From two lawyers at the forefront of the reproductive rights movement, this fully updated book shares bold strategies meant to help restore and expand reproductive and sexual rights. Reproductive freedom has never been in more dire straits. Roe v. Wade protected abortion rights and Planned Parenthood v. Casey unexpectedly preserved them. Yet in the following decades these rights have been gutted by restrictive state legislation, the appointment of hundreds of anti-abortion judges, and violence against abortion providers. Today, the ultra-conservative majority at the Supreme Court has overturned our most fundamental reproductive protections. With Roe toppled, abortion is now a criminal offense in nearly one-third of the United States. At least six states have enacted bans on abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy—before many women are even aware they are pregnant. Today, 89% of U.S. counties do not have a single abortion provider, in part due to escalating violence and intimidation aimed at disrupting services. We should all be free to make these personal and private decisions that affect our lives and wellbeing without government interference or bias, but we can no longer depend on Roe v. Wade and the federal courts to preserve our liberties. Legal titans Kathryn Kolbert and Julie F. Kay share the story of one of the most divisive issues in American politics through behind-the-scenes personal narratives of stunning losses, hard-earned victories, and moving accounts of women and health care providers at the heart of nearly five decades of legal battles. Kolbert and Kay propose audacious new strategies inspired by medical advances, state-level protections, human rights models, and activists across the globe whose courage and determination are making a difference. No more banging our heads against the Court’s marble walls. It is time for a new direction.

Drawing on cases, Stark identifies the problems with our current approach to domestic violence, outlines the components of coercive control, and then uses this alternate framework to analyse the cases of battered women charged with criminal offenses directed at their abusers.

A controlling or abusive partner can break even the strongest person—unless you know what to look for. Written by an expert in intimate partner abuse and based on her highly successful recovery program for women with controlling partners, this book will give you the strength, courage, and strategies you need to acknowledge the problem and stand up for yourself once and for all—whether you stay or leave the relationship. If you have a controlling partner, you aren’t alone. Millions of women suffer psychological abuse at the hands of a spouse or intimate partner during some point in their lives, not fully seeing or knowing what is happening to them. Research shows that psychological abuse affects women’s overall well-being more than physical abuse, is a bigger contributor to inducing fear, and can be a precursor to violence. To make matters worse, having a controlling partner often results in hidden injuries like anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, trauma, and low self-efficacy—feeling like you can’t make a difference in your life. So, where can you turn for help? Based on over a decade of clinical and domestic abuse research, Women with Controlling Partners will help you identify the coercive constraints that can be predictive of intimate partner abuse, recognize the harmful effects of psychological abuse on your mental and physical health, and gain the personal strength and power to break free. Using the author’s three-stage recovery model, you’ll be empowered to move out of denial, deconstruct what holds you psychologically captive, and take back your life. Abuse can be devastating, and having a controlling partner can make you feel crazy—and as if you’re the one responsible. But you’re not crazy, and you’re not to blame! With this important, one-of-a-kind recovery process, you’ll finally find the clarity of mind, courage, and strength to protect yourself from the hurtful control that damages your mental and physical health, and move toward a safer and happier life.

Little fights with your husband and kids. Unhappiness when things don’t match your version of perfect. Tension, anger, fear—it all begins with a heart that craves control. When your vision of how life should be replaces God’s vision, you doom your quest for security, peace, and joy before it even starts. Thankfully, there is a better way. Join Shannon as she shares what she has discovered about her own control struggles and about God from studying Control Girls in the Bible. Learn how you too can lay down this burden and find rest in surrendering to the One who truly is in control. “In this funny, tender, and truth-telling book, Shannon Popkin peels back the layers of our control problem.” —Erin Davis, author, blogger, and recovering Control Girl “In the style of Liz Curtis Higgs, Control Girl is an easy and entertaining read, yet Shannon Popkin packs a punch where we so need it if we are to be set free from the stressful habit that robs our joy and ruins our relationships!” —Dee Brestin, author of Idol Lies “With personal vulnerability, biblical depth, powerful personal illustrations, and pointed application questions, Shannon Popkin reveals how seven women of the Bible can teach us how to surrender our will to God’s design for our future.” —Carol Kent, speaker and author of Becoming a Woman of Influence “Control Girl is a penetrating look at how selfishness and self-protectiveness wreck lives—and why surrender and trust are God’s life-giving pathways to true freedom and joy.” —Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author and Revive Our Hearts teacher and host

