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Published by New World Library
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What defines your generation of women? A few years ago, Paula Goldman emailed this question to women aged twenty to forty around the world. At the time, she was fresh out of graduate school and not entirely sure how to launch her career, but she knew she wanted to make a difference in the world, and she was deeply inspired by the amazing and diverse accomplishments of women she knew across the globe. She felt this book could showcase the power and talent of these women to a wider audience. She wrote a short call for submissions, asking women to submit artwork and writings responding to the above question, and with the help of a few organizations working internationally, she sent it out. Thousands of responses later, the result is this book, comprising entries by more than one hundred women from fifty-seven countries and virtually every populated region of the globe. The works in these pages are inspiring, challenging, enlightening, funny, and sometimes shocking. The contributors emphasize that the world they inhabit is different from the world of their mothers and grandmothers. Many have lived in more than one country, many are biracial or multiracial, and most have had access to more education than any women in their families before them. They come from myriad geographic, ethnic, spiritual, economic, and educational backgrounds. They celebrate their differences, but they also find strength in their commonalities. Meet Lada Karitskaya, a Russian woman who turns down the opportunity to become a mail-order bride; Israeli singer, Achinoam Nini (aka Noa), whose life changed dramatically when she became a mother; slam poet Aya DeLeón of the United States, who fantasizes about what it would be like if women ran the hip-hop industry; and Toyin Sokefun of Nigeria, who uses photography to explore the boundaries between society's ideals of beauty and women's self-images. These brave women boldly address the challenges they and their cultures face, expressing themselves freely through art and writing, wielding their power to create positive political and social change. Imagining Ourselves has a power and reach far greater than Paula Goldman dreamed possible when she first conceived of it. This book builds bridges, demonstrating not only the potential of each individual life but also the awesome power of today's generation of women as a whole. pub date: 2006-02-21 | paperback | 9781577315247 |
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