5 important books about the problems and the role of the modern woman
We talk a lot about perception corporeality, seeking harmony with oneself, and how important it is for our common comfort to learn to accept and love the diversity and uniqueness of people in a multicultural global reality. However, this process is impossible without an understanding of how the existing relationship models took shape, how the notions of “right” or “traditional” were fixed in our minds and why changes are inevitable. As part of the conversation about the evolution of gender, we begin to talk about important and interesting documents from different eras on the theme "Woman and her position in society".
Jessica valenti
"Feminism in full growth"
2007
One of the main popularizers of feminism - 35-year-old American Jessica Valenti - launched the site Feministing.org, writes for The Guardian and has already published several affordable and ultra-popular books about why feminism is needed by everyone. Proceeding from the Bell Hooks approach, that feminism is universal justice and everyone benefits from it, Valenti simply, bitingly and loudly speaking with her readers about how to live, when you are not particularly given a life. Readers, assured critics - adults or just graduated from college - are not burdened with knowledge of gender theory and want an accessible and motivating book for every day about the difficulty of choosing a modern girl and, in general, looking for the answer to the question "how to be yourself and be happy."
Valenti speaks with short phrases, often repeats and at times abuses the training methods: "Appreciate yourself for what the media do not value you for: your mind, for understanding the world around you, but at least for the ability to play billiards, for God's sake. Until until you evaluate yourself by the ability to look good in a bathing suit and accessibility for men, everything will be progress. " However, five of her books — from analyzing the repressive nature of virginity to describing the maternal role being lived — became bestsellers and apparently show massive feminism of the beginning of the 21st century with the face of a girl from the opposite apartment.
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A more radical and controversial conversation about the crisis of modern feminism in his book “Female Chauvinistic Pigs” is conducted by columnist of The New Yorker Ariel Levy. She studies the sexual obsession of modern culture and says that from the irony of a humiliated woman to the immediate humiliation of others and herself is less than half a step, and this is what people forget about when past feminist achievements are trampled into the mud, thinking up the TV show “Kiss Piss”, events with strippers and romcoms with bimbo.
Barbara Ehrenreich
"Considering pennies: how (not) to make ends meet in America"
2011
Barbara Ehrenreich, one of the most prominent American publicists, wrote about 20 studies on life in the United States — from middle-class topography to exposing the health care system — wrote her most famous book, “Considering pennies,” not entirely about gender roles, but only at first glance. After the 1998 crisis, on the eve of her 60th birthday, Ehrenreich worked for the most undervalued jobs in America for three months in a row, trying to bring her to the next salary: she was a maid and waitress, a cashier and assistant in the kitchen for a tiny salary per hour, pyataks and dimes as a tip.
Being among the same survivors, Ehrenreich describes in detail the daily trials of the humiliated and insulted by modern capitalism and gives examples of courage, resilience and ingenuity of himself and his colleagues: no work, according to Ehrenreich, and even less expensive, is not easy or stupid. The writer conducts a demographic and economic analysis of the conditions in which she finds herself - it is not surprising that many of her colleagues are women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, vulnerable or alone in their ordeals, forced to take responsibility not only for themselves but also for their families. In simple examples and human stories, the swine face of the service sector and the public bottom emerge, living on which a huge percentage of the population has to do despite hard work.
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In the next book, The Global Woman, Ehrenreich examines legal and illegal labor traffic around the world, exposing female exploitation in difficult and dangerous professions: the focus of the writer is nanny, governess, escort and sexual services for which many women go solely because of money and move away from their values, family and familiar environment. This book is yet another proof that there is no cheap labor, and the cheapest is the most expensive than the one who pays for it.
Cordelia Fine
"Misconceptions about gender"
2011
Canadian scientist Cordelia Fine is an expert in psychology: she wrote both her books about what tricks the brain does to a person and how stereotypes in her head appear faster than new information. Her first book talks about the complex relationship between the human brain and one’s own ego, which protect each other and, in search of stability, distort information, change memories, and refuse to make causal relationships. “Forgetting about gender” is charged with criticism of anonymous and authoritative sources like “British scientists” who popularize the results of dubious experiments based on gender stereotypes, and not from reality.
Veit actively criticizes the apologists of the theory that the male and female brains have fundamental differences between them, that people of the opposite sex cope with logical and emotional challenges in different ways and give some advantages to their carriers in everyday situations such as intimate conversations or fast parallel parking. Critics of Fine are upset that the author concentrates too much on neurosexism and so bluntly refutes stereotypes that he forgets to propose an alternative concept of collective thinking, so that it would be easier for us to change inadequate gender roles. On the other hand, Fayn has no shortage of interesting facts.
