No Aboriginal content.

`An excellent book. The authors have the rare capacity to handle popular culture and case studies in a theoretically informed manner. Original and well researched′ - Mike Featherstone, Nottingham Trent University Understandings of globalization have been little explored in relation to gender or related concerns such as identity, subjectivity and the body. This book contrasts `the natural′ and `the global′ as interpretive strategies, using approaches from feminist cultural theory. The book begins by introducing the central themes: ideas of the natural; questions of scale and context posed by globalization and their relation to forms of cultural production; the transformation of genealogy; and the emergence of interest in definitions of life and life forms. The authors explores these questions through a number of case studies including Benneton advertising, Jurassic Park, The Body Shop, British Airways, Monsanto and Dolly the Sheep. In order to respecify the `nature, culture and gender′ concerns of two decades of feminist theory, this highly original book reflects, hypothesizes and develops new interpretive possibilities within established feminist analytical frames.

In this thoughtful and highly readable book, Noël Sturgeon illustrates the myriad and insidious ways in which American popular culture depicts social inequities as “natural” and how our images of “nature” interfere with creating solutions to environmental problems that are just and fair for all. Why is it, she wonders, that environmentalist messages in popular culture so often “naturalize” themes of heroic male violence, suburban nuclear family structures, and U.S. dominance in the world? And what do these patterns of thought mean for how we envision environmental solutions, like “green” businesses, recycling programs, and the protection of threatened species? Although there are other books that examine questions of culture and environment, this is the first book to employ a global feminist environmental justice analysis to focus on how racial inequality, gendered patterns of work, and heteronormative ideas about the family relate to environmental questions. Beginning in the late 1980s and moving to the present day, Sturgeon unpacks a variety of cultural tropes, including ideas about Mother Nature, the purity of the natural, and the allegedly close relationships of indigenous people with the natural world. She investigates the persistence of the “myth of the frontier” and its extension to the frontier of space exploration. She ponders the popularity (and occasional controversy) of penguins (and penguin family values) and questions assumptions about human warfare as “natural.” The book is intended to provoke debates—among college students and graduate students, among their professors, among environmental activists, and among all citizens who are concerned with issues of environmental quality and social equality.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Notes on contributors -- Editor's foreword -- Part I Overview -- Introduction -- 1 Françoise d'Eaubonne and ecofeminism: rediscovering the link between women and nature -- Part II Rethinking animality -- 2 A retreat on the "river bank": perpetuating patriarchal myths in animal stories -- 3 Visual patriarchy: PETA advertising and the commodification of sexualized bodies -- 4 Ethical transfeminism: transgender individuals' narratives as contributions to ethics of vegetarian ecofeminisms -- Part III Constructing connections -- 5 The women-nature connection as a key element in the social construction of Western contemporary motherhood -- 6 The nature of body image: the relationship between women's body image and physical activity in natural environments -- 7 Writing women into back-to-the-land: feminism, appropriation, and identity in the 1970s magazine -- Part IV Mediating practices -- 8 Bilha Givon as Sartre's "third party" in environmental dialogues -- 9 "Yo soy mujer" ¿yo soy ecologista? Feminist and ecological consciousness at the Women's Intercultural Center -- 10 The politics of land, water and toxins: reading the life-narratives of three women oikos-carers from Kerala -- 11 Ecofeminism and the telegenics of celebrity in documentary film: the case of Aradhana Seth's Dam/Age (2003) and the Narmada Bachao Andolan -- Afterword -- Index

In this collection of new and previously published essays, Sherry Ortner draws on her more than two decades of work in feminist anthropology to offer a major reconsideration of culture and gender. Making Gender is rich in theoretical insights and ethnographic examples, offering a stimulating synthesis of the field by one of its founders and foremost theorists.

Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. Informed by her extensive experience with multicultural women's leadership development, Simons replaces the old patriarchal leadership paradigm with a more feminine-inflected style that illustrates the interconnected nature of the issues we face today. Sharing moving stories of women around the world joining together to reconnect people, nature and the land--both practically and spiritually--Nature, Culture and the Sacred is necessary reading for anyone who wants to learn from and be inspired by women who are leading the way towards transformational change by cultivating vibrant movements for social and environmental justice.

Female anthropologists scan patterns and changes in women's roles in various social systems

Frank Browning takes us into human gender geographies around the world, from gender-neutral kindergartens in Chicago and Oslo to women's masturbation classes in Shanghai, from conservative Catholics in Paris fearful of God and Nature to transsexual Mormon parents in Utah. As he shares specific and engaging human stories, he also elucidates the neuroscience that distinguishes male and female biology, shows us how all parents' brains change during the first weeks of parenthood, and finally how men's and women's responses to age differ worldwide based not on biology but on their earlier life habits. Starting with Simone de Beauvoir's world-famous observation that one is not born a woman but instead becomes a woman, Browning goes on to show equally that no one is born a man but learns how to perform as a man, and that there is no fixed way of being masculine or feminine. Increasingly, the categories of "male" and "female" and even "gay" and "straight" seem old-fashioned and reductive. Just visible on the horizon is a world of gender and sexual fluidity that will remake our world in fundamental ways. Linking science to culture and behavior, and delving into the lives of individuals challenging historic notions, Browning questions the traditional division of Nature vs. Nurture in everything from plant science to sexual expression, arguing in the end that life consists of an endless waltz between these two ancient notions.

Anne Fausto-Sterling's Sex/Gender is the only interdisciplinary book for undergraduate courses to explain sex and gender from a biological, social, and cultural perspective.

Individual essays address issues raised by the science, politics, and history of race, evolution, and identity; genetically modified organisms and genetic diseases; gene work and ethics; and the boundary between humans and animals. The result is an entree to the complicated nexus of questions prompted by the power and importance of genetics and genetic thinking, and the dynamic connections linking culture, biology, nature, and technoscience. The volume offers critical perspectives on science and culture, with contributions that span disciplinary divisions and arguments grounded in both biological perspectives and cultural analysis.