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In this prize-winning revision of her eye-opening atlas, Joni Seager examines the status of women worldwide - the advances they have made and the distances still to be travelled.
As world events demonstrate the importance of understanding how women live across continents and cultures, she explores such key issues as: gender equality; literacy and information technology; feminism; beauty; work and the global economy; changing households; domestic violence; refugees; lesbian rights; government and power; and, motherhood.
'Did you know Japan only legalized birth control pills in 1999? That half the food in Asia is made directly by women? That Puerto Rico is the home to four Miss Universes? Joni Seager chronicles these and thousands more facts and statistics concerning women's lives globally in one smart volume...she doesn't simply map out the world, she surveys the spectrum of women's lives, bodies, and cultures. Reporting on unpaid work, military service, the sex industry and everything between, what stands out isn't global disparity but the array of commonalities women share the world over.'
...much of the plethora of information contained within the pages is shocking...tiny gobbets of it are so unforseeable, and so challenging that they raise a quizzical smile...a fascinating document, and an extremely valuable one.
A fascinating atlas... A compilation of facts about women's status, work, health, education, and personal freedom across the globe, it is not only an invaluable reference book, but also throws up questions about why a woman's lot is not as good as a man's.
Here is the innovative atlas no thoughtful person, male or female, should be without. The aim is facts, not a manifesto. A wealth of fascinating information.
I assign Joni Seager’s Atlas of Women in the World in almost every class I offer. I use [it] to help students grapple with the complex ways that cultural relations are socially created and dynamically interconnected. It prompts students to make connections between major political subjects while simultaneously providing detailed information about each topic...Maps from the Seager atlas support engaged discussions of the reading materials I assign. Encouraging students to develop their quantitative literacy skills, the maps serve as a resource for analyzing the various ways that ideas about gender and nation take shape throughout the world...Through use of the Atlas students gain an appreciation for the politics embedded in the physical organization of the world.
Extracted from 'Feminist scholarship and the interrogation of spatial formation: Mapping as a tool for exploring gender and nation' by Dr Jessica Willis in Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy vol XX no. 2, Fall 2009/Winter 2010
A consistently useful and well-made resource...a vividly and meticulously researched collection of maps uncovering policies and practices that affect the global state of women. The work is overtly and unapologetically feminist and yet still accessible to the generation of students resistant to the "f-word". This is a true world atlas. To say that this book expands horizons is an understatement. It is provocative and enlightening.