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It is also detailed in facts and cautious in the predictions of Anne Fausto-Sterling in her book on the sexual boundaries of gender, politics and repression - "Sexing the Body". But practical advice on overcoming gender stereotypes in pedagogy and education is in the study of neuropsychologist Liz Eliot "Pink brain, blue brain": in her, the author actively calls the typical mistakes of the adult environment at the early childhood stage, which program in children an irresistible desire to conform to gender roles in hope for encouragement from seniors.
Hanna Rosin
"The end of men. And the ascent of women"
2012
The challenging title of the book by the writer is from Queens, Slate and The Atlantic journalist Hannah Rozin, “The End of Men. And the Ascent of Women” really sets the matriarchal mood, but first of all, high sales. However, Rozin’s research is not man-hating and is not built on the idea of the superiority of one sex over the other, but around modern American statistics, which Rozin uses actively and skillfully. The book is based on the trends of the end of the 2000s, when women of America for the first time became the majority of the labor force in the country and the driving energy of the middle class. The last economic crisis of 2008 brought many women to the first roles who were not afraid of a more responsible new job, additional qualifications or second job and became the main earners in the family.
Rozin’s research is mostly about the poor and the middle class and, using convincing figures, tells us that the system of former gender roles in the economy has changed irreversibly: this, in particular, was presented at the TED conference. The reason for this change, according to Rozin, was a complete victory in American society of post-industrial economy and services, in which women feel more appropriate and more comfortable within the already programmed gender role: "The ability to communicate, open communication, the ability to calm down and concentrate at least not male the diocese, and women, it seems, all this is possible without difficulties. " Apparently, you can breathe a sigh of relief and decide that the times of the cult book about the suppression of women "Retaliation" are a thing of the past, but a thoughtful reader will not be quick to draw conclusions.
From the abundance of examples that Rozin gives, there are not so many reasons for optimism: from her statistics it follows that the world of the extremely rich remains unshakably masculine. The shift of gender roles occurs mostly between desperate women with responsibility for children and loved ones and their tired men, who are massively reduced due to the fact that their wives ready for all can pay 30 percent less. The hysterical matriarchy thus replaces patriarchy, female sacrifice replaces male aggression, and the sacred values of capitalism remain intact. Does such an ascent need to fight for a place under the sun with her parents, husbands and girlfriends and why capitalism most often turns into social Darwinism - this question Hanna Rozin gives you an answer to, although it obviously assumes that stay the same.
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In the book of Professor Berkeley Arly Hochschild "The Second Shift", written more than 15 years ago, the topic of how women’s household and family responsibilities are not redistributed and diminished with the increasing business activity of women is raised. Ann Crittenden’s book The Price of Motherhood continues Hochschild’s thought that a woman in modern society is relatively free until she becomes a mother: her study with a large amount of statistics and interviews of young mothers explains how life changes after birth and why In many women, childbirth becomes, in an economic and social sense, a point of no return. The book of The Washington Post author Lisa Mundi talks about the growing incomes of a modern woman, her new spending in earner status and the changing demand for goods and services: Mundi’s view is incredibly optimistic and, to the critics' fair view, strongly fits the facts into a prepared position that doesn’t cancel an abundance of inspiring examples of really interesting life turns - from the stereotypical fathers who are now raising children to the distribution of roles in the family of constantly moving parents.
Jennifer finney boylan
"Stuck in the middle of you"
2014
Transsexual Jennifer Finney Boylan is one of the most public transgender women and a man who managed to turn her gender issues into an ultra-popular product for a global audience. Her three books, one more successful than the other, can arouse suspicions, but they will be in vain: Boylan’s memories are personal, warm, very frank and very universal — they tell not only how to deal with their own sex, but also how to understand and accept yourself through relationships with loved ones. The most curious book of Boylan - “Stuck in the middle of you” is about how to try to be a loving and understanding parent for children for 10 years, changing the sex from male to female. Through home rituals and growing up of their own children, intimate details of family life with his wife, with whom Boylan is still together, the writer talks about how the family helps to understand themselves, and self-identification does not begin at puberty and does not end when we sent the child in first grade. Revelations Boylan and her wives are interspersed with interviews with their children and other transgender families who have gone through hormone therapy, divorces, gaps, operations together or separately, were able to overcome their own and others' prejudices or stepped aside and do not regret their actions. Not medical, but very human in the first place, “Stuck in the middle of you” speaks in a very personal language about the changing modern family and the fact that human relations can be more stable than their own sex.
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Boylan’s best-known work is the memoir “She isn’t There”, in which the author tells in detail about the psychological and physical experience of a transsexual, a series of difficult decisions and a change in marital status from a married man with children to a woman who lives married to his wife from college. A more socially critical version of the same story with a painful experience of misunderstanding and discrimination is in the book of another transgender woman Whipping Girl.