Aisenberg, Nadya. Ordinary Heroines: Transforming the Male Myth.

About the search for a new paradigm, that of a contemporary heroine. A heroine is not simply a female hero. The key to the contemporary heroine is that she substitutes moral courage for the physical bravery of the traditional hero, and enacts her 'hero-ine-ism' from within the parameters of her ordinary life.

Anzaldua, Gloria and Cherrie Moraga (editors). This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By radical Women of Color.

From the forewords by Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua through the poems, essays, and pieces Toni Cade Bambara calls "cables, esoesses, conjurations and fusile missles, this is a work of bringing-togetherness that gives the reader a clear-eyed view of life in the United States. From "I Paid Very Hard for My Immigrant Ignorance" by Mirtha Quintanales to "who told you anybody wants to hear from you? you ain't nothing but a black woman!" by hattie gossett to "I Don't Understand Those Who Have Turned Away From Me" by Chrystos, This Bridge Called My Back is a showing-and-telling, a volume of reflections of stunning color: raging, gentle, powerful.

Baldwin, Barbara, Margarita Donnelly, editors. Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. October 1980 and Summer 1993.

Barash, Susan Shapiro. Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry.

Tripping the Prom Queen is a groundbreaking investigation into the dark secret of female friendship: rivalry.Susan Shapiro Barash has exploded the myth that women help one another, are supportive of one another, and want each other to succeed. Based on interviews with women across a broad social spectrum, she has discovered that the competition between women is more vicious precisely because it is covert.

Barlas, Asma. "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an

Does Islam call for the oppression of women? Non-Muslims point to the subjugation of women that occurs in many Muslim countries, especially those that claim to be "Islamic," while many Muslims read the Qur'an in ways that seem to justify sexual oppression, inequality, and patriarchy. Taking a wholly different view, Asma Barlas develops a believer's reading of the Qur'an that demonstrates the radically egalitarian and antipatriarchal nature of its teachings.

Belenky, Mary Field, Lynne Bond, & Jacqueline Weinstock. Tradition That Has No Name

A fascinating study that shows how nurturing community groups can help impoverished, uneducated women to "find their voice" and become articulate and empowered thinkers. Illustrated with poignant and vivid case studies, the book masterfully shows how lives can be forever altered and enhanced through caring community intervention

Belenky, Mary Field, et al. Women’s Ways of Knowing

Despite the progress of the women’s movement, many women still feel silenced in their families and schools. This moving and insightful bestseller, based on in-depth interviews with 135 women, explains why they feel this way.

Brooks, Geraldine. Nine Parts of Desire

As a prizewinning foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Geraldine Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East through wars, insurrections, and the volcanic upheaval of resurgent fundamentalism. Yet for her, headline events were only the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women. Nine Parts of Desire is Brooks’ intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often-contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Defying our stereotypes about the Muslim world, Brooks’ acute analysis of how Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once liberating faith.

Chesler, Phyllis. Women’s Inhumanity to Women

Second Wave feminists have for 30-plus years operated under the assumption that sisterhood is powerful. Indeed, women acting in concert have forced society to redefine gender, domestic relations, and the workplace. Still, despite huge gains in public visibility, female ascendance has been hampered by a rarely acknowledged reality: women often betray, hurt, and humiliate one another. Mothers stymie daughters, biological sisters compete, girlfriends gossip maliciously, and women bosses exert arbitrary and capricious authority. Chesler (Women and Madness, etc.) has been studying this phenomenon for 21 years, and her research is fascinating, resonant, and unsettling. While the book focuses on psychological rather than political factors and pays too little attention to race and class, it is nonetheless a groundbreaking look at how women perpetuate oppression. Anthropological, biological, literary, and sociological theories are also tapped, giving the book added heft. Although the text is somewhat repetitious and self-congratulatory, it is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.

Dodson, Lisa. Don't Call Us Out of Name: The Untold Lives of Women and Girls in Poor America.

For over eight years, Dodson has been documenting the lives of girls and women - hundreds of white, African-American, Latino, Haitian, Irish, and other women in personal interviews, focus groups, surveys, and Life-History Studies. This book is a crossing - a class crossing - taking readers into fellowship with people who are seldom invited to speak but who have powerful stories to tell and who force us to abandon common myths that have been fed to us by the media about school dropouts, teen pregnancy, and welfare "cheats."

