The Art and Power of Being a Lady

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Woman's Bible: A Classic Feminist Perspective

The publication of The Woman's Bible in 1895 and 1898 represented the last crusade of pioneer feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton to strike at the roots of the ideology behind her gender's subordinate role in society. In the tradition of radical individualism that guided her philosophy, Stanton's attack on religious orthodoxy is more a forceful political treatise than a scholarly work. This clarion call to action, assembled by Stanton and a committee of prominent feminists, consists of a book-by-book examination of the Bible, placing events in their historical context, interpreting passages as both allegory and fact, and comparing them with the myths of other cultures. Over a century later, it endures as an extraordinary document because of the questions it addresses, the topics it covers, and the still-resonant sincerity of its righteous indignation. Readers with an interest in theology, women's studies, or American history will find this milestone of religious and feminist literature an ever-relevant source of information and inspiration.

Nancy Etcoff

Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty

A provocative and thoroughly researched inquiry into what we find beautiful and why, skewering the myth that the pursuit of beauty is a learned behavior. In Survival of the Prettiest , Nancy Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, argues that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism--it's in our biology. Beauty, she explains, is an essential and ineradicable part of human nature that is revered and ferociously pursued in nearly every civilization--and for good reason. Those features to which we are most attracted are often signals of fertility and fecundity. When seen in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, our sometimes extreme attempts to attain beauty--both to become beautiful ourselves and to acquire an attractive partner--suddenly become much more understandable. Moreover, if we understand how the desire for beauty is innate, then we can begin to work in our own interests, and not just the interests of our genetic tendencies.

Sangtin Writers

Playing with Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism Through Seven Lives in India

Seven voices contribute to this rare glimpse of the work being done on the front lines of the fight for social change in India. Playing with Fire is written in the collective voice of women employed by a large NGO as activists in their communities and is based on diaries, interviews, and conversations among them. Together their personal stories reveal larger themes and questions of sexism, casteism, and communalism, and a startling picture emerges of how NGOs both nourish and stifle local struggles for solidarity. The Hindi edition of the book, Sangtin Yatra, published in 2004, created controversy that resulted in backlash against the authors by their employer. The publication also drew support for the women and instigated a public conversation about the issues exposed in the book. Here, Richa Nagar addresses the dispute in the context of the politics of NGOs and feminist theory, articulating how development ideology employed by aid organizations serves to reinforce the domination of those it claims to help. The Sangtin Writers, Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Reshma Ansari, Richa Singh, Shashibala, Shashi Vaish, Surbala, and Vibha Bajpayee, are grassroots activists and members of a small ...