Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate

When God Was a Woman

Merlin Stone · 265 pages

Here, archaeologically documented is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Known by many names, she reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. How did the change in women's roles come about? By documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmans, Stone details an ancient conspiracy that laid the foundation for one of culture's greatest shams--the legend of Adam and fallen Eve.

Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made

Kristin Kobes Du Mez · 352 pages

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future

Riane Eisler · 261 pages

"In prehistorical times, Eisler argues, women and men lived together in egalitarian communities devoted to nurturance; with the imposition of male domination, female values gave way to creeds of hierarchy, aggression, power, obedience. Eisler, a futurist, posits a new society based on the recovery of more humane values."--Library journal (6/1/85).

The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam

Fatema Mernissi · 240 pages

The Gnostic Gospels

Elaine Pagels · 184 pages

The Gnostic Gospels is a landmark study of the long-buried roots of Christianity, a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence over the past two decades. It is now widely recognized as one of the mo

American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans

Eve LaPlante · 312 pages

Wife No. 19: The Story of a Life in Bondage, Being a Complete Exposé of Mormonism, and Revealing the Sorrows, Sacrifices and Sufferings of Women in Polygamy

Ann Eliza Young · 605 pages

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women

Geraldine Brooks

Infidel

Ayaan Hirsi Ali · 353 pages

"Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no story could be timelier or more significant.--From publisher description."--From source other than the Library of Congress

Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

Saba Mahmood · 260 pages

"Politics of Piety is a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Sab

Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society

Fatema Mernissi, fTm@ lmrnysy · 197 pages

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe

Thomas Cahill · 368 pages

From the bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, this book is a fascinating look at how medieval thinkers created the origins of modern intellectual movements. After the long period of decline known as the Dark Ages, medieval Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the hea

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement

Kathryn Joyce · 258 pages

Provides an intimate view of the patriarchy movement. They believe the "biblical" woman wears modest, feminine dress and avoids not only sex but also dating before marriage. She doesn't speak in church, or try to have authority over men. She is a submissive wife who bolsters her husband in his role as spiritual and earthly leader of the family.

Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith

Octavio Paz · 560 pages

How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy's Guide to Silencing Women

Zoe Venditozzi · 320 pages

The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World

Nawal El-Saadawi · 282 pages

Beschrijving van allerlei aspecten van het vrouw-zijn in Islamitische landen en van de man-vrouw verhouding tegen de achtergrond van het sociale, politieke religieuze leven

For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women

Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English · 369 pages

From the Publisher: A provocative new perspective on female history, the history of American medicine and psychology, and the history of child-rearing unlike any other.

Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam

Asra Q. Nomani · 320 pages

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

Ann Fessler · 358 pages

In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Ann Fessler bril

Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

Barbara Kingsolver · 224 pages

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver began her writing career with Holding the Line. It is the story of how women's lives were transformed by an eighteen-month strike against the Phelps-Dodge Copper Corporation. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, the story is partly oral history and partly social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment which occurs when people work together as a community.

The Body Project:: An Intimate History of American Girls

Joan Jacobs Brumberg · 267 pages

Girls today are in crisis - and this book shows why. Drawing on a vast array of lively historical sources, unpublished diaries by adolescent girls, and photographs that conjure up memories of the past, The Body Project chronicles how growing up in a female body has changed over the past century and why that experience is more difficult today than ever before. Girls' bodies have certainly changed

Bachelor Girl: The Secret History of Single Women in the Twentieth Century

Betsy Israel · 304 pages

Women's Studies Journalist Betsy Israel paints remarkably vivid portraits of single women -- and how they have been perceived -- throughout the decades using primary sources, including private journals, newspapers, and other materials from popular media. From the nineteenth-century spinsters of New England to the Bowery girls of New York City, to the career girls of the 1950s and 1960s, single wom

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Jon Krakauer · 399 pages

Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they receive

Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth, Olive Gilbert · 144 pages

"A symbol of the strength of African-American women, and a champion of the rights of all women, Sojourner Truth was an illiterate former slave named Isabella who became a vastly powerful orator. Dictated to a neighbor and first published in 1850, Truth's celebrated story chronicles her life as a slave in New York State, her 1827 emancipation under state law, her religious experiences and her trans