Celebrating One and All

Sitting in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is a rough cotton bag, called "Ashley's Sack," embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter, Ruth, embroidered this history on the bag--including Rose's message that "It be filled with my Love always."

From highlighting the posters of the Suffrage Atelier, through the radical art of Judy Chicago and Carrie Mae Weems, to the cutting-edge work of Sethembile Msezane and Andrea Bowers, this comprehensive international survey traces the way feminists have shaped visual arts and media throughout history. Featuring more than 350 works of art, illustration, photography, performance, and graphic design—along with essays examining the legacy of the radical canon—this rich volume showcases the vibrancy of the feminist aesthetic over the last 150 years.

The book, co-edited by UCI Professor Chungmoo Choi, investigates women’s role in modern Korea society as well as Korean literature and films.

Not the least interesting aspects of the book are the author's incidental insights into diplomacy ('the twin, opposing, temptations of statesmen are hubris and timidity'), political morality ('what is morally right often turns out to be politically expedient') and her own style and tone ('once I begin to follow a train of thought, I am not easily stopped'). It is a work intensely - sometimes unconsciously - revealing of the mind and personality of its author. The impression which emerges is, as one recent commentator put it, of a world-class battleship at full steam ahead.

In Emancipation's Daughters, Riché Richardson examines iconic black women leaders who have contested racial stereotypes and constructed new national narratives of black womanhood in the United States. Drawing on literary texts and cultural representations, Richardson shows how five emblematic black women—Mary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Obama, and Beyoncé—have challenged white-centered definitions of American identity.

A groundbreaking work uncovering a forgotten realm of women artists: this four-volume set brings to life the depth and richness of a largely forgotten yet vibrant community of artists–namely the women artists who flourished in the creative world of California Art from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.

This book examines contemporary feminist visual activism(s) through the lens of embodiment(s). The contributors explore how the arts articulate and engage with the current sense of crisis and political concerns (e.g. equality, decolonisation, social justice, democracy, precarity, vulnerability), negotiated with and through the body.

In 1985, a group of masked feminist avengers—known as the Guerrilla Girls—papered downtown Manhattan with posters calling out the Museum of Modern Art for its lack of representation of female artists. They quickly became a global phenomenon, and the fearless activists have produced hundreds of posters, stickers, and billboards ever since. This is the first book to catalog the entire career of the Guerrilla Girls from 1985 to present.

Journalist. Suffragist. Antilynching crusader. Ida B. Wells was born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862. Though she died in 1931, her impact looms large over the country's slow movements toward progress. In this inspiring and accessible biography Duster, Wells' great-granddaughter, tells the incredible story of Wells's life, including stories from her childhood in Mississippi, committing herself to the needs of those who did not have power, and cofounding the NAACP.

The definitive biography of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful woman in American political history, written by New York Times bestselling author and USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page. Featuring more than 150 exclusive interviews with those who know her best--and a series of in-depth, news-making interviews with Pelosi herself--MADAM SPEAKER is unprecedented in the scope of its exploration of Nancy Pelosi's remarkable life and of her indelible impact on American politics.

An irreversible transformation is taking place in the lives of many thousands of university educated professional women in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This book documents the emerging economic and political power of women, and how they are beginning to challenge ancient and deeply-held beliefs about the 'correct' roles of men and women in conservative Islamic societies, and in public and private sector organisations.

This book examines how black nationalist women engaged in national and global politics from the early twentieth century to the 1960s.

Anna Julia Cooper was a black woman intellectual, educator, and social reformer at the end of the nineteenth century. Like contemporary Americans she wrestled with problems of racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism. This book A Singing Something, considers the legacy of thought and action she leaves contemporary women and men.

Spiritual Resiliency records the narratives of spiritually resilient German and American women, who represent a group rarely considered: strong, old women. They point to the need to incorporate spiritual coping in the counselling repertoire.

The recent book, authored by UCI Professor Hyun Yi (Laura) Kang, positions "Asian women" as an analytic through which to understand dominant international discourses of female injury and empowerment in the 1990s

Born into slavery during the Civil War, Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) would become one of the most prominent activists of her time, with a career bridging the late nineteenth century to the civil rights movement of the 1950s. The first president of the National Association of Colored Women and a founding member of the NAACP, Terrell collaborated closely with the likes of Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and W. E. B. Du Bois.

Focusing on the work of black women artists, 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.

Witches, Midwives & Nurses is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in the demonizing of women healers. With insight and originality, the authors have woven together stories about the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, the emergence of the Popular Health Movement, and an analysis of the contemporary state of medicine in relation to women's rights.

An account of the 1920 ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted voting rights to women traces the culmination of seven decades of legal battles and cites the pivotal contributions of famous suffragists and political leaders.

This collection of essays addresses the broadening array of issues on the agenda of the women's health movements of the 1980s and 1990s.

Women's Health Activism brings together academic studies and personal narratives to demonstrate how women use a variety of arguments, forms of writing, and communication strategies to affect change in a health system that is not only often difficult to participate in, but which can be actively harmful.

In the summer of 1969, from big cities to small towns, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating "one thousand male leaders" each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation's top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women's equality in education. Or was it...?

Two-volumes book published by the University of Tokyo on gender history of Japan with chapters on different topics ranging from religion, culture, body, sex, career, social and family life

An overview of Chinese women’s tragic fates throughout the history

A history of the Chinese feminism movement

A magnificent film by the late French filmmaker Agnes Varda. It is a richly cinematic self portrait that touches on everything from the feminist movement and the Black Panthers to the films of husband Jacques Demy and the birth of the French New Wave.

