The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

Transforming a Rape Culture

Originally published in 1993, this pioneering anthology is a powerful polemic for fundamental cultural change: the transformation of basic attitudes about power, gender, race, and sexuality. This edition adds new pieces on Internet pornography, the role of sports in sexual violence, and rape as a calculated instrument of war. The diverse contributors, which include bell hooks, Andrea Dworkin, Michael Messner, Yvette Flores, and Ntozake Shange, are activists, opinion leaders, theologians, policymakers, educators, and authors of both genders who tackle such hot-button issues as pornography and the intersection of race and rape. The book's statistics have been thoroughly updated, as have essays about sexual violence in K-12 schools and in the church. New pieces from within America's immigrant communities depict struggles with domestic violence, sexual harassment, and community stigmas against reporting rape. This violence, not limited to one race, creed, or nationality, has its roots in cultural biases that are still much in need of change.

Jessica Taft

Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas

Explores how teenage girls across the world--Mexico City, Vancouver, Buenos Aires, San Francisco--reject the patriarchy and redefine their girlhood to claim their political authority and become activists From anti-war walkouts to anarchist youth newspapers, rallies against educational privatization, and workshops on fair trade, teenage girls are active participants and leaders in a variety of social movements. Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas illuminates the experiences and perspectives of these uniquely positioned agents of social change. Jessica K. Taft introduces readers to a diverse and vibrant transnational community of teenage girl activists in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and Vancouver. Expansive in scope and full of rich details, Taft brings to life the voices of these inspiring activists who are engaged in innovative and effective organizing for global and local social justice, highlighting their important contributions to contemporary social movements and social theory.Rebel Girls explores how teenage girls construct activist identities, rejecting and redefining girlhood and claiming political authority ...

Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Charisse Jones

Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America

"Always moving, at times haunting, and often inspirational, Shifting provides a richly textured look at the lives of Black women. Jones and Shorter-Gooden poignantly portray the day-to-day challenges and triumphs of 'sisters' at work, in relationships, and in their spiritual lives." -- Bebe Moore Campbell, author of What You Owe Me Based on the African American Women's Voices Project, Shifting reveals that a large number of African American women feel pressure to compromise their true selves as they navigate America's racial and gender bigotry. Black women "shift" by altering the expectations they have for themselves or their outer appearance. They modify their speech. They shift "white" as they head to work in the morning and "Black" as they come back home each night. They shift inward, internalizing the searing pain of the negative stereotypes that they encounter daily. And sometimes they shift by fighting back. With deeply moving interviews, poignantly revealed on each page, Shifting is a much-needed, clear, and comprehensive portrait of the reality of African American women's lives today.