells the story of an urban Native community devastated by an influenza epidemic. Stacey, a 17-year-old Native girl, struggles with the clash between white society’s values and her family’s traditional ways, knowing that her future lies somewhere in between. Celia, her sister, has visions from the past, while Raven warns of an impending catastrophe before there is any reconciliation between the two cultures. In this passionate story about a young woman’s quest for answers, author Lee Maracle speaks unflinchingly of the gulf between two cultures: a gulf that Raven says must be bridged. Ravensong is a moving drama that includes elements of prophecy, mythology, cultural critique, and even humour.New and updated, this edition features a preface by Lee Maracle.

How and why do “ordinary” women engage in various forms of social-change work at different times in their lives? What does it mean for these women to age as activists? Unsettling Activisms brings together insights from academics and activists in an intergenerational conversation that addresses these questions. Drawing on diverse lived experiences, including contributions from leading feminist and age studies scholars, this volume investigates how powerful, interlocking forms of difference such as gender, class, race, ability, ethnicity, sexuality, and indigeneity, shape the meaning and experience of both aging and activism. This vital resource consists of eight analytic chapters and eight vibrant reflective pieces. This collection is best suited for undergraduate and graduate courses in gender studies, activist and social movement studies, and age and aging studies.

Filling a gap in literature and fulfilling the need for trans-focused work, TransNarratives is an interdisciplinary collection featuring narratives of transgender experiences, providing a sourcebook of a range of trans perspectives, writing styles, and trans methodological fields of applicability. The works included transcend disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of academic knowledge and creativity, actively deconstructing binaries wherever they begin to appear, whether with regard to gender, race, ability, or sexuality, or to the binary divisions that can sometimes separate academic and creative production.Calling attention to transgender writers, this unique and timely text showcases a wide variety of material, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectives, poetry and fiction that foregrounds trans experience, and first-person transgender narratives. The essays, poems, and stories cover a range of topics relevant to transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary experiences, across time, geographic location, and cultures. An important addition to the field, this groundbreaking text will serve as an essential collection of works for students and researchers in transgender studies, queer studies, and gender studies.FEATURES:Provides accessible, thematically wide-ranging, and stylistically diverse writings, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectivesIncludes multi-generational perspectives and non-able-bodied subjectivitiesUniquely formatted to support a dialogue between creative and scholarly work

The first of its kind, Trans Youth Stories: An Intergenerational Dialogue after the "Trans Tipping Point" is a thematically organized collection of narratives, fiction, nonfiction, letters, poetry, graphics/comics, and visual pieces created by twenty-six Canadian transgender youth between the ages of ten to eighteen. Arranged in sections on childhood, families, bodies, everyday life, schooling, mental health, and acceptance, each section concludes with a response written by a Canadian scholar in transgender studies in conversation with the youth. These responses contextualize the youth pieces with recent scholarship from the field and equip readers with concrete actions for research, activism, and professional practice.Offering a unique and truthful depiction of young trans life and a holistic view of what it might be like to be a young trans person today, this groundbreaking volume will serve as an essential sourcebook for both students and teachers of gender and sexuality studies, trans studies, child and youth studies, counselling, and education.FEATURES:A unique collection centering the voices of trans youth through firsthand perspectives followed by an extended scholarly responseIncludes additional resources and follow-up responses by scholars to help readers contextualize writings of trans youth

In this unique approach to the field of body studies, author, scholar, and educator Victoria Kannen explores what it means to exist in a body that is constantly on display and subjected to public scrutiny. Kannen examines the interplay of many ways our bodies express identity, such as gender, race, body size, sexuality, disability, body modification, and age, and how public scrutiny of those expressions can impact our public and private selves.Intertwining personal narratives of self-identified "odd and awed" women with theoretical chapters that help to elucidate the role of social power, this volume tackles the stares, comments, and questions that are directed towards bodies in public space through original research, personal narratives, and artistic expression. As readers encounter the narratives and images throughout the book, they will be supported by scholarly chapters on embodiment, identity, resistance, and power to help analyze, reflect on, and critically engage with the content.Through stories, theory, and art, this timely new resource will engage students and scholars of women's and gender studies, sociology, critical disability studies, and body studies.