Douglass, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

An insightful, witty, and well-written analysis of the effects of mass-media on women in late 20th-century American culture. Douglas cuts through the fluff that spews from the tube with a finely-honed sense of the absurd that can forever change (or minimally, inform) how you perceive the changing portrayals of women by the media.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deidre English. For Her Own Good

This dense, well-argued classic underscores the need to take expert advice with a shaker of salt. Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English ably show that many experts gleefully hammer recalcitrant souls into a shape acceptable to society, rather than encouraging people to find their own way. The book plunges into 150 years of misbegotten advice to women and questionable insights into feminine nature that have many modern parallels. In the service of better living through science, women have undergone deprivational rest cures that most war rules would disallow, submitted to surgical bludgeoning of ovaries and uterus to quell a list of unladylike behaviors, and humbly followed childcare advice that amounted to abuse

Ehrenreich, Barbara, Arlie Russell Hochschild. Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy.

In a remarkable pairing, two renowned social critics offer a groundbreaking anthology that examines the unexplored consequences of globalization on the lives of women worldwide women are moving around the globe as never before. But for every female executive racking up frequent flier miles, there are multitudes of women whose journeys go unnoticed. Each year, millions leave Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and other third world countries to work in the homes, nurseries, and brothels of the first world. This broad-scale transfer of labor associated with women's traditional roles results in an odd displacement. In the new global calculus, the female energy that flows to wealthy countries is subtracted from poor ones, often to the detriment of the families left behind.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty level wages. Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them, inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the “lowliest” occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity – a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.

Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women a Future.

In this lucid and fascinating volume, Eller traces the emergence of feminist matriarchal myth, explicates its functions, and examines the evidence for and against a matriarchal prehistory. Finally, she explains why this vision of peaceful, women-centered prehistory is something feminists should be wary of.

Ensler, Eve. The Good Body (CD- audio book)

Eve leaves no crone unturned, no lass unlabored, no stereotype untouched as she delves into the seriocomic depths of the estrogen-fueled abdomen. Her vocal caricatures are often hilarious, even as they evolve to touching truths about women accepting their bodies as they are--beautiful, flexible, amazing near-miracles.

Faludi, Susan. Backlash

Faludi lays out a two-fold thesis in this aggressive work: First, despite the opinions of pop-psychologists and the mainstream media, career-minded women are generally not husband-starved loners on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Secondly, such beliefs are nothing more than anti-feminist propaganda pumped out by conservative research organizations with clear-cut ulterior motives. This backlash against the women's movement, she writes, "stands the truth boldly on its head and proclaims that the very steps that have elevated women's positions have actually led to their downfall." Meticulously researched, Faludi's contribution to this tumultuous debate is monumental.

Findlen, Barbara, ed. Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation

Listen Up offers a unique space for a diverse group of talented, committed young women to explore their ideas and hopes and struggles and places within feminism and within other social change movements. Over the years, it has inspired its readers to do the same.

Gallese, Liz Roman. Women Like Us: What is Happening to the Women of the Harvard Business School, Class of '75-the Women Who Had the First Chance to Make it to the Top.

This book examines six women who completed their education at the Harvard Business School and what has become of them.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice

Carol Gilligan believes that psychology has persistently and systematically misunderstood women. Repeatedly, developmental theories have been built on observations of men's lives. Here, Gilligan attempts to correct psychology's misperceptions and refocus its view of female personality. The result reshapes our understanding of human experience.

Gross, Ritam. Feminism and Religion: An Introduction.

Rita M. Gross offers an engaging survey of the changes feminism has wrought in religious ideas, beliefs, and practices around the world, as well as in the study and understanding of religion itself.

Hernandez, Daisy and Bushra Rehman. Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism.

Ms. magazine columnist Hernandez and former Muslim poet Rehman, both feminist activists, have assembled a broad collection of essays by young women writers, academics, and activists from a range of cultures and sexual orientations. A few essays have a very specialized focus, describing such experiences as a Chicana with HIV and a Native American woman participating in the typically male War Dance ceremony. More often the contributors look more generally at their lives and families and consider how these experiences have influenced their understanding of feminism.

Hooks, Bell. Feminism is for EVERYBODY: Passionate Politics

Acclaimed cultural critic bell hooks offers and open-hearted and welcoming vision of gender, sexuality, and society in this inspiring and accessible volume. In engaging and provocative style, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and wisdom of experience. Hers is a vision of a beloved community that appeals to all those committed to equality, mutual respect, and justice.

Jack, Dana Crowley. Behind the Mask: Destruction and Creativity in Women’s Aggression

Drawing from sixty in-depth interviews, Dana Crowley Jack provides a rich account of how women explain (or explain away) their hidden or actual acts of hurt to others. Arguing that aggression arises from failures in relationships, Jack portrays the many forms aggression can take as women struggle with internal and external demons, reconnect with others, and stand their ground in a society that expects women to be yielding, empathetic, and supportive.

