Discover & Discuss: Women's History Month

eBooks

Effective Technology for Gender Equity in Business and Organizations
Darwish, Dina (2024)

Despite decades of activism and efforts in society and government, women still face significant barriers to gender equality and economic empowerment in the business world. However, advancements in modern technology may present an opportunity to upend the systems that support inequality. The industrial revolution may have transformed industries, but thus far, it has failed to eradicate longstanding inequalities. 

"Effective Technology for Gender Equity in Business' and Organizations" addresses this pressing issue by offering a collection of original research aimed at professionals, policymakers, and knowledge management experts, and examines how new technology can be integrated into various levels of organizations to help continue breaking down barriers and advancing gender equity. 

This book brings together relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in gender equity with the aid of modern technology. It targets professionals seeking to enhance their understanding of modern technology's strategic role in contemporary society, including its application at the global economy, network, team building, and information system levels. By offering insights into the recent potential to reduce the gender gap and empower women with these advancements, this book is a valuable resource for those working in healthcare, business organizations, information sciences, and more. - Publisher's Description

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Originals: Black Women Breaking Barriers
Smith, Jessie Carney (2022)

The first female. African American vice president, first U.S. senator, the 83rd U.S. Attorney General, and first black state legislator in Alaska. The first time a black woman and a white band shared the same stage; the first black woman writer to win a Pulitzer Prize; and the first black prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera Company. Black women have accomplished incredible things throughout American history. 

An important book, Originals! Barrier-breaking Black Women profiles the lives and successes of such notable and iconic women as abolitionist Harriet Tubman, Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph, mathematician Katherine Johnson, organizer and politician Stacy Adams Stacey Abrams, astronaut Mae Jemison, jazz legend Billie Holiday, ballerina Misty Copeland, Vice President Kamala Harris, and also the accomplishments of hundreds of less-famous and lesser-known women. - Publisher's Description

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Walking the Gendered Tightrope: Theresa May & Nancy Pelosi as Legislative Leaders
Haussman, Melissa; Kedrowski, Karen (2023)

"Walking the Gendered Tightrope" analyzes the gendered expectations for women in high offices through the examples of British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Even at their highest positions, and while completing their greatest achievements, both May and Pelosi faced gendered critiques and intraparty challenges to their leadership. While other books have analyzed the barriers to higher office that women face, this book reveals how women in positions of power are still forced to balance feminine stereotypes with the perception of power as masculine in order to prove their legitimacy. 

By examining intraparty dynamics, this book offers a unique comparison between a majoritarian presidential and Westminster parliamentary system. While their parties promoted Pelosi and May to highlight their progressive values, both women faced continually gendered critiques about their abilities to lead their caucuses on difficult policy issues, such as the Affordable Care Act and two Trump impeachment votes for Nancy Pelosi, or finishing Brexit for Theresa May. Grounded in the legislative literature from the United States and Britain, as well as historical accounts and personal interviews, "Walking the Gendered Tightrope" contributes to the fields of gender and politics, legislative studies, American politics, and British politics. - Publisher's Description

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Women & New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labor, & 1970s American Cinema
Hunter, Aaron; Shearer, Martha (2023)

The 1970s has often been hailed as a great moment for American film, as a generation of “New Hollywood” directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Altman offered idiosyncratic visions of what movies could be. Yet the auteurist discourse hailing these directors as the sole authors of their films has obscured the important creative roles women played in the 1970s American film industry. 

"Women and New Hollywood" revises our understanding of this important era in American film by examining the contributions that women made not only as directors, but also as screenwriters, editors, actors, producers, and critics. Including essays on film history, film texts, and the decade’s film theory and criticism, this collection showcases the rich and varied cinematic products of women’s creative labor, as well as the considerable barriers they faced. It considers both women working within and beyond the Hollywood film industry, reconceptualizing New Hollywood by bringing it into dialogue with other American cinemas of the 1970s. By valuing the many forms of creative labor involved in film production, this collection offers exciting alternatives to the auteurist model and new ways of appreciating the themes and aesthetics of 1970s American film. - Publisher's Description

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Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science
Donald, Athene (2023)

"Not Just For the Boys" looks back at how society has historically excluded women from the scientific sphere and discourse, what progress has been made, and how more is still needed. Athene Donald, herself a distinguished physicist, explores societal expectations during both childhood and working life using evidence of the systemic disadvantages women operate under, from the developing science of how our brains are--and more importantly aren't--gendered, to social science evidence around attitudes towards girls and women doing science. 