In this timely collection, gender, sex, and technology are explored through an intersectional and interdisciplinary lens. Gender, Sex, and Tech! provides insight into the ways that technology affects, and is affected by, cultural perceptions of gender and sex. Through an examination of a range of past and present issues, the text highlights our relationships to technology and illustrates how gendered relations are shaped and transformed through social and technological innovations.Contributors bring to the fore feminist, decolonizing, and anti-racist methods to examine our everyday uses of technology, from the mundane to the surreal to the playful to the devastating. Original research and scholarship is skillfully grounded in real-world scenarios like revenge pornography, gender bias in artificial intelligence, menstrual tracking, online dating, and the COVID-19 pandemic, inviting students to take a closer look at technological transformations and their impact on gendered lived experience and to consider how the benefits of technology are inequitably shared within society.Centring Canadian scholars and Canadian perspectives without losing sight of the broader global connection, Gender, Sex, and Tech! is bursting with timely and of-the-moment content, making this collection a must-read for courses focused on gender and technology.

In My Sister's House is the first book in the upcoming new series of original chapters by Black Canadian women and about Black Canadian women, taking up different, but interrelated topics. The book gathers new theorization by and about Black women in Canada across a number of topics where Black women's scholarship remains underrepresented.In this volume, scholars such as Njoki Wane, rosalind hampton, and Natasha Henry explore theories and application of Black feminism locating them squarely within the Canadian context and offering insights into how Black Canadian feminist praxis expands our thinking within this locale and globally. It is one of the only collected works to focus on Black women's scholarship in Canada on the question of Black Canadian visions of feminist theory and praxis.

And Sometimes There Are Tears is the second book in the innovative new series In Words of Our Own: Black Women and Being, by and about Black Canadian women that centres Black feminist perspectives. This engaging text explores Black women's journeys toward well-being, healing, and collective liberation, while also challenging narrow Eurocentric and individualistic definitions of wellness that routinely overlook Black women's lived realities, particularly within Canadian contexts shaped by systemic anti-Black racism and sexism.Through interdisciplinary and multi-genre contributions, including academic research, personal narratives, poetry, and dialogue, the contributing scholars explore how wellness is shaped by experiences such as misogynoir, internalized anti-Blackness, the "Strong Black Woman" archetype, and inequities within the health and social systems. Rather than treating well-being as a fixed or purely clinical outcome, this collection presents it as a dynamic, relational process rooted in history, embodiment, and community.And Sometimes There Are Tears reimagines healing as a form of political resistance. Contributors foreground spiritual practice, ancestral connection, storytelling, and community care as essential strategies for surviving and flourishing within Black spaces. By honouring diverse ways of knowing and refusing rigid boundaries between academic and creative work, this powerful and deeply reflective text offers students and scholars a powerful framework for understanding wellness as inseparable from justice, care, and collective action.

Toil and Laughter is the third book in the innovative series In Words of Our Own: Black Women and Being, by and about Black Canadian women that centres Black feminist perspectives. This vital text examines the long legacy of Black women's work, exploring how anti-Black racism, patriarchal systems, and systemic inequities shape the experiences of Black families, communities, students, and educators. By situating Black women's labour as both political and transformative, this text illuminates the histories, lived realities, and mobilizations of Black women navigating complex educational, workplace, and social systems.Through thirteen interdisciplinary and multi-genre chapters, Toil and Laughter reimagines work as a site of resistance and creative possibility. This collection highlights how Black women's labour is often perceived as invisible or hyper-visible depending on social convenience, while also demonstrating how Black women respond to systemic injustice through practices such as othermothering, educational advocacy, and community organizing. Rather than presenting labour as a neutral activity, this collection frames work as relational, historically grounded, and inseparable from collective struggle and liberation.Contributors centre Black feminist perspectives, storytelling, and collective mobilizations as strategies for challenging systemic oppression and imagining new futures for Black women and their communities. By bridging academic analysis with lived experience, this text offers students and scholars in Black Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, Diaspora Studies, Critical Race Studies, and Labour Studies a critical framework for understanding Black women's labour as central to justice, care, and collective empowerment.

