Women's Herstory Month

Landmark, groundbreaking, classic--these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of "the problem that has no name": the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women's confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th-anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.

This is the little book that started a revolution, making women's voices heard, in their own right and with their own integrity, for virtually the first time in social scientific theorizing about women. Its impact was immediate and continues to this day, in the academic world and beyond. Translated into sixteen languages, with more than 700,000 copies sold around the world, In a Different Voice has inspired new research, new educational initiatives, and political debate-and helped many women and men to see themselves and each other in a different light.Carol Gilligan believes that psychology has persistently and systematically misunderstood women-their motives, their moral commitments, the course of their psychological growth, and their special view of what is important in life. Here she sets out to correct psychology's misperceptions and refocus its view of female personality. The result is truly a tour de force, which may well reshape much of what psychology now has to say about female experience.

General encouragement for women in the ""second half of life,"" by way of advice on health, relationships and illness; some readers may find the prevailing tone relentlessly strident. The authors produced this work ""in cooperation"" with the Boston Women's Health Book Collective; certainly the overall feeling is in line with Our Bodies, Our Selves. ""At present,"" say the authors, ""we're caught within the confines of an impossible health care system, filled with absurdities and based upon an economic underpinning that distorts it into grotesque shapes,"" To change this, we first must become knowledgeable about health, and then must take control over whatever aspects of our own health care possible. With that as a starting point, the authors go on to provide good basics on a number of topics, along with loads of encouragement on taking charge for better health. First, they cover some aspects of ""Aging Well"": ""Habits Worth Changing"" (smoking, for one), consideration of cosmetic surgery, nutrition (a chapter on weight control is, commendably, shorter than one on general nutrition information). The second section, ""Living With Ourselves and Others As We Age,"" looks at such social issues as sexuality, relationships, housing/living arrangements, and money matters: the latter really addresses those relatively well off who need help managing their money. Tips on budget planning don't adequately address the plight of those near destitution, alone and over working age. Finally, the authors give concise advice on ""Understanding, Preventing, and Managing Medical Problems,"" ranging from osteoporosis to cancer to gallstones. Lots of encouragement, then, but more practical assistance on a wider range of living situations would have helped with the problems of a wider range of readership. The strongly feminist tone may still be a turn-off for many older readers. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A landmark exhibition on display at the Brooklyn Museum from April 21 through September 17, 2017, We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 examines the political, social, cultural, and aesthetic priorities of women of color during the emergence of second-wave feminism. It showcases the work of black women artists such as Emma Amos, Maren Hassinger, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O'Grady, Howardena Pindell, Faith Ringgold, and Betye Saar, making it one of the first major exhibitions to highlight the voices and experiences of women of color. In so doing, it reorients conversations around race, feminism, political action, art production, and art history in this significant historical period. The accompanying Sourcebook republishes an array of rare and little-known documents from the period by artists, writers, cultural critics, and art historians such as Gloria Anzaldúa, James Baldwin, bell hooks, Lucy R. Lippard, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Lowery Stokes Sims, Alice Walker, and Michelle Wallace. These documents include articles, manifestos, and letters from significant publications as well as interviews, some of which are reproduced in facsimile form. The Sourcebook also includes archival materials, rare ephemera, and an art-historical overview essay. Helping readers to move beyond standard narratives of art history and feminism, this volume will ignite further scholarship while showing the true breadth and diversity of black women's engagement with art, the art world, and politics from the 1960s to the 1980s. We Wanted a Revolution will also be on display at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles from October 13, 2017 through January 14, 2018; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York from February 17, 2018 through May 27, 2018; and at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston from June 26, 2018 through September 30, 2018. Published by the Brooklyn Museum and distributed by Duke University Press

Sixteen women anthropologists analyze the place of women in human societies, treating as problematic certain questions and observations that in the past have been ignored or taken for granted, and consulting the anthropological record for data and theoretical perspectives that will help us to understand and change the quality of women's lives.