It also discusses how science is done in practice, in order to dispel common myths: for example, the perception that science is not creative, or that it is carried out by a lone genius in an ivory tower, myths that can be very off-putting to many sections of the population. A better appreciation of the collaborative, creative, and multi-disciplinary nature of science is likely to lead to its appeal to a far wider swathe of people, especially women. This book examines the modern way of working in scientific research, and how gender bias operates in various ways within it, drawing on the voices of leading women in science describing their feelings and experiences. It argues the moral and business case for greater diversity in modern research, the better to improve science and tackle the great challenges we face today. - Publisher's Description

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Breaking Ground : Empowering Women in the Construction Industry
Arthur-Aidoo, Bernard (2024)

The construction industry has historically been male-dominated due to societal expectations and biases, specifically around the physical demands of the job, as well as a lack of role models and mentors. "Breaking Ground" addresses the scarcity of women in construction and demonstrates how we can overcome these challenges. 

Exploring the multifaceted relationship between gender and the construction industry, the authors examine the industry’s economic, social, and environmental impacts, challenges faced by the workforce and the specific obstacles that contribute to a lesser involvement of women in the field. Outlining strategies to bridge this gap, they further address the empowerment of women within the industry, discussing cultural and environmental factors that shape their professional experiences and the ways in which women’s participation and leadership can be increased. Applying these insights on a global scale, the authors conclude by comparing the status of women in the construction industries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, analysing the unique cultural factors affecting their empowerment and mentorship in different regions. 

Offering a wealth of insights for academic disciplines ranging from gender and economic studies to sociology and sustainability, this seminal work subverts all expectations to encourage and empower women to break ground both literally and figuratively. - Publisher's Description

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Burning my Roti: Breaking Barriers as a Queer Indian Woman
Dhaliwal, Sharan (2022)

Part memoir, part guide, "Burning My Roti" is essential reading for a new generation of South Asian women. 

With chapters covering sexual and cultural identity, body hair, colorism and mental health, and a particular focus on the suffocating beauty standards South Asian women are expected to adhere to, Sharan Dhaliwal speaks openly about her journey towards loving herself, offering advice, support and comfort to people that are encountering the same issues. 

This provocative book celebrates the strides South Asian women have made, whilst also providing powerful advice through personal stories by Sharan and other South Asian women from all over the world. - Publisher's Description

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In the Crossfire of History: Women's War Resistance Discourse in the Global South
Asaad, Lava; Hasanat, Fayeza (2022)

In the global south, women have and continue to resist multiple forms of structural violence. The atrocities committed against Yazidi women by ISIS have been recognized internationally, and the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nadia Murad in 2018 was a tribute to honor women whose bodies have been battered in the name of race, nationality, war, and religion. "In the Crossfire of History: Women's War Resistance Discourse in the Global South" is an edited collection that incorporates literary works, testimonies, autobiographies, women’s resistance movements, and films that add to the conversation on the resilience of women in the global south. The collection focuses on Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, Kurdistan, Congo, Argentina, Central America, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The essays question historical accuracy and politics of representation that usually undermine women’s role during conflict, and they reevaluate how women participated, challenged, sacrificed, and vehemently opposed war discourses that erase women’s role in shaping resistance movements. 

The transformative mode of these examples expands the definition of heroism and defiance. To prevent these types of heroism from slipping into the abyss of history, this collection brings forth and celebrates women’s fortitude in conflict zones. "In the Crossfire of History" shines a light onwomen across the globe who are resisting the sociopolitical and economic injustices in their nation-states. - Publisher's Description

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Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out
Tepper, Jennifer Ashley (2024)

From the women who pounded the pavement selling their songs in Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the twentieth century; to the women who broke new ground writing shows during the Great Depression; to the women who penned protest musicals fighting for social justice during the 1970s; to those who are revitalizing the landscape of American musicals today, "Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out" is the first-ever book to tell the story of the over three hundred inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals. 

