BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
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The Revolution Starts At Home - Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities
Long demanded and urgently needed, The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities finally breaks the dangerous silence surrounding the “secret” of intimate violence within social justice circles. This watershed collection of stories and strategies tackles the multiple forms of violence encountered right where we live, love, and work for social change and delves into the nitty-gritty on how we might create safety from abuse without relying on the state. Drawing on over a decade of community accountability work, along with its many hard lessons and unanswered questions, The Revolution Starts at Home offers potentially life-saving alternatives for creating survivor safety while building a movement where no one is left behind.
How to Have Feminist Sex: A Fairly Graphic Guide
We talk about feminism in the workplace and we talk about dating after #MeToo, but women's own patriarchal conditioning can be the hardest enemy to defeat. When it comes to our sex lives, few of us are free of niggling fears and body image insecurities. Rather than enjoying and exploring our bodies uninhibited, we worry about our bikini lines, bulging tummies and whether we're doing it 'right'.
Flo Perry broaches everything from faking it to consent, stress to kink, and how losing your virginity isn't so different to eating your first chocolate croissant. Her mission is to get more people talking openly about what they do and don't want from every romantic encounter.
Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
What would it take to end violence against women of color? How does the mainstream antiviolence movement help? How does it hinder? When will we admit that repositioning women of color at the center of the movement--women more often harmed by the police, prisons, and border patrols than aided by them--means that we must address state violence? In Color of Violence, INCITE! demands that we:
• reconsider a reliance on the criminal justice system for solving women’s struggles with domestic violence;
• acknowledge how militarism subjects women to extreme levels of violence perpetrated from within, and without, their communities;
• recognize how the medical establishment inflicts violence--such as involuntary sterilization and inadequate health care--on women of color;
• devise new strategies for cross-cultural dialogue, theorizing, and alliance building
Wordslut - a feminist guide to taking back the English language
Amanda Montell, feminist linguist and staff features editor at online beauty and health magazine Byrdie.com, deconstructs language—from insults and cursing to grammar and pronunciation patterns—to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women form gaining equality. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women use the word “like” as a filler? Or why certain gender neutral terms stick and others don’t? Or even how linguists have historically discussed women’s speech patterns? Wordslut is no stuffy academic study; Montell’s irresistible humor shines through, making linguistics not only approachable but both downright hilarious and profound.
Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
by Florence Given will tell you to...
love sex, hate sexism, protect your goddamn energy, life is short, dump them, And that you owe men nothing, least of all pretty.
This book is an accessible leap into feminism, for people at all stages of their journey who are seeking to reshape and transform the way they view themselves. In a world that tells women we're either not enough or too much, it's time we stop directing our anger and insecurities onto ourselves, and start fighting back to re-shape the toxic structures of our patriarchal society.
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others
A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, numb, or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other animals, and the planet itself. Through Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way--not by becoming overwhelmed but by developing a quality of mindful presence. Joining the wisdom of ancient cultural traditions with modern psychological research, Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices that will allow us to remake ourselves--and ultimately the world.
The Survivor's Guide to Sex: How to Create Your Own Empowered Sexuality After Childhood Sexual Abuse
Based on the author's extensive training and experience in working with abuse survivors, The Survivor's Guide to Sex offers an affirming, sex-positive approach to recovery from incest and rape. While most books on the topic broach sexuality only to reassure women that it is alright to say "no" to unwanted sex, this one encourages women to learn how to say "yes" to their own desires and on their own terms.
Points of discussion include problems common to women survivors. Haines teaches survivors to embrace their own sexual choices and preferences, learn about their own sexual response cycles, and heal through masturbation, sexual fantasy, and play. The Survivor's Guide to Sex includes resources, bibliography, and an index.
Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World: A Guide for Activists and Their Allies
This book is for aftershocked activists and their allies, as well as for people and organizations that practice high-risk activism. It includes practical tips for individuals, organizations, and communities, as well as information about how traumatic events affect our bodies and abilities.
Aftershock explores the culture of trauma that people have created through our violent exploitation of the Earth, other animals, and one another. As long as we continue to perpetrate such violations, we will never fully heal our own traumatic injuries. This book, therefore, is for survivors of all kinds of trauma, for therapists who treat trauma, and for anyone who hopes to reduce the amount of terror in the world.
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
In this groundbreaking bestseller, Lundy Bancroft--a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men--uses his knowledge about how abusers think to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued, and to find ways to get free of an abusive relationship. He says he loves you. So...why does he do that?
You've asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men--and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:
- The early warning signs of abuse
- The nature of abusive thinking
- Myths about abusers
- Ten abusive personality types
- The role of drugs and alcohol
- What you can fix, and what you can't
- And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement
Often pushed to the margins, queer, transgender and gender non-conforming survivors have been organizing in anti-violence work since the birth of the movement.
Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement locates them at the center of the anti-violence movement and creates a space for their voices to be heard. Moving beyond dominant narratives and the traditional “violence against women” framework, the book is multi-gendered, multi-racial and multi-layered.
This thirty-seven piece collection disrupts the mainstream conversations about sexual violence and connects them to disability justice, sex worker rights, healing justice, racial justice, gender self-determination, queer & trans liberation and prison industrial complex abolition through reflections, personal narrative, and strategies for resistance and healing.