Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Second Sex

by Simone De Beauvoir

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies? Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births,... (more)

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

by Naomi Wolf

The bestselling classic that redefined our view od the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the... (more)

The History of Sexuality : An Introduction

The History of Sexuality : An Introduction

by Michel Foucault

The author turns his attention to sex and the reasons why we are driven constantly to analyze and discuss it. An iconoclastic explanation of modern sexual history.

Woman: An Intimate Geography

by Natalie Angier

With the clarity, insight, and sheer exuberance of language that make her one of The New York Times 's premier stylists, Pulitzer Prize-winner Natalie Angier lifts the veil of secrecy from that most enigmatic of evolutionary masterpieces, the female body. Angier takes readers on a mesmerizing tour of female anatomy and physiology that explores everything from organs to orgasm, and delves into topics such as... (more)

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

by Susan Faludi

Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women’s Rights “Opting-out,” “security moms,” “desperate housewives,” “the new baby fever”—the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is back in a fifteenth anniversary... (more)

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex

by John Gray

Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets. Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now... (more)

The Feminine Mystique

by Betty Friedan

The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique . This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations,... (more)

Iron John: A Book About Men

by Robert Bly

In this deeply learned book, poet and translator Robert Bly offers nothing less than a new vision of what it is to be a man. Bly's vision is based on his ongoing work with men and reflections on his own life. He addresses the devastating effects of remote fathers and mourns the disappearance of male initiation rites in our culture. Finding rich meaning in ancient stories and legends, Bly uses the Grimm fairy... (more)

Stone Butch Blues: A Novel

by Leslie Feinberg

Published in 1993, this brave, original novel is considered to be the finest account ever written of the complexities of a transgendered existence. Woman or man? That's the question that rages like a storm around Jess Goldberg, clouding her life and her identity. Growing up differently gendered in a blue--collar town in the 1950's, coming out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist '60s, deciding... (more)

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge

by Eleanor Herman

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles... (more)

The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition

The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition

by Eve Ensler

'I decided to talk to women about their vaginas, to do vagina interviews, which became vagina monologues ...At first women were reluctant to talk. They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one's ever asked them before.' Eve Ensler A poignant and hilarious tour of the last frontier, the ultimate... (more)

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

by Ariel Levy

Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig -- the new brand of "empowered woman" who embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves. Irresistibly witty and... (more)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series)

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series)

by Audre Lorde

essays & speeches

A Room of One's Own

by Virginia Woolf

Originally published in 1929, A Room of One's Own eloquently states Woolf's conviction that in order to create works of genius, women must be freed from financial obligations and social restrictions.

A Midwife's Tale

The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.

Undoing Gender

by Judith Butler

Undoing Gender addresses the regulation of sexuality and gender that takes place in psychology, aesthetics, and social policy. These essays revisit the problem of kinship in light of new challenges to the family form, interrogate the meaning and purposes of the incest taboo, and challenge the ways in which intersexuality and transsexuality are pathologized.

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers

by Marina Warner

In this landmark study of the history and meaning of fairy tales, the celebrated cultural critic Marina Warner looks at storytelling in art and legend-from the prophesying enchantress who lures men to a false paradise, to jolly Mother Goose with her masqueraders in the real world. Why are storytellers so often women, and how does that affect the status of fairy tales? Are they a source of wisdom or a misleading... (more)

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

by Joan Jacobs Brumberg

"Timely and sympathetic . . . a work of impassioned advocacy."-- People A hundred years ago, women were lacing themselves into corsets and teaching their daughters to do the same. The ideal of the day, however, was inner beauty: a focus on good deeds and a pure heart. Today American women have more social choices and personal freedom than ever before. But fifty-three percent of our girls are dissatisfied with... (more)

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

by Deborah Tannen

Women and men live in different worlds...made of different words. Spending nearly four years on the New York Times bestseller list, including eight months at number one, You Just Don't Understand is a true cultural and intellectual phenomenon. This is the book that brought gender differences in ways of speaking to the forefront of public awareness. With a rare combination of scientific insight and delightful,... (more)

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Tags: gender studies