The ultimate guide to owning your power--and mastering how to use it. How can so many women feel "good and mad" yet still reluctant to speak up in a meeting or difficult conversation? Why do women often feel like they're too much--and, at the same time, not enough? What causes us, at the most critical moments in our lives, to freeze? Kasia Urbaniak teaches power to women--and her answers to these questions may surprise you. Based on insights from her experiences as a dominatrix, her training to become a Taoist nun, and the countless women she has taught to expand their influence, this book offers precise, practical instruction in how to stand in your power, find your voice, and use it well. Learn how to: Embrace your desires as the pathway to your destiny. Ask for--and get--what you need in your life, work, and in the bedroom. Skillfully navigate hearing "no" and any resistance, even your own. Flip power dynamics when someone crosses your boundaries and puts you on the spot. Create new and expanded roles for the people in your life with precise, targeted asks. Whether you're getting crystal clear on exactly what you want, or turning the tables on a man who has shut you up and shut you down, Urbaniak's methods teach women to stand for themselves in every interaction. Part manual, part manifesto, part behind the scenes look, Unbound is a how-to guide to the impossible, the outrageous, the unimaginable--a field guide to living your wildest, best, and most satisfying life.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Searing. Powerful. Needed." —Oprah “Sometimes a single story can change the world. Unbound is one of those stories. Tarana’s words are a testimony to liberation and love.” —Brené Brown From the founder and activist behind one of the largest movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the "me too" movement, Tarana Burke debuts a powerful memoir about her own journey to saying those two simple yet infinitely powerful words—me too—and how she brought empathy back to an entire generation in one of the largest cultural events in American history. Tarana didn’t always have the courage to say "me too." As a child, she reeled from her sexual assault, believing she was responsible. Unable to confess what she thought of as her own sins for fear of shattering her family, her soul split in two. One side was the bright, intellectually curious third generation Bronxite steeped in Black literature and power, and the other was the bad, shame ridden girl who thought of herself as a vile rule breaker, not as a victim. She tucked one away, hidden behind a wall of pain and anger, which seemed to work...until it didn’t. Tarana fought to reunite her fractured self, through organizing, pursuing justice, and finding community. In her debut memoir she shares her extensive work supporting and empowering Black and brown girls, and the devastating realization that to truly help these girls she needed to help that scared, ashamed child still in her soul. She needed to stop running and confront what had happened to her, for Heaven and Diamond and the countless other young Black women for whom she cared. They gave her the courage to embrace her power. A power which in turn she shared with the entire world. Through these young Black and brown women, Tarana found that we can only offer empathy to others if we first offer it to ourselves. Unbound is the story of an inimitable woman’s inner strength and perseverance, all in pursuit of bringing healing to her community and the world around her, but it is also a story of possibility, of empathy, of power, and of the leader we all have inside ourselves. In sharing her path toward healing and saying "me too," Tarana reaches out a hand to help us all on our own journeys.

What does it mean for the Sun to call Shami Chakrabarti ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain’ or the Daily Mail to label Nicola Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous wee woman in the world’? What, really, does it mean to be a dangerous woman? This powerful anthology presents fifty answers to that question, reaching past media hyperbole to explore serious considerations about the conflicts and power dynamics with which women live today. In Dangerous Women, writers, artists, politicians, journalists, performers and opinion-formers from a variety of backgrounds – including Irenosen Okojie, Jo Clifford, Bidisha, Nada Awar Jarrar, Nicola Sturgeon and many more – reflect on the long-standing idea that women, individually or collectively, constitute a threat. In doing so, they celebrate and give agency to the women who have been dismissed or trivialised for their power, talent and success – the women who have been condemned for challenging the status quo. They reclaim the right to be dangerous.

Exciting fiction short stories and poetry about women who overcome circumstances becoming Unbound.

This book contains a multidisciplinary collection of studies on women in miracle stories found in texts ranging from religious classics to contemporary literary fiction. Miracle stories are a genre of great importance for the study of women's religious inheritance and for the historical and cultural understanding of women as 'makers of faith'. Miracle stories are very generally speaking more open to popular religion and culture than, for instance, doctrinal and official ecclesiastical texts, and as such, they can be of special interest to the study of women's lives and religious aspirations. Remarkably, up till now this genre has not been looked at from this point of view. This book aims to open this field for further research by presenting case studies from diverse angles and disciplines. Some of the questions this book tries to answer are: What do miracle stories specifically tell us about women? Are there some (types of) miracles that are in particular related to (certain groups of) women? What do these stories tell us about women as performers and/or subjects of miracles? What can be said about the social function and religious meaning of miracles by specifically looking at the way certain groups of women are practising and experiencing miracles? By including research on miracle stories in contemporary fiction written by women this book also wants to acknowledge and research the disputed status of 'miracles' as well of 'women' in our present society which is moving from modernity to post-modernity. Please note that Women and Miracle Stories is previously published by Brill in hardback (ISBN 90 04 16681 8, still available).

Wonder Woman was created in the early 1940s as a paragon of female empowerment and beauty and her near eighty-year history has included seismic socio-cultural changes. In this book, Joan Ormrod analyses key moments in the superheroine's career and views them through the prism of the female body. This book explores how Wonder Woman's body has changed over the years as her mission has shifted from being an ambassador for peace and love to the greatest warrior in the DC transmedia universe, as she's reflected increasing technological sophistication, globalisation and women's changing roles and ambitions. Wonder Woman's physical form, Ormrod argues, is both an articulation of female potential and attempts to constrain it. Her body has always been an amalgamation of the feminine ideal in popular culture and wider socio-cultural debate, from Betty Grable to the 1960s 'mod' girl, to the Iron Maiden of the 1980s.

How might women in the Bible tell their stories if they were prompted to do so by Eve Ensler's controversial play, The Vagina Monologues? This collection imagines some answers to that question. The monologues herein are written by a variety of authors, including scholars, undergraduates, clergy, and laywomen; the content of the narratives reflects this variety, being at times faithful or irreverent, tragic or even funny. All seek to give twenty-first-century voices to women in canonical texts--including the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical books, and New Testament--who are often speechless, nameless, or otherwise marginalized. Not for the faint of heart, these monologues not only end the silences but also add flesh and bone to characters whose experiences have too easily been justified, metaphorized, or altogether ignored. By naming the torn places in these women's stories, this volume invites readers to encounter both the biblical characters and their contemporary interpreters with an attitude of compassionate listening. Our hope is that such compassionate listening may contribute not only to more just readings of sacred texts, but also to the mission of Eve Ensler and V-Day to end global violence against women and girls.

Immigrant Women combines memoirs, diaries, oral history, and fiction to present an authentic and emotionally compelling record of women's struggles to build new lives in a new land. This new edition has been expanded to include additional material on recent Asian and Hispanic immigration and an updated bibliography.

The essays in this volume seek to explore the genre of the short story in India and its relationship with English language and literature. Various aspects of the question are taken up the impact of colonialism; the way English has shaped (or not) short story writing; why, how and in what contexts English words are used, feminist perspectives in the writings of women; the Indian diaspora; the teaching of the short story to Indian students and so on.