Books in the Women and Psychology series

Focusing on reproductive and sexual justice, this important book explores in detail both the challenges that trans people face when negotiating reproductive and sexual health in restrictive social contexts, and their agency in advocating for change.

Focusing on reproductive and sexual justice, this important book explores in detail both the challenges that trans people face when negotiating reproductive and sexual health in restrictive social contexts, and their agency in advocating for change.

Revised edition of the author's Domestic violence and psychology, 2010.

Provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of the gender and language field from a psychological perspective.

Shows how cultural contexts shape how stories about domestic abuse get told, and offers tools for bringing psychology into discussions of group dynamics in the domestic violence field. This book explores the contentious issue of how to acknowledge forms of female aggression while still preserving a gender analysis of intimate partner violence.

Feminist interventions in psychoanalysis have often attempted either to subvert or re-frame the masculinist and phallocentric biases of Freud's psychoanalysis. This book investigates the nature of these interventions by comparing the status and treatment of women in two different psychoanalytic models: the Kleinian and the feminist models.

Why, despite evidence to the contrary, does the narrative of the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing persist? This book outlines a critical view of 'teenage pregnancy' and abortion, arguing that the negativity surrounding early reproduction is underpinned by a particular understanding of adolescence.

Many women find mothering a shocking experience in terms of the extremity of feelings it provokes, and the profound changes it seems to prompt in identity, relationship and sense of self. This book discusses the possibility for a specific feminine-maternal subjectivity, relationality and reciprocity, ethics and otherness.

Discusses women's experiences of living well after depression. This book examines how women negotiate and actively resist hegemonic discourses of femininity in their struggles to recover from depression and be well. It is suitable for students of psychology, sociology, women's studies, social work, counseling, and nursing.

Providing a review of the relevant literature and research, this book demonstrates how discourse and conversation analysis can be applied to rework central feminist notions and concepts, ultimately revealing their full potential and relevance to other disciplines. It is useful to the students of sociology, gender studies and cultural studies.

Offering an understanding of the female single identity, this book explores how women deal with this potentially stigmatized identity. It focuses highlights that the culturally available and familiar resources for understanding singleness are highly polarized.

Pregnancy provides a very public, visual confirmation of femininity. It is a time of rapid physical and psychological adjustment for women and is surrounded by stereotyping, taboos and social expectations. This book seeks to examine these popular attitudes towards pregnancy and to consider how they influence women's experiences of being pregnant.

Employing Foucault's notion of panoptical power, Helen O'Grady explores the relationship women have with themselves and explores the link between debilitating practices of self-surveillance and the broader mechanisms of social control.

Presents an original perspective on the subject of rape and sexual violence by scrutinising existing social psychological research on rape and, in particular, rape perception research.

Humans are not born with a capacity to care, and this volume explores how this capacity is achieved through the experiences of primary care, gender development and later, parenting. It addresses the assumption that the capacity to care is innate. It provides a theorization of the nature of selfhood.

Child sexual abuse is a global problem that negatively affects many women and girls. This book draws on this revolutionary legacy, feminism and post-structuralism to critically examine perceptions of women, girls and child abuse in psychology, psychiatry and the mass media, and to re-evaluate mainstream and feminist approaches to this subject.

Takes an approach to the study of the material and discursive practices associated with the construction and regulation of the female body. This work examines the ways in which medicine, science, law, and culture combine to produce fictions about femininity, positioning the reproductive body as the source of women's power, danger and weakness.

Explores one reason many women offer for their lack of involvement in sport and exercise - that they are not the 'sporty' type.

Just Sex? combines an overview of existing literature with an analysis of recent research to examine the psychological and cultural implications of date rape, making a valuable contribution to existing feminist and social constructionist thought.

Feminist scholars have demonstrated how 'dominant discourses' and 'master narratives' frequently reflect patriarchal influence, thereby distorting and depoliticizing women's storying of their own lives. In this groundbreaking volume a number of internationally recognized researchers, working across a range of disciplines, provide a detailed examination of women's attempts to counter-story their lives when prevailing discourses are unhelpful or, indeed, harmful. As such, it is an exploration of women's agency and resistance, which highlights the challenges and complexities of such discursive work. The chapters explore women's resistance across a wide range of experiences, including: intimate partner violence, casual sex, depression, premenstrual change, disordered eating, lesbian identity, women's work in male-dominated spaces, rape, and child birth. Each chapter combines theoretical analyses with illuminating first-hand accounts, and elaborates practical implications that provide directions for individual and social change. Providing an incisive and comprehensive exploration of discourse, oppression and resistance, that cuts across domains of women's everyday lives, Women Voicing Resistance will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of psychology, gender studies, women's studies, sociology, and social work.