She was an illegitimate child, born into a poorhouse and abandoned in an orphanage, but Coco Chanel rose from unimaginable poverty to create the most iconic fashion brand of the 20th century, The House of Chanel. With steely ambition, Coco Chanel took advantage of wealthy lovers, rose to the top in a male-dominated world, and created a style of clothing that changed the face of women’s fashion forever.

This is the inspiring story of Carmen Castillo, an immigrant Dominican housekeeper in a Providence hotel who wins a City Council seat, taking her advocacy for low-income workers from the margins to city politics. COUNCILWOMAN follows Castillo's first term as she balances her full-time day job as a housekeeper with her family life and the demands of public office. She faces skeptics who say she doesn't have the education to govern, the power of corporate interests who take a stand against her fight for a $15 hourly wage, and a tough re-election against two contenders.

At this crucial time when women physicians and nurses are contributing significantly to our community's health, this documentary provides a look at the challenging and illuminating history of 19th century women doctors. Hidden in American history, all-women's medical schools began to appear in the mid-19th century long before women had the right to vote or own property.

Presents the legendary dancer Katherine Dunham at age 97. Beginning with a tribute to Dunham's career, the program contains rare footage of Dunham drumming with percussionists and a discussion of her views on rhythmic motion, Haitian dance, and love.

A landmark 1992 film, Framing Lesbian Fashion looks at the evolution of lesbian attire and identity -butch/femme, flannel, androgyny, cross-dressing and drag, queer fluorescent, S/M and leather, lipstick and more. Featuring interviews with Sally Gearhart, JoAnn Loulan, Arlene Stein, Kitty Tsui and others, Framing Lesbian Fashion incorporates archival photos and personal stories to document the sociology and history of lesbian fashion as it existed in the early 90s, and still impacts the culture today.

Why are so few women in the comics pages? That question becomes even more provocative as we watch four smart and witty role models -- Cathy Guisewite, Nicole Hollander, Lynda Barry and "Brenda Starr's" Dale Messick -- share their creative process. Viewers will find themselves looking at the comics, and the world, in a new way.

A film made in China by China Global Graphics Limited, in which women members of the Jiang family discuss the progress made by women in China, both socially and economically, in recent times.

As one of the famous “four pioneers” of modern dance, Hanya was a founding artist in establishing new forms and educational principles in America. Hanya Holm began her career as an assistant to Mary Wigman. She came to the United States in the 1930s to establish a Wigman school there. She was soon choreographing and performing: her most famous work of this period, Trend, premiered at Bennington College in 1937. In the 1950s and 60s Hanya began a new career as a Broadway choreographer, choreographing My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Kiss Me Kate.

When a woman steps onto the conductor's podium, she is always one of "the first": the first to lead a world-class orchestra, the first to conduct the closing night of London's "Proms," the first to win a prestigious conducting prize. Is the world of orchestral conducting finally ready to change its attitudes toward female conductors for good?

America's first Native doctor, Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) studied medicine at a time when few women dared. She graduated first in her class and returned home to serve as doctor to her Omaha tribe. During this heartbreaking and violent time she never gave up hope. The reverberations from her shattered world continue today as Native Americans suffer from alarming rates of disease, suicide and mental illness. Like Susan, these modern day medicine women from the Omaha, Lakota and Navajo tribes are fighting a war and sharing a confident, even joyful, approach to the work of healing.

A unique film following an international cast of three generations of women artists from Cairo, France, Germany, Iran, the United States and the United Kingdom who are forging their careers in the London art scene.

The women's movement has gone mainstream: from the Women's March to Black Lives Matter to #MeToo. Premiering amid a pandemic and widespread social upheaval, NOT DONE shines a light on today's feminists paving the way for true equality.

RETURN features charismatic Roxanne Swentzell from Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico whose efforts to reclaim ancient foodways are echoed across the continent by Tlingit, Muckleshoot, Oglala Sioux, Menominee, and Seneca women. At its heart this film is about empowering people to overcome their current circumstances through eating as their ancestors did - nutritiously and locally. RETURN offers an approach to confronting the diabetes epidemic now rampant in Native American communities.

A documentary that investigates the abuse of "comfort women" by the Japanese occupation forces on Papua New Guinea during World War II…

Walter combines close analysis of the texts with insight into her personal experiences of playing some of theatre’s greatest roles – including Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Helena and, latterly, Brutus. In doing so, the discussion explores Shakespeare’s language, the musicality of his verse, what makes his plays so exciting for an actor to perform, and what a feminist perspective can bring to the texts.

Step back and view history through the stories of 36 women that changed the world with their ideas, their leadership, and their sacrifices. In unearthing these stories, you'll rediscover the remarkable contributions of women often lost to time and prejudice.

Starting from its roots in 1960s antiwar and civil rights protests, the film details major developments in women's art through the 1970s and explores how the tenacity and courage of these pioneering artists resulted in what is now widely regarded as the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.

Three celebrated physicists - Claudia de Rham, Jenny Nelson, Joanna Haigh (all at Imperial College London) and one renowned mathematician, Ian Stewart (University of Warwick)--provide their unique perspectives on the issue of gender in the sciences.

This epic exploration of filmmaking by women offers an essential and celebratory revisionist history of cinema told through the lenses of the world's greatest female directors. Written and directed by Mark Cousins, 700 clips from 183 filmmakers both well-known and forgotten--from Agnes Varda to Sarah Maldoror, Ava DuVernay to Binka Zhelyazkova --illuminate the scope and impact of women's contributions to the art form.