At the Helm is the fourth and final volume in the innovative series In Words of Our Own: Black Women and Being, by and about Black Canadian women, centring Black feminist perspectives. In this groundbreaking text, the authors explore how Black women lead, influence, and create change across multiple social contexts and spaces, including places of work, communities, academia, and family life.Through a diverse range of contributions, the collection examines both the systemic barriers Black women face and the acts of bold resistance, care, and leadership they employ while navigating institutions shaped by patriarchy, race, gender, sexuality, ability, and religious identity. It demonstrates how these intersecting forces both constrain and shape opportunities for leadership.As one of the few edited collections devoted to Black women's leadership in Canada, At the Helm challenges race-evasive narratives by centring Black women's experiences, knowledge systems, and ways of knowing and being. Offering timely scholarship and critical perspectives, this text disrupts the status quo on equity, leadership, and social change.This accessible text is well-suited for courses in women's and gender studies, critical race studies, black studies, African studies, and sociology courses in both universities and colleges.

Jacobs has brought together the work of a number of progressive feminist writers, who theorize gender, race, diversity research, the social construction of women and work, ethnicity and class. The essays in this reader are focused on issues relating to gender equality in workspaces in society. The editor has gathered essays from well-known and established social scientists. Among them are Pat & Hugh Armstrong, Himani Bannerji, Christine Bruckert and Tania Das Gupta. The result is a stimulating collection that focuses on health-care workers, teachers, strippers, wage-less workers and women who are hidden from view.The collection explores the construction of gender, the selection of careers and the differential in work conditions and wages.

This collection places Asian women centre stage and challenges a dichotomized view of Asia and the ""west"" or ""north."" It offers an understanding of Asian women in their networks of connections through the work of feminist scholars discussing Asian women in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. While the focus is on how Asian women are socially constructed and represented in books, on screen, and in the media, it also includes discussions on how Asian women present and represent themselves.Few books deal with Asian women's interconnections, and yet fewer express the range of theoretical perspectives, linkages, and disciplines that are the focus of this collection. Asian Women: Interconnections opens important intellectual discussions about Asian Canadian feminism, and comparative feminisms.

This unique collection provides social work students and practitioners with critical analysis and practical guidance for working with abused women who are marginalized because of immigrant, refugee, or Aboriginal status. Out of the Shadows presents the work of Canadian academic researchers and frontline workers who demonstrate the increased risk faced by these women when they are victims of domestic violence, due to the racism inherent in our judicial and social systems. Our communities have neither fully faced nor met the challenges presented by this serious problem.Readers will be provoked to reflect on, and re-evaluate, the theoretical and political framework inherent in our service delivery systems and will be intrigued and delighted by accounts of culturally diverse women's groups and individuals who have transformed themselves from victims to victors.

Thinking Women and Health Care Reform in Canada explores why health care is a woman's issue and seeks to address gender equity in health services. Written by members of Women and Health Care Reform (WHCR), this collection establishes the importance of including gender in discussions and decisions surrounding health sector reform.In twelve concise chapters, Thinking Women and Health Care Reform in Canada addresses a wide range of issues, including obesity, maternity care, mental health of health care workers, and private health insurance. This thought-provoking collection is an essential read for students and researchers in the fields of women's studies, health sciences, sociology, and nursing, as well as for anyone who is looking for a new picture of health care in Canada.

Western feminists have long treated the rule of law as an essential ingredient of social justice; however, as the contributors to this collection remind us, meaningful justice remains out of reach for many women and racialized minorities precisely because the law turns a blind eye to the inequities that structure their daily lives. In fourteen chapters that open vital debates about the erosion of the welfare state and the media’s complicity in concealing political injustice, Within the Confines details the brutal ironies of a society that criminalizes the vulnerable while absolving the elite. Distinctive in its focus on Canada, the book traces the linkages among racial, ethnic, sexual, and economic vulnerability and reveals the inadequacies of legislative approaches to socio-historical problems such as drug trafficking, homelessness, infanticide, and the legacies of settler colonial violence. In accessible prose, the authors dismantle the myths behind topics that are often sensationalized in the media—pornography, single motherhood, sex work, filicide, gangs, domestic abuse, prison conditions, HIV nondisclosure—and present alternative arguments that expose the justice system’s role in widening the gap between the rich and the poor. What emerges is a poignant challenge to the neoliberal fable that women and minorities in Western democracies now enjoy full equality and an urgent call to action for those who seek to shift institutional norms in more equitable directions. A valuable resource for a wide range of fields, including criminology, sociology, social anthropology, gender studies, political science, social work, and legal history, this multidisciplinary volume offers a fresh perspective on the disturbingly predictable judgments that criminalized women face in Canada.