Bøger i Contributions in Women's Studies serien

Many women held positions of great responsibility and power in the United States during the 19th century as theatre managers: managing stock companies, owning or leasing theatres, hiring actors and other personnel, selecting plays for production, directing rehearsals, supervising all production details, and promoting their dramatic offerings. Competing in risky business ventures, these women were remarkable for defying societal norms that restricted career opportunities for women. The activities of more than 50 such women are discussed in Nineteenth-Century American Women Theatre Managers, beginning with an account of 15 pioneering women managers who were all managing theatres before 24 December 1853, when Catherine Sinclair, often incorrectly identified as the first woman theatre manager in the United States, opened her theatre in San Francisco.

An examination of women's roles in politics and society in the contemporary Russian Federation as it creates a new market economy and democratic course born of a millennium of history and nearly 75 years of authoritarian communist rule.The stage is set in the introduction followed by an examination of the history of the Bolshevik socialist state in 1917 through the participation of women in recent multiparty elections in 1993. The tsarist and Communist gender culture is presented, and the book then considers why and how, the Soviet Union disintegrated. Next the editors explore the reborn Russia of President Boris Yeltsin and women's rights under Soviet and post-Soviet rule. The book is enriched by statistical tables and glossaries of the names of leaders and terms for easy identification.

Most of the women described in this study were atypical biblical women. Israelite women, like women in most cultures of the world, had status principally within the home. However, exceptional women occasionally had prominent roles outside the home and dared to assert themselves. The chapters contain biographical sketches, with comparisons to contemporary women's roles, of two dozen women. Beginning with Sarah of Ur and ending with Priscilla of Rome, their lives range over an era of nearly two millennia.These women were, at crucial times, sagacious in decision making and skillful in executing their decisions. They made such a distinctive mark on the events of their time to be remembered by subsequent generations as more than breeders of male heirs. Each woman's story relates how a dynamic woman was able to swim against the strong currents of patriarchy. To make explicit the relevancy of this study, the brief biographies are related to such current feminist issues as surrogate parenting, gender stereotyping, and civil disobedience over unequal treatment by governments.