The book is a essential reading to understand and to accept the hard reality of daughters that live whit problematic mothers
341767
It is a very good book for a difficult subject: relationship between mothers and daughters, especially when the mother has some psychological problem. In this case is very hard to find out where (or who) is the "problem". In many cases  the daughter can be feel guilt, what is no necessary true, and this feeling of guilt will affect all her life, for a long time, if she will not be able to understand and accept that she is not the problem. Good readings like this book are absolutelly necessary to understand and accept this hard reality.
3330070
Dr. Jenn tackles a difficult-and for many, an uncomfortable subject- with intelligence, understanding and real world information. An important book for any parent or teen struggling to live in today's complex environment.
2906040
For a person who grew up during the feminist movement and for my daughters who didn't, this is an excellent book.  The book looks at several women who bucked the stereotypical role of women (to get married, have kids, and give up one's career) and who were "mentors" to the author.  All girls/women should read this book to see that we have alternatives to the stereotype.
2662204
This is a book that is difficult to review. Ground-breaking, scholarly, but not dry, it also disturbing. I imagine it could be a traumatic read for victims of rape or incest.

In this study, DeSalvo examines the role that sexual abuse at the hands of numerous men in their family (including both their brother-in-law and half-brother) played in the lives of Virginia Woolf and her sisters. She discusses the different ways in which the sisters coped and learned to live with the abuse, which DeSalvo argues was at the root of Woolf's lifelong depression. Also discussed is the influence that the abuse had on Woolf's art and her romantic relationships.

This is an important study not only of Virginia Woolf's early life and family, but of the effects of childhood sexual abuse, and the attitudes toward sexual abuse in the 19th Century. Not a light-hearted read, but very informative.
4836960
Fessler has compiled a very moving collection of oral histories from mostly white, middle class women who were coerced to relinquish their babies as teenage unwed mothers.  Many of their stories recount how little they knew about sex and pregnancy, and their very ignorance makes a strong indictment of the social norms of the times, when the sexual appetites of teenage girls were denied. The saddest stories are told by women who saw their pregnancies as the culmination of their love affairs and as the beginning of family life with their babies' fathers.  To protect the reputation of their own families, parents of these girls turned to the adoption industry and the babies disappeared.  Young mothers were told that they would forget about this early 'mistake' when they married and had more children. They were also told that they were not competent to be parents, and that other couples were more worthy.  Many of the storytellers in this book carried that sense of unworthiness with them throughout their adulthood until, aided by reunion with their now adult surrendered children, some are able to heal.

As the title makes clear, these accounts tell of events that happened pre-Roe v. Wade, and it would be nice to think that legal abortion solved the problems of unwed mothers.  Certainly, there have been many changes that came along with the Roe decision.  Now we have readily available contraceptives, legal abortion, sex education in the schools, and a highly sexualized entertainment media, but ironically, we still view teenage sexuality with disapproval, especially for girls.  Legal abortion has in many ways replaced the adoption industry as a means for families of pregnant girls to maintain their respectability, and without the greater expense and long interruption in the girl's life that carrying a child to full term entails.

What does not seem to have changed much is the view from white middle class America that becoming a mother as a teenager is anything but a mistake.  With greater access to career choices for girls has come the pressure to have a career and to postpone marriage and family.  (This has also, by the way, become an economic necessity, since two parent incomes are required for families to be middle class.)  Pregnancy for teenagers is still assumed to be unwanted, and many girls who become pregnant continue to feel enormous shame for their circumstances.  The social supports for girls to be sexual are consequently not much improved over what they were in the 1950s & 60s.

Fessler's book makes clear how much the unwed mothers wanted to keep and raise their babies.  That option is still out of reach for many of today's middle class teenage girls.  What seems to be missing today, just as it was decades ago, is the social support for families of teenagers to absorb the child into a larger form of nuclear family for girls who might want to be mothers.
975224
This is an important book. It should be required reading for every parent of teens. M.J. Rose has written an exceptional book about porn addiction and how it effects its users. We have heard of broken marriages, but not too much about the effect of porn on teen boys and the girls who are involved with them.

Once again, we meet Dr. Morgan Snow and her lover Detective Noah Jordain. That alone would be enough to read this installment of the series, but the underlying story demands we read this book.

Well written, intriquing, and a real page turner. Buy this book.
1563919
This is a fabulous book.  I recommend it to every woman struggling to find a place for herself spiritually.  I grew up in one form of the Christian tradition only to find myself disenchanted in my young adulthood.  Even though this book is written from the viewpoint of a woman raised in christianity, it is relevant and important for women of all faiths that have been steeped in patriarchy.  I felt that my idea of finding my own way spiritually was somehow blasphemous (according to my conditioning at a young age) until I found this book.  Sue Monk Kidd writes a truely amazing account of her own struggle and how she eventually came out the other side of it a stronger, fuller woman.  When I read this book, I felt like I had come home.  This book is very important not just for me personally, but for the whole of society.  The world can benefit greatly by the return of a sacred feminine to the collective consciousness.
3052483
I read "Hear Me, See Me" in small doses, often before I fell off to sleep each night, allowing the words of incarcerated, and courageous, woman to seep into my night-time dreams. Though difficult to read because of the emotional content, this collection of writings  are honest and enlightening. They will take you inside prison walls, and behind steel bars, with a diverse group of individuals. This is exactly where we need to go in order to even begin to understand the loneliness, guilt, and fear of incarcerated women.
3794013
After reading Mother-Daughter Duet by Cheri Fuller & Ali Plum, I know this is a book I'm going to need to read again and refer to often.  It's a book written by a mother and daughter for mothers and daughters, designed to help you get to the relationship you want with your adult daughter.