Jervis, Lisa and Andi Zeisler, editors. Bitchfest: 10 Years of Cultural Critism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine.

This often mind-stretching, occasionally predictable and generally entertaining collection of articles from Bitch magazine has something for every feminist, postfeminist and reactionary. Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to "post-feminism" by "freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones." With refreshing depth, literacy and humor, these essays explore questions surrounding puberty, gender identity, sex, "domestic arrangements," beauty, pop culture and mainstream media, and media literacy/activism.

Jordan, Judith V, et al, editors. Women's Growth in Connection: Writings from the Stone Center

Overly emotional, hysterical, dependent, frivolous, fickle... Why have women been so consistently defined as deficient in maturity, self-mastery, and independence according to the models of human development inspired by male culture? The authors of WOMEN'S GROWTH IN CONNECTION, a sampling of the influential working papers from the Stone Center, Wellesley College, have sought to answer this question by studying developmental theory and reformulating it to reflect women's experience more accurately. These papers, about women's ways of being in the world, frame an innovative relational perspective on women's psychological development. The authors--clinicians, clinical supervisors, and teachers--have been searching for therapeutic models that take into account women's meaning systems, values, and organization of experiences, all of which often revolves around relationships rather than the self.

Kilbourne, Jean. Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel

Many advertisements these days make us feel as if we have an intimate, even passionate relationship with a product. But as Jean Kilbourne points out in this fascinating and shocking exposé, the dreamlike promise of advertising always leaves us hungry for more. We can never be satisfied, because the products we love cannot love us back. Drawing upon her knowledge of psychology, media, and women's issues, Kilbourne offers nothing less than a new understanding of a ubiquitous phenomenon in our culture. The average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day and watches three years' worth of television ads over the course of a lifetime. Kilbourne paints a gripping portrait of how this barrage of advertising drastically affects young people, especially girls, by offering false promises of rebellion, connection, and control. She also offers a surprising analysis of the way advertising creates and then feeds an addictive mentality that often continues throughout adulthood.

Kraemer, Ross Shepard, Mary Rose D'Angelo. Women and Christian Origins.

Intended as introductory or supplementary, these 14 essays explore recent scholarship concerning women in early Christianity. While providing some new analysis, the essays compiled by Kraemer (Judaic studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) and D'Angelo (theology, Univ. of Notre Dame) are primarily critical review essays of the issues and approaches to religious studies.

Kreinin, Tamara and Barbara Camens. Girls’ Night Out: Celebrating Women’s Groups Across America

While women’s groups are diverse, their members have a common desire to create sustained bonds with other women. These groups become an anchor and a priority for their members. They create a sense of belonging. We live in an increasingly mobile society, where family is often scattered. When our parents and siblings lived nearby, we could count on them to be present in our day-to-day lives. Women’s groups can provide that sense of family. They mobilize energy and resources, and they lend extra hands. Women’s groups, through their enduring presence, offer a sense of rootedness, a common body of experience and knowledge, a sense of continuity.

Langelan, Martha J. Back Off! How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassers.

Back Off! is filled with real-life success stories from women who have stopped harassers cold: Sharon, who succeeded in stopping a whole crew of habitual harassers in a city park...Stephanie, a ten-year-old who confronted and escaped a child molester...Catharine and Molly, who stood up to their landlord and stopped him from harassing the tenants...and dozens more. From an eight-year-old who successfully challenged two young harassers on the playground to an organized group of fifty women who confronted a dockworker in response to an attempted rape on the job, here's what they did, how they did it -- and how you can do it, too.

Leadbeater, B. & Way, N. Urban Girls: Resisting Stereotypes, Creating Identities.

Contributors present a portrait of low-income, urban American adolescent girls based on fact rather than stereotype, aiming to fill the gap in research about adolescent girls. They explore girls' attitudes and alternatives in areas such as identity, family and peer relationships, sexuality, health, and career development, often allowing the girls to speak for themselves. For undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, sociology, economics, and women's studies, as well as policymakers.

Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.

"Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig--the new brand of ""empowered woman"" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces ""raunch culture"" wherever she finds it. If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women--and of themselves. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.

Madden, Annette. In Her Footsteps: 101 Remarkable Black Women.

