Offers advice on diet, exercise, sexuality, and self-image for middle aged women. Includes the Prime Time Workout.

From Girl to Woman examines the coming-of-age narratives of a diverse group of American women writers, including Annie Dillard, Zora Neale Hurston, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Mary McCarthy, and explores the crucial role of such narratives in the development of American feminism. Women have long known that identity is complex and contradictory, but in the twentieth century their coming-of-age narratives finally voice this knowledge. Addressing a variety of themes—awakening sexuality, the body's metamorphosis in puberty, consciousness of difference from males, and the socialization into feminine gender roles—these narratives reject the heroine's narrative ending in romance, allowing American women writers to create alternative subjectivities by rejecting the notion that identity is ever fixed. While activists have succeeded in winning legal battles that have changed the legal status of women, these narratives perform the cultural work of exposing the painful contradictions faced by women as they come of age.

Much of what we know about life in the medieval Islamic Middle East comes from texts written to impart religious ideals or to chronicle the movements of great men. How did women participate in the societies these texts describe? What about non-Muslims, whose own religious traditions descended partly from pre-Islamic late antiquity? Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt approaches these questions through Jewish women’s adolescence in Fatimid and Ayyubid Egypt and Syria (c. 969–1250). Using hundreds of everyday papers preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Eve Krakowski follows the lives of girls from different social classes—rich and poor, secluded and physically mobile—as they prepared to marry and become social adults. She argues that the families on whom these girls depended were more varied, fragmented, and fluid than has been thought. Krakowski also suggests a new approach to religious identity in premodern Islamic societies—and to the history of rabbinic Judaism. Through the lens of women’s coming-of-age, she demonstrates that even Jews who faithfully observed rabbinic law did not always understand the world in rabbinic terms. By tracing the fault lines between rabbinic legal practice and its practitioners’ lives, Krakowski explains how rabbinic Judaism adapted to the Islamic Middle Ages. Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt offers a new way to understand how women took part in premodern Middle Eastern societies, and how families and religious law worked in the medieval Islamic world.

Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860—1920 draws on a wealth of archival material, much of which has never been published—or even read—to illuminate the ways in which Jewish girls’ adolescent experiences reflected larger issues relating to gender, ethnicity, religion, and education. Klapper explores the dual roles girls played as agents of acculturation and guardians of tradition. Their search for an identity as American girls that would not require the abandonment of Jewish tradition and culture mirrored the struggle of their families and communities for integration into American society. While focusing on their lives as girls, not the adults they would later become, Klapper draws on the papers of such figures as Henrietta Szold, founder of Hadassah; Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Showboat; and Marie Syrkin, literary critic and Zionist. Klapper also analyzes the diaries, memoirs, and letters of hundreds of other girls whose later lives and experiences have been lost to history. Told in an engaging style and filled with colorful quotes, the book brings to life a neglected group of fascinating historical figures during a pivotal moment in the development of gender roles, adolescence, and the modern American Jewish community.

At nine years old, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh watched from her home in New Jersey as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. That same year, she heard her first racial slur. Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age is the extraordinary account of Amani's coming of age in a country that too often seeks to marginalize women like her. Her spirited voice and unflinching honesty offer a fresh, deeply necessary counterpoint to current rhetoric about the place of Muslims in American life.

'In Jennifer Makumbi, we have a giant of literature living among us.' Peter Kalu, Jhalak Prize Judge Longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards, 2021 'Jennifer Makumbi is a genius storyteller.' Reni Eddo-Lodge A SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, DAILY MAIL, BBC CULTURE & IRISH INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR At once epic and deeply personal, the second novel from prize-winning author Jennifer Makumbi is an intoxicating mix of Ugandan folklore and modern feminism that will linger in the memory long after the final page. As Kirabo enters her teens, questions begin to gnaw at her – questions which the adults in her life will do anything to ignore. Where is the mother she has never known? And why would she choose to leave her daughter behind? Inquisitive, headstrong, and unwilling to take no for an answer, Kirabo sets out to find the truth for herself. Her search will take her away from the safety of her prosperous Ugandan family, plunging her into a very different world of magic, tradition, and the haunting legend of 'The First Woman'.

In all of your gorgeous shades and hues, black girls, this book is for you! Stereotypes and images tell us how to dress and think, but what truly defines you? Have you ever looked in the mirror and felt that your weight, hair, or skin tone were inadequate and didnt measure up to others? Navigating through self-acceptance can be difficultnot to mention dealing with relationships and family dynamics. But through this book, you will discover that you are not alone. For Black Girls is about coming of age and taking control of your life and making choices that will set you on the path to self-discovery. For Black Girls will help you do the following: Discover the difference between your identity and stereotypes Develop life and career goals Appreciate your unique beauty and worth Use concrete tools to break destructive habits in relationships Make meaningful relationship goals Find strategies for time management Learn to be healthy and accept your body Identify what your spending habits say about you and how to change them It includes questions for individual/group reflection and discussions. As you take charge of your life, watch as you emerge and flourish into the beautiful young woman you were meant to be!