In this richly detailed and imaginatively researched study, Victoria Bynum investigates "unruly" women in central North Carolina before and during the Civil War. Analyzing the complex and interrelated impact of gender, race, class, and region on the lives of black and white women, she shows how their diverse experiences and behavior reflected and influenced the changing social order and political economy of the state and region. Her work expands our knowledge of black and white women by studying them outside the plantation setting. Bynum searched local and state court records, public documents, and manuscript collections to locate and document the lives of these otherwise ordinary, obscure women. Some appeared in court as abused, sometimes abusive, wives, as victims and sometimes perpetrators of violent assaults, or as participants in ilicit, interracial relationships. During the Civil War, women freqently were cited for theft, trespassing, or rioting, usually in an effort to gain goods made scarce by war. Some women were charged with harboring evaders or deserters of the Confederacy, an act that reflected their conviction that the Confederacy was destroying them. These politically powerless unruly women threatened to disrupt the underlying social structure of the Old South, which depended on the services and cooperation of all women. Bynum examines the effects of women's social and sexual behavior on the dominant society and shows the ways in which power flowed between private and public spheres. Whether wives or unmarried, enslaved or free, women were active agents of the society's ordering and dissolution.

With recent "tough on crime" policies of the 1990s, the negative impact on women and children reverberates with social unawareness. Using a feminist perspective, Crime Control and Women explores the adverse effects of the U.S. crackdown on crime. Edited by Susan L. Miller, this book exposes the unintended consequences of today crime control policies: how cuts from social services to pay for crime control can disproportionately affect women; how women incur increased responsibility for family while men serve longer sentences; and how government often victimizes women as third parties when women are associated with criminals. Using policy-oriented contributions, the book discusses empirically driven and theoretically driven implications of today crime control policies. Miller provides a substantive introductory overview and a concluding summary, creating a cohesive text that emphasizes a reduction in crime through commitments to prevention, education, and treatment. A timely book, Crime Control and Women is vital for criminal justice academics and practitioners, mental health professionals, and policy makers. It future implications also make it an essential component for courses related to criminology, criminal justice, gender studies, sociology, public policy, and social work.

Originally published in 1981 Controlling Women critically examines the forms of moral regulation and social control that were exercised over women at the time, arguing that the study of ‘deviant’ women cannot be separated from the study of how all women are defined and controlled. Contributors consider motherhood, prostitutes, abortion, alcoholism, retirement, geriatric patients, Broadmoor patients and legal controls of sexuality in Britain. Social definitions of women and institutional arrangements are used to control women, often in such a way that women see them, not as control, but as part of everyday routines – part of the ‘natural’ order of things. The book identifies some of the ways in which women seek to resist or circumvent these forms of control. The book will still be of interest to all those concerned with the position of women in our society and, more specifically, to students and teachers of sociology, social policy and theories of deviant behaviour. Its focus on images of women and the exercise of control will be of particular interest to professionals concerned with the counselling of women, whether in social, therapeutic or medical fields.

Now in paperback, The Moral Property of Women is a thoroughly updated and revised version of the award-winning historian Linda Gordon’s classic study, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right (1976). It is the only book to cover the entire history of the intense controversies about reproductive rights that have raged in the United States for more than 150 years. Arguing that reproduction control has always been central to women’s status, Gordon shows how opposition to it has long been part of the entrenched opposition to gender equality.

For readers of Quit Like a Woman, this “engaging account of women and drink, [cites] fascinating studies about modern stressors…and evidence that some problem drinkers can learn moderation….Bound to stir controversy” (People). In Her Best-Kept Secret, journalist Gabrielle Glaser uncovers a hidden-in-plain-sight drinking epidemic. Using “investigative rigor and thoughtful analysis” (The Boston Globe), Glaser is the first to document that American women are drinking more often than ever and in ever-larger quantities in this “substantial book, interested in hard facts and nuance rather than hand-wringing” (The New York Times Book Review). She shows that contrary to the impression offered on reality TV, young women alone aren’t driving these statistics—their moms and grandmothers are, too. But Glaser doesn’t wag a finger. Instead, in a funny and tender voice, Glaser looks at the roots of the problem, explores the strange history of women and alcohol in America, drills into the emerging and counterintuitive science about that relationship, and asks: Are women getting the help they need? Is it possible to return from beyond the sipping point and develop a healthy relationship with the bottle? Glaser reveals that, for many women, joining Alcoholics Anonymous is not the answer—it is part of the problem. She shows that as scientists and health professionals learn more about women’s particular reactions to alcohol, they are coming up with new and more effective approaches to excessive drinking. In that sense, Glaser offers modern solutions to a very modern problem.