Author Jennifer Ashley Tepper offers here the definitive book on the topic, covering prolific and celebrated writers in the theatre canon like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, to women who wrote musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, to figures you've never heard of--but definitely should have. - Publisher's Description

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Women & the Piano: A History in 50 Lives
Tomes, Susan (2024)

Throughout most of the piano’s history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even the modern piano’s keys were designed without consideration of women’s typically smaller hands. Yet despite their music being largely confined to the domestic sphere, women continued to play, perform, and compose on their own terms. 

Celebrated pianist and author Susan Tomes traces fifty such women across the piano’s history. Including now-famous names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, Tomes also highlights overlooked women: from Hélène de Montgeroult, whose playing saved her life during the French Revolution, to Leopoldine Wittgenstein, influential Viennese salonnière, and Hazel Scott, the first Black performer in the United States to have a nationally syndicated TV show. 

From Maria Szymanowska to Nina Simone, and including interviews with women performing today, this is a much-needed corrective to our understanding of the piano—and a timely testament to women’s musical lives. - Publisher's Description

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Phyllis George: Shattering the Ceiling
Volponi, Paul; Shulman, Lenny (2022)

In 2019, the NFL issued a list of football's one hundred greatest game-changers, and among the legendary athletes and coaches was one broadcaster: Phyllis George. The first female anchor of a major network sports show, George broke the glass ceiling in sports journalism and embodied the complexities of the women's movement of the 1970s. 

As a young woman, George first hit the media radar in 1971 when she won the crown of Miss America and toured the world. While many in the budding feminist movement looked down on the pageant queen, George parlayed her success into a television career and excelled in sports journalism. While she was not immune to criticism, George was never deterred by it, and constantly showed her inner strength and perseverance. Through the decades she cultivated a reputation as one of the most respected and strong-willed players in the rough and tumble businesses of sports and network news, breaking through the glass ceiling in one of the most male-driven industries in the world. She was a pioneer who helped pave the way for a new generation of female broadcasters. A published author and champion of the arts, George remained a stalwart advocate for female empowerment until her death in 2020. 

In "Phyllis George: Shattering the Ceiling" authors Lenny Shulman and Paul Volponi trace George's evolution from Miss America to professional broadcaster, to arts advocate, author, philanthropist, and also as First Lady of Kentucky who was instrumental in getting her husband, John Y. Brown Jr., elected Governor of that state. George's life was defined by her professionalism, her strength of character, and her uncanny ability to leave an indelible impression on all she met. - Publisher's Description

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Skimpy Coverage: Sports Illustrated and the Shaping of the Female Athlete
Hagerman, Bonnie (2023)

"Skimpy Coverage" explores Sports Illustrated’s treatment of female athletes since the iconic magazine’s founding in 1954. The first book-length study of its kind, this accessible account charts the ways in which Sports Illustrated―arguably the leading sports publication in postwar America―engaged with the social and cultural changes affecting women’s athletics and the conversations about gender and identity they spawned. 

Bonnie Hagerman examines the emergence of the magazine’s archetypal female athlete―good-looking, straight, and white―and argues that such qualities were the same ones the magazine prized in the women who appeared in its wildly successful Swimsuit Issue. As Hagerman shows, the female athlete and the swimsuit model, at least for the magazine, were essentially one and the same. Despite this conflation, and the challenges it poses, Hagerman also tracks the distance that sportswomen―including Wilma Rudolph, Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, and Megan Rapinoe―have traveled both within Sports Illustrated’s pages and without. Blending sports with gender history, "Skimpy Coverage" profiles numerous sportswomen who have used athletics and the platform sport offers to push for empowerment, freedom, equality, and acceptance in ways that have complemented and inspired broader feminist agendas. - Publisher's Description

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Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, & More Facsimile Females
Julie Wosk (2024)

Enhanced by artificial intelligence, today's simulated females are becoming ever more lifelike as the virtual vies with the real. They have already had a dramatic impact on personal relationships, on our views of women, and our ideas about what it means to be human. 

From sex dolls to Siri, talking Barbies to robotic mothers, "Artificial Women" explores the ways in which today's simulated females, both real and fictional, reflect and expose our own ideas about sexuality, gender, and the impact of simulations on social relationships. Join Julie Wosk as she probes the realm of compliant robot sex workers, nurturing genial caregivers and companions, virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, and rebellious creations in film, television, literature, art, photography, and current developments in robotics. These simulated women often reflect old stereotypes, but also highlight a new breed of female robots, cyborgs, and dolls that possess agency, self-awareness, and autonomy. 

"Artificial Women" pushes the boundaries of culture studies to consider how new digital technologies, artificial intelligences, and burgeoning simulations affect our own understandings of ourselves. - Publisher's Description

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Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating
Williams, Apryl; Noble, Safiya (2024)

In the world of online dating, race-based discrimination is not only tolerated, but encouraged as part of a pervasive belief that it is simply a neutral, personal choice about one's romantic partner. Indeed, it is so much a part of our inherited wisdom about dating and romance that it actually directs the algorithmic infrastructures of most major online dating platforms, such that they openly reproduce racist and sexist hierarchies. 

In "Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating," Apryl Williams presents a socio-technical exploration of dating platforms' algorithms, their lack of transparency, the legal and ethical discourse in these companies' community guidelines, and accounts from individual users in order to argue that sexual racism is a central feature of today's online dating culture. She discusses this reality in the context of facial recognition and sorting software as well as user experiences, drawing parallels to the long history of eugenics and banned interracial partnerships. Ultimately, Williams calls for, both a reconceptualization of the technology and policies that govern dating agencies, and also a reexamination of sociocultural beliefs about attraction, beauty, and desirability. - Publisher's Description

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Feminist Futures of Work: Reimagining Labour in the Digital Economy
Arora, Payal; König, René; Raman, Usha (2023)

The future of work is at the centre of debates related to the emerging digital society. Concerns range from the inclusion, equity, and dignity of those at the far end of the value chain, who participate on and off platforms, often in the shadows, invisible to policymakers, designers, and consumers. 

Precarity and informality characterize this largely female workforce, across sectors ranging from artisanal work to salon services to ride hailing and construction. A feminist reimagining of the futures of work―what we term as “FemWork” ―is the need of the day and should manifest in multiple and various forms, placing the worker at the core and drawing on her experiences, aspirations, and realities. This volume offers grounded insights from academic, activist, legal, development and design perspectives that can help us think through these inclusive futures and possibly create digital, social, and governance infrastructures of work that are fairer and more meaningful. - Publisher's Description

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In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women's Rights Before Suffrage
Chatfield, Sara (2023)

In the early nineteenth century, a married woman had hardly any legal existence apart from her husband. By the twentieth, state-level statutes, constitutional provisions, and court rulings had granted married women a host of protections relating to ownership and control of property. Why did powerful men extend these rights during a period when women had so little political sway? 

"In Her Own Name" explores the origins and consequences of laws guaranteeing married women’s property rights, focusing on the people and institutions that shaped them. Sara Chatfield demonstrates that the motives of male elites included personal interests, benefits to the larger economy, and bolstering state power. She shows that married women’s property rights could serve varied political goals across regions and eras, from temperance to debt relief to settlement of the West. State legislatures, constitutional conventions, and courts expanded these rights incrementally, and laws spread across the country without national-level coordination. 

Chatfield emphasizes that the reform of married women’s economic rights rested on exclusionary foundations, including protecting slavery and encouraging settler colonialism. Although some women benefited from property reforms, many others saw their rights stripped away by the same processes. Drawing on a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence, "In Her Own Name" sheds new light on the place of women in the fitful democratization of the United States. - Publisher's Description

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The Ghost Reader: Recovering Women's Contributions to Media Studies
Hristova, Elena; Dorsten, Aimee-Marie; Stabile, Carol (2024)

"The Ghost Reader: Recovering Women’s Contributions to Media Studies" offers a fresh perspective on the intellectual history of the field of media studies, a broad scholarly field that encompasses the interdisciplinary and overlapping fields of media studies, cultural studies, and communication studies. 

By recovering the work of the diverse group of women who labored at the margins of media studies as it took shape during the formative years of communication research between the 1930s and the 1950s, and providing scholarly contexts for this work, "The Ghost Reader" shows that “intersectional considerations” were key modes of engagement for intellectuals, academics, and activists who happened to be women. They did so decades before feminist perspectives were reintegrated into histories of the field. - Publisher's Description

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A Cross-Cultural Examination of Women in Higher Education & the Workplace
Abu-Lughod, Reem (2024)

The global evolution of women's rights throughout history follows an arduous path from suffrage to the modern era of workplace inclusion. In pursuing gender equality and social progress, nations worldwide have embarked on transformative journeys to empower women. 

"A Cross-Cultural Examination of Women in Higher Education and the Workplace" delves deep into this global movement, comprehensively exploring the multifaceted challenges and triumphs women face as they navigate the intricate tapestry of higher education and professional environments. This book weaves together insights from diverse fields such as social stratification, women's studies, race and ethnic studies, public policy, and ethics. For educators in higher education and across disciplines, it provides an indispensable resource, aligning perfectly with a variety of course teachings and research objectives. - Publisher's Description

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Women in the Higher Education C-Suite: Diverse Executive Profiles
Takami, Lisa Mednick; Gellman-Danley, Barbara (2024)

As the percentage of women college and university presidents continues to increase, more and more women are considering academic administration as a viable career. Current and future leaders who aspire to rise to the top ranks of a college or university need a path to help them navigate the various issues they might encounter in today’s academic institutions. 

"Women in the Higher Education C-Suite: Diverse Executive Profiles" explores the personal narratives of a diverse group of women CEOs and senior executives serving in two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities in the United States. Emphasizing real-world leadership, this book focuses on the remarkable women who continue to break barriers and inspire the next generation of leaders. Author Lisa Mednick Takami, Ed.D. draws from extended qualitative interviews with successful higher education CEOs and senior leaders to highlight their lived experiences, career trajectories, leadership lessons, and much more. Throughout the book, the leaders discuss common obstacles and offer recommendations to help you overcome them in your professional journey. - Publisher's Description

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Woman: The American History of an Idea
Faderman, Lillian (2022)

What does it mean to be a “woman” in America? Award-winning gender and sexuality scholar Lillian Faderman traces the evolution of the meaning from Puritan ideas of God’s plan for women to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its reversals to the impact of such recent events as #metoo, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the election of Kamala Harris as vice president, and the transgender movement. 

This wide-ranging 400-year history chronicles conflicts, retreats, defeats, and hard-won victories in both the private and the public sectors and shines a light on the often-overlooked battles of enslaved women and women leaders in tribal nations. Noting that every attempt to cement a particular definition of “woman” has been met with resistance, Faderman also shows that successful challenges to the status quo are often short-lived. As she underlines, the idea of womanhood in America continues to be contested. - Publisher's Description

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Additional eResources

Twelve Immediately Important Problems of the National Parks and of Wild Life Conservation
Edge, Rosalie (1935)

Located a mere 4-hours drive away from Pittsburgh, lays Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. For Women’s History Month, we honor its founder, Rosalie Edge (1877-1962). Concerned over hunters shooting migratory birds, including birds of prey, Edge purchased land on Hawk Mountain and established the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association, which she led from 1936 to 1962. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary was the world’s first preserve for predatory birds. She chaired the Emergency Conservation Committee in New York, which published pamphlets urging the protection of various bird species, preservation of land, and championed environmental causes. Edge also helped to establish Kings Canyon National Park, Olympic National Park, and the expansion of Yosemite National Park. - Publisher's Description

Explore the Libraries' entire collection of Rosalie Edge Papers, 1930-1954.

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Streaming Videos

Sisters with Transistors
Rovner, Lisa - Director (2021)

"Sisters with Transistors" is the remarkable untold story of electronic music's female pioneers, composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly transform how we produce and listen to music today.

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Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
Green, Pamela - Director (2018)

Pamela B. Green's energetic film about pioneer filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché is both a tribute and a detective story, tracing the circumstances by which this extraordinary artist faded from memory and the path toward her reclamation.

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Mavis!
Edwards, Jessica - Director (2015)

Her family group, the Staple Singers, inspired millions and helped propel the civil rights movement with their music. After 60 years of performing, legendary singer Mavis Staples' message of love and equality is needed now more than ever.

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Four Daughters
Ben Hania, Kaouther - Director (2023)

Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters' life stories. An intimate journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.

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Chisholm '72
Lynch, Shola - Director (2004)

Recalling a watershed event in US politics, this Peabody Award-winning documentary takes an in-depth look at the 1972 presidential campaign of Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and the first to seek nomination for the highest office in the land.

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Loving Highsmith
Vitija, Eva - Director (2022)

Based on Patricia Highsmith's personal writings and accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous thriller writer's life and oeuvre, permeated by themes of love and its defining influence on identity.

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