With over 65 percent of households having a pet, and Americans spending over $60 billion on them each year, it’s a proven statistic that Americans love animals. Public opinions consistently show we favor compassion for all animals. Animal welfare, rights, and protection is one of the most popular issue areas to which individual donors give, and is an area in which people working with rescue and nonprofit organizations are extremely passionate.
In Advocates for Animals, Lori Girshick not only provides a better understanding of the laws surrounding animal rights but looks at the nonprofit organizations and people who are making a huge difference in today’s growing animal protection community. These volunteers and organizations fill the gap in what laws, policies, practices, and services do not address for animal rights/protection. Through the personal reflections of 204 individuals who volunteer or work with animals in a wide range of circumstances we learn about their paths to involvement, what they do, what they hope to achieve, and how this has impacted their lives.
Many experts speak of the importance of protecting the rights of animals, and without human support, many animals face abuse, neglect, and suffering. Advocates for Animals invites you to join these efforts, enriching your own lives and living compassion in action toward animals.
The book is also available on Amazon. Or, through the publisher:
Order Online: https://Rowman.com/Lexington
Call toll-free: 1-800-462-6420
Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men (UPNE, 2008) is based on interviews with 150 trans-identified people. The book brings together the voices of sex- and gender-diverse people who speak with absolute candor about their lives. Readers hear transpeople speaking in their own voices about identity, coming out, passing, sexual orientation, relationship negotiations and the dynamics of attraction, homophobia (including internalized fears), and bullying. I expose the guilt and the shame that gender police use in their attempts to exert control and point out the many ways the gender binary is reinforced in daily life, from filling out identity documents to gender-segregated bathrooms. By showing readers a variety of descriptions of diverse real lives and providing a thorough exploration of the embodied experiences of gender variant people, I demonstrate that there is nothing inherently binary about gender, that the way each of us experiences our own gender and our own gender variance is, in fact, normal and natural. My analysis of gender as perceived, experienced, and expressed by study participants shows that the common denominators of male/masculine and female/feminine may be illusions.
To order Transgender Voices (ISBN 978-1-58465-645-6, cloth) go to UPNE , or call 800-421-1561.
To order Transgender Voices (ISBN 978-1-58465-645-6, cloth) go to UPNE , or call 800-421-1561.
MY THIRD BOOK:
Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She Call it Rape? (Northeastern University Press, 2002) is based on a nationwide survey of lesbian and bisexual women who have been sexually abused by other women. The life experiences of lesbians and bisexual women are largely absent from public knowledge and dialog. I sent flyers to thousands of agencies and organizations, to LGBT community centers, LGBT media, research centers, bookstores, and so forth. I have chapters on homophobia (the context of our lives), the myth of the lesbian utopia, the respondents' experiences of sexual violence, issues of revictimization, legal issues, agency services, and language (what we call this sexual violence against us). Regrettably, this is a real problem in many of our relationships (intimate and casual) and it will remain invisible if sexual violence is only defined in patriarchal terms of male penetration and intercourse. The sexual violence types reflected in the women's stories in the book include sexual abuse within battering relationships, acquaintance rape, co-worker harassment, abuse by professionals, and sexual abuse of minors. It is my hope that by writing this book survivors will have their experiences validated, agencies will alter their programs and outreach, laws will be challenged, and the absolute need to end homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and heterosexism will be incorporated into our social change work as we seek social justice for everyone.
To order Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence (ISBN: 1-55553-527-5, paperback; 1-55553-528-3, hardcover): call 800-421-1561 or go to (UPNE).
MY SECOND BOOK:
I have a book out on women in prison, No Safe Haven: Stories of Women in Prison (Northeastern University Press, 1999). I interviewed 40 inmates at the Black Mountain Correctional Center for Women in Black Mountain, North Carolina, 12 family members, 16 community volunteers, and nine program providers. Chapters in the book include an overview of women in prison, a focus on the women's lives as adolescents, a look at their lives before their arrests, their drug use/abuse histories, relationship abuse, education and work histories, their lives while in prison, programming in prison, and policy recommendations. Following a feminist approach, I use the words of the women extensively throughout the book. My policy recommendations include addressing the following: sexism in schools, economic marginalization, racism, domestic violence, and alcohol/drug addiction.
To order No Safe Haven (ISBN:1-55553-467-8, paper): call 800-421-1561 or go to (UPNE).
MY FIRST BOOK:
Soledad Women: Wives of Prisoners Speak Out: The first book I published was my dissertation research on women married to inmates at Soledad Prison in California. Based on interviews with 25 women who were wives (one was a girlfriend) of inmates I explore how the fact of incarceration affected their lives. Chapters cover issues such as impact on their relationship, dealing with prison visiting, financial impact, issues with children, the stigma the women experience being associated with someone in prison, and so forth. I found that these women were quite loyal to their husbands and withstood enormous personal challenge to maintain their relationships. The book was published by Praeger in 1996. ISBN: 0-275-95409-9 (hardcover only)
Soledad Women: Wives of Prisoners Speak Out: The first book I published was my dissertation research on women married to inmates at Soledad Prison in California. Based on interviews with 25 women who were wives (one was a girlfriend) of inmates I explore how the fact of incarceration affected their lives. Chapters cover issues such as impact on their relationship, dealing with prison visiting, financial impact, issues with children, the stigma the women experience being associated with someone in prison, and so forth. I found that these women were quite loyal to their husbands and withstood enormous personal challenge to maintain their relationships. The book was published by Praeger in 1996. ISBN: 0-275-95409-9 (hardcover only)