In Her Footsteps portrays the vitality, creativity, and resilience of women of African descent from all around the world. The true-life stories of these daughters of Africa are full of struggle, courage, trial, and triumph. The marvelous women profiled included Ana Quirot, a Cuban runner who overcame life-threatening burns to triumph in the 1996 Olympic games; a Coincoin, a salve from Louisiana who was freed with one son and one acre of land and went on to become a rea estate magnate and cattle rancher; and most famously, Queen Makeda, who is revered in Ethiopian history as the myseterious and beautiful Queen of Sheba. In addition to well-known figures such as author Edwidge Danticat, tennis star Zine Garrison, and entertainer Eartha Kitt, a wide range of unsung, international Black women heroes fills the pages of this inspiring book. In Her Footsteps offers us undeniable proof of the indomitable and passionate force Black women have been in their families, in their communities, and in the world throughout history.

Mah, Madeline Yen. Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter.

The author's memoir of life in mainland China and--after the 1949 revolution--Hong Kong is a gruesome chronicle of nonstop emotional abuse from her wealthy father and his beautiful, cruel second wife. Chinese proverbs scattered throughout the text pithily covey the traditional world view that prompted Adeline's subservience.

Mazel, Ella. "And Don't Call Me a Racist!" A Treasury of Quotes on the Past, Present, and Future of the Color Line in America.

Using quotes across time, class and race, Mazel presents a an uncomfortable look at the divergent ways in which Americans view black / white relations. Most white Americans want to believe that racism is dead, or at least no longer the problem it once was. The sad truth is that racism is alive and well, and is even thriving as we enter the 21st century.

Morgan, Joan. When Chicken-Heads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down

In this fresh, funky, and ferociously honest book, award-winning journalist Joan Morgan bravely probes the complex issues facing African-American women in today's world: a world where feminists have not-so-clandestine relationships with the most sexist of men; where women who treasure their independence often prefer men who pick up the tab; and where the deluge of babymothers and babyfathers reminds women who long for marriage that traditional nuclear families are a reality for less than 40 percent of the African-American population.

Morgan, Robin, ed. Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writing from the Women’s Liberation Movement (2 copies)

Here is the first comprehensive collection of writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement, including articles, poems, photographs and manifestos. This anthology captures the range of problems being considered by the new feminists, and the variety of approaches to analysis and action.

Nam, Vickie, ed. YELL-Oh Girls!

In this ground-breaking collection of personal writings, young Asian American girls come together for the first time and engage in a dynamic conversation about the unique challenges they face in their lives. Prompted by a variety of pressing questions from editor Vicki Nam and culled from hundreds of submissions from all over the country, these revelatory essays, poems, and stories tackle such complex issues as dual identities, culture clashes, family matters, body image, and the need to find one's voice.

Rossi, Alice S. The Feminist Papers: From Adams to Beauvoir.

A strong set of essays from women and how they have developed as feminists over the years also has explanations of in which societies women are suppressed.

Sanford, Linda Tschirhart and Mary Ellen Donovan. Women and Self-Esteem: Understanding and Improving the Way We Think and Feel About Ourselves.

This is a succinct and comprehensive guide to understanding how self-esteem is developed and how it can be enhanced. The authors examine the impact of developmental, cultural and religious attitudes and of media influences on a woman's ability to accept and appreciate herself. They also offer specific, practical advice on how to address the various difficulties that arise as a result of low self-esteem.

Sharpley-Whiting, T Denean. Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold On Young Black Women.

Pimps Up, Ho's Down pulls at the threads of the intricately knotted issues surrounding young black women and hip hop culture. What unravels for Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting is a new, and problematic, politics of gender. In this fascinating and forceful book, Sharpley-Whiting, a feminist writer who is a member of the hip hop generation, interrogates the complexities of young black women's engagement with a culture that is masculinist, misogynistic, and frequently mystifying.

Smith, Dorothy E. The Everyday World As Problematic: A Feminist Sociology.

A collection of essays that proposes a method for assessing and analyzing how women and men view contemporary society form their particular vantage points.

Steinem, Gloria. Moving Beyond Words

Readers fascinated by Steinem's exploration of self-esteem in the best-selling Revolution from Within (1991) as well as those who consider that book an unproductive digression are likely to be curious about this collection of new and revised essays. The longest piece, a "reversal" that defends the psychoanalytic theories of "Phyllis" Freud, is demanding (you do need to read those long, chatty footnotes!) but will be instructive for readers who have not followed the latest scholarship on Sigmund.

Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions

An updated edition of the original 1983 publication features Gloria Steinem's most significant humorous and political essays, including "I Was a Playboy Bunny," "Ruth's Song," and "If Men Could Menstruate."

