Book Description

“Drs. Judith Bachay and Raúl Fernández-Calienes present us with another outstanding volume of narratives that provide a much needed forum to share stories of the global movement of women towards empowerment and the securing of their human rights. Each of the twenty-three chapters’ authors share different aspects of the issues and challenges women have or will encounter as they “move forward.” The diversity of the stories reflects the diversity of the authors. As examples, Ariela Agosín discusses the progress Chile has made in recent years towards providing women with a voice. Katariina Juliao provides the reader with a comparison between the United States and Finland as to the evolution of women’s rights using examples from politics, education, and the workplace. Many of the authors explore the new difficulties and prejudices faced by women and/or their families who have migrated to foreign countries to escape the oppressive conditions in their homelands. Others reveal to the reader through first-person narratives, the intrapersonal conflicts experienced by those who are “moving forward” but fear the loss of their heritage. Women Moving Forward: Volume 2 delivers what the editors promise: a scholarly forum for the development of an intersectional perspective that extends our awareness of how women are moving beyond victimhood. This is a book that both inspires and challenges the reader!” Nancy Borkowski, D.B.A., C.P.A., Associate Professor and Dean of Academic Affairs, South University (West Palm Beach, Florida) “Women Moving Forward-Volume 2 is a cornucopia of issues and ideas, offered by diverse voices that lay the ground work for new ways of thinking and meaning making. Judith Barr Bachay and Raúl Fernández-Calienes are opening up spaces for an intersectional analysis that includes the unique experience of women. This is a must-read for social workers, academics, and human rights activists who want to learn about and from women who are claiming their place in every aspect of the world arena. I can't wait to meet and learn from the authors of Volume 3!” Carol Heinisch, M.A., M.S.W., Social Worker, Jefferson County Public Defender’s Office (Denver, Colorado) “This is a weaving of stories that speaks centrally to hope, fortitude, resilience, identity, and compassion amongst women. Within these writings is a central theme of finding meaning in adversity, promoting advocacy and justice, and fostering dignity in the human community through access and opportunity. Robert Coles posits, what we need is a respect “for narrative as everyone’s rock-bottom capacity, but also as a universal gift, to be shared with others.” These writings are a validation of our experiences and journeys to overcome struggles as women. Yet, narrative alone is not enough, as many of us know who have taken on these challenges of transforming communities and systems. Change occurs through the actions and resolve of individuals who courageously take on these issues. Assuredly, in this text, you’ll find this scale of synergistic energy as well. L. Sunny Hansen uses a poignant metaphor that “we are all quilters on this planet, seeking to understand, value, and connect with each other in a sustainable future free from violence.” Identifying where you fit into this “quilt” is, in part, what the authors writing here want you to examine. Urging you into identifying the essential role you might play in “sewing” together a better future for all humanity.” Heather Zeng, Ph.D., Human Resource Development Consultant / Career Counselo, (Freemont, California) “Significantly real world, unrelenting, and ultra-compelling are but a few defining indicators to describe these writings. This discriminating collection expresses the decisive dimensions that embody grassroots to global settings. From the evidenced shared aims of humanity reflected in the versatile matter-of-fact life experiences to the clearly conveyed urgent need for immediate involvement, these treatises are foundational to halting and de-fragmenting the variant layers of widespread colonial and post-colonial systems of injustice. To arrest this worldwide convention of minority-majority dissent, cultural hegemony, warfare, gendered suffrage and the socio-economic-politics against civilization, will require a revolution of sorts. This integral text establishes a wide-ranging view towards that negotiation and resolve and further presents a medium of critical reasoning to execute social reconstruction to dismantle the inequality that wrongly saturates macro to micro communities. No matter what societal position validates your being, this profound volume is a must read.” Arnold Munroe, Ed.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Educational Studies Department, University of Central Florida (Orlando, Florida) “This book illustrates the profoundly personal quest of “women moving forward” despite the burden of geopolitical place, structural and cultural constraints, economic hardship, and gender. The whole balances a celebration of localized and personalized advancements with a portrait of daily struggles for justice. Women write of finding strength in their families, ethnicities, culture, and spiritual beliefs, while confronting unequal footing in personal and professional spaces and private and public places. This work offers inspiration, as well as critical assessments of what women have endured, what they are enduring, and for what they are striving.” Patricia Widener, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Florida Atlantic University (Davie, Florