A guide to the physical changes a girl undergoes when becoming a woman.

The Alchemical Woman: A Handbook for Everyday Soulwork translates the ancient metaphorical tradition of Alchemy into a meaningful and practical tool for self-discovery. Elaborate concepts, such as the coniunctio, are edited into workable compostions that enable women to readily adopt these ancient and mythical concepts as their own.

Women are desperate for support during peri-menopause. This workbook offers a positive and empowering approach that will guide women through a deep process to a place of inner strength and wisdom. It will help women understand how the physical experiences of menopause are the body's way of triggering profound transformation and self realization. Menopause is not a disease it is an initiation. Now is the time to take back and redefine this momentous passage in our lives! This book offers a framework based on C. G. Jung's concepts of inner alchemy within which women can safely and coherently work with the transmuting power of peri-menopause to become more fully who they really are and take their place as healers and leaders in a world that is crying out for the crone's wisdom. Essential oils are suggested as guides along the way as there is nothing more powerful, yet safe and easy to use to explore our psyches than aromas.

Cultural views of femininity exerted a powerful influence on the courtroom arguments used to defend or condemn notable women on trial in nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century America. By examining the colorful rhetorical strategies employed by lawyers and reporters of women's trials in newspaper articles, trial transcriptions, and popular accounts, A. Cheree Carlson argues that the men in charge of these communication avenues were able to transform their own values and morals into believable narratives that persuaded judges, juries, and the general public of a woman's guilt or innocence. Carlson analyzes the situations of several women of varying historical stature, from the insanity trials of Mary Todd Lincoln and Lizzie Borden's trial for the brutal slaying of her father and stepmother, to lesser-known trials involving insanity, infidelity, murder, abortion, and interracial marriage. The insanity trial of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard, the wife of a minister, resulted from her attempts to change her own religion, while a jury acquitted Mary Harris for killing her married lover, suggesting that loss of virginity to an adulterous man was justifiable grounds for homicide. The popular conception of abortion as a "woman's crime" came to the fore in the case of Ann Loman (also known as Madame Restell), who performed abortions in New York both before and after it became a crime. Finally, Alice Rhinelander was sued for fraud by her new husband Leonard for "passing" as white, but the jury was more moved by the notion of Alice being betrayed as a woman by her litigious husband than by the supposed defrauding of Leonard as a white male. Alice won the case, but the image of womanhood as in need of sympathy and protection won out as well. At the heart of these cases, Carlson reveals clearly just how narrow was the line that women had to walk, since the same womanly virtues that were expected of them--passivity, frailty, and purity--could be turned against them at any time. These trials of popular status are especially significant because they reflect the attitudes of the broad audience, indicate which forms of knowledge are easily manipulated, and allow us to analyze how the verdict is argued outside the courtroom in the public and press. With gripping retellings and incisive analysis of these scandalous criminal and civil cases, this book will appeal to historians, rhetoricians, feminist researchers, and anyone who enjoys courtroom drama.

In a wise, warmhearted memoir that celebrates her extraordinary life and stellar career, Swoosie Kurtz welcomes readers into her world, sharing personal misadventures and showbiz lore and candidly reflecting on the intimate journey of caring for an aging parent. Told with intelligence and Swoosie’s hallmark comedic timing, Part Swan, Part Goose makes a powerful statement about womanhood, work and family. Swoosie’s is the kind of memoir that doesn’t come without a fascinating back story: Enter the parents, Frank and Margo Kurtz. Frank, an Olympic diving medalist, later became one of the most decorated aviators in American history. He flew a record number of missions in a cobbled-together B-17D Flying Fortress called “The Swoose,” now housed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Margo chronicled their early years together in her memoir, My Rival, the Sky, published by Putnam in 1945. The book ends with the young couple happily anticipating the birth of a baby to be named after the indomitable Swoose. Today, Margo, who is approaching her hundredth birthday, lives with Swoosie. As Margo’s reality drifts freely between her morning coffee and a 1943 war bond tour, Swoosie struggles to stay ahead of her mother’s increasing needs while navigating the pitfalls and pratfalls of the entertainment industry. This precarious moment in time is bittersweet and occasionally overwhelming, but every day is oxygenated with laughter and love. The careful weaving of Swoosie’s story with passages from My Rival, the Sky creates a vivid portrait of the invincible mother-daughter bond between the two women. Part Swan, Part Goose is that rare Hollywood memoir that takes us behind the curtain but doesn’t live there; its heart is solidly at home. It doesn’t pretend to tell all, but what it does tell is deeply resonant for millions caring for aging parents, timely and topical for book clubs and entertaining as hell for readers in general.

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. “Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.” —Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once