Steinem, Gloria. Revolution from Within

In the wake of such feminist calls-to-arms as Susan Faludi's Backlash (p. 1133), Paula Kamen's Feminist Fatale (p. 1137), and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth (p. 389), Steinem's inwardly turned examination of how men and women sabotage themselves by suppressing the “child within” appears decidedly retro. Nevertheless, her reflections on her own and others' spiritual struggles may give a new generation of activists pause for further reflection.

Tavris Carol. The Mismeasure of Women

When "man is the measure of all things," woman is forever trying to measure up. In this enlightening book, Carol Tavris unmasks the widespread but invisible custom -- pervasive in the social sciences, medicine, law, and history -- of treating men as the normal standard, women as abnormal. Tavris expands our vision of normalcy by illuminating the similarities between women and men and showing that the real differences lie not in gender, but in power, resources, and life experiences.

Taylor, J., Gilligan, C., & Sullivan, A. Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship.

The authors sought a key to the relationship between risk, resistance, and girls' psychological development and health. In Between Voice and Silence, they explore the cultural differences that affect girls' coming of age in this country and reveal an intergenerational struggle to develop relationships between and among women to hold and respect difference

Thom, Mary (editor). Letters to Ms. 1972-1987.

A compendium of letters from readers who ever since the premier issue of Ms. in 1972, have deluged the magazine with mail. Writers share their personal stories, criticize, voice their support, share political alerts and provide helpful facts of interest to women. These are more than merely a collection of interesting letters -- taken together they are the voice of women, the voice of an era -- and therefore a part of history.

Thompson, Becky. A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism

Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when many white college students went south to fight against Jim Crow laws, has white antiracist activity held the public's attention. Yet there have always been white people involved in fighting racism. In this passionate work, Becky Thompson looks at white Americans who have struggled against racism, offering examples of both successes and failures, inspirations, practical philosophies, and a way ahead.

Valenti, Jessica. He's a Stud, She's a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know.

Double standards are nothing new. Women deal with them every day. Take the common truism that women who sleep around are sluts while men are studs. Why is it that men grow distinguished and sexily gray as they age while women just get saggy and haggard? Have you ever wondered how a young woman is supposed to both virginal and provocatively enticing at the same time? Isn’t it unfair that working moms are labeled bad for focusing on their careers while we shake our heads in disbelief when we hear about the occasional stay-at-home dad?

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose.

In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walker speaks out as a black woman, writer, mother, and feminist in thirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Among the contents are essays about other writers, accounts of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the 1980s, and a vivid memoir of a scarring childhood injury and her daughter's healing words.

Walker, Rebecca. Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self

The Civil Rights movement brought author Alice Walker and lawyer Mel Leventhal together, and in 1969 their daughter, Rebecca, was born. Some saw this unusual copper-colored girl as an outrage or an oddity; others viewed her as a symbol of harmony, a triumph of love over hate. But after her parents divorced, leaving her a lonely only child ferrying between two worlds that only seemed to grow further apart, Rebecca was no longer sure what she represented – or even who she was. In this book, Rebecca Leventhal Walker attempts to define herself as a soul instead of a symbol – and offers a new look at the challenge of personal identity, in a story at once strikingly unique and truly universal.

Watrous, Angela (editor). Bare Your Soul: The Thinking Girl's Guide to Enlightenment.

Whether raised within a specific belief system or warned against all things religious, young women today have been left with questions that dating guides and pop feminist theory cannot answer. This collection answers the call a handbook for the soul that offers the wisdom and validation of how a variety of women negotiate an empowering spiritual existence in a pop-culture world. In Bare Your Soul, women of all backgrounds and traditions share how investigating questions of spirituality affects their lives and their identities. It is a provocative look at the ways in which young women of today both celebrate and repudiate religion and, ultimately, find answers that fit.

Wilson, Marie C. Closing the Leadership Gap

This book is a call to action to increase the presence of women in powerful leadership positions in our country - in politics as well as business. Marie C. Wilson, a leading women's advocate and founder of The White House Project, argues that even as our nation sits on a world spinning with crises, we have barely begun to tap our most critical natural resource - women.

Wolf, Naomi. Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How it Will Change the 21st Century.

In "The Beauty Myth", Naomi Wolf sought to change the way in which women see themselves in relation to their bodies. Now she focuses on how they see themselves in relation to power. She argues that the feminist movement has to change if it is to speak to a new generation of women, and that, even as women are gaining more ground than ever before, a wariness of feminist orthodoxies keeps them away from the only movement capable of putting political clout behind their personal success. The book represents a call to women to throw off centuries of conditioning about the relationship between power and femininity.