Since I have a 19-year-old daughter who is just now entering into adulthood, this book couldn't have come at a better time.  Through the book Cheri and Ali take us through their own relationship, sharing the hard times and how they worked through them to develop a relationship they can both truly enjoy.  They also share stories from other mothers and daughters with all different kinds of relationships.  The common thread seems to be that, no matter the circumstances, the mother-daughter relationship is one of the most complicated relationships, if not the most complicated.  It can also be the most rewarding.

I found it encouraging to read Ali's contributions of the daughter's point of view.  No matter how bad things seem, or how much your daughter seems to be pushing you away, she really does want to have a relationship with you.  There are lots of times when I really need to believe that!  On the other hand, she is really trying to separate from her mother and become her own person, and she needs to know that her mother will be OK.

The hard part is finding the balance, letting go; accepting your daughter for who she is, even if she hasn't got it all figured out yet; only helping when she ASKS for your help - there are a lot of helpful tips in this book, through all stages of life.  We are just entering this stage of our lives and, after reading this book  I am encouraged to believe that having a harmonious relationship with my daughter is possible, and this book gives me some of the tools I need to make that happen.
855765
I am the father of three daughters, and they all need to read this book.  So many women (all people really, but this book is really focused on women) wonder why they keep ending up in bad relationships, but Reid points out the warning signs that should be so obvious in a very real way, without being haughty.  Plainly, she's heard and occasionally lived these stories more than a few times, because each and every example is right on point.

I would have liked to have seen a little more narrative linking the anecdotes together and perhaps an honest discussion about how to avoid the whole "This time it's different" defense (perhaps as a conclusion because it felt a little sudden), but I am looking forward to reading more from this author.
4073463
This book should be required reading for anyone who desires to understand the inner-world and emotional needs of the adoptee in their life, or any adoptee wishing to more deeply grasp their own issues as a relinquished person. Sherrie Eldridge beautifully expresses the emotional impact of relinquishment on children. Adoptive parents who follow the wisdom this book offers will be able to provide the emotional roadmap adopted children need to navigate growing up adopted.
1742142
Into the Heart of the Feminine
 Pat Webster, Ph. D.

This book is seminal for our time. It addresses how we have individually and collectively suppressed and buried an integral aspect of ourselves, the archetypal feminine. This feminine part, an equal fundamental part of our nature is that inner part of each of us that values relatedness, creativity and transformation. Our patriarchal culture has abused and banished this part of all of us, men and women alike. This abuse and banishment has left us living in a world in which we feel there is never enough, in which success does not lead to feelings of fulfillment, and in which we live with high levels of fear and insecurity. Many of todays self-help books offer steps that support this masculine aspect of our psyche, that continue to support our efforts at control and power while ignoring the life-giving feminine aspect of ourselves. This feminine must be healed and transformed.

One aspect of our feminine nature is the nurturing good-enough mother. The negative aspect of this is the Death Mother. The Death Mother can be present when our own mothers have not mothered us well, usually secondary to their own unknowing of their feminine aspects, and when the feminine in us is suppressed.

As a woman and a therapist with a strong Death Mother complex, I have worked for decades on this aspect of myself. This book, however, gave me new and different insights. I read it slowly; I needed time to process and digest it.  I became aware that insufficient and abusive mothering  were linked to my feelings of not-enough-ness, in which I have felt that I neither had nor was enough. I reflected on how my participation in the pioneer days of feminism exacerbated some disdain for the feminine aspects of myself. I learned at a deeper level how fearful I had become of expressing my rage. And in working at a deeper level with the suggestions in this book, I took another step in trusting life and its transformations.

Neuropsychology shows us beyond a doubt that we are born to be relational beings. The archetypal feminine of which Drs. Massimilla and Bud Harris write is foundational to living our lives relationally, creatively and trusting its transformations. I believe that healing and redeeming the archetypal feminine is critical for full-hearted, relational living in this time, and can play a major role in healing our collective relationship with the earth and each other. And we must start with ourselves. This book not only helps us understand this aspect of ourselves, but also provides a road map for healing and redemption.
4731039
This eBook presents a crucial analysis of women's struggles in a concise and palatable format. By tracing the roots of women's oppression to the stratification of society into classes, providing historical examples of liberation struggles, outlining the importance of intersectionality, and exposing the impossibility of real justice under a capitalist system: this collection of selected works is vital to understanding the way forward for all those who consider themselves revolutionaries/radicals/progressives.
2120092
I am a divorced father with two teenage daughters. My daughters have been exposed to affairs, cheating, lying and way too much sadness at  this young age. I just finished this book and plan to start reading it again right away. This book reaffirms what I have felt in my heart all along. That our culture is filled with toxins that will hurt my daughters And that I need to show her that i care about living right and doing right In spite of what she sees from her friends from her mom and from her pop culture experience.
2106098
I hear the author speaking about her book and I had to read it to understand my teenagers.  A must read for parents.
4865619
Everyone needs to read this book.  At times it is hard to read as it hurts as you really take in what is happening to innocent girls in our world.  But we all need our eyes opened and to be challenged to do something about injustice.
2493012
This is an important book for all women under 30 to read. It chronicles the evolution of the status of women in America highlighting, with compelling story, those women who made it all happen and those, like Hillary Clinton, who continue to. I am certain that I would not have had the life I've enjoyed thus far if it were not for these women and their tireless fight. It is critical for younger women to understand that the opportunities they have now are due to those who came before and devoted their lives, some at great cost, to liberating women to the position we are in today. And that there is still much work to be done. Thank you Gail Collins for doing the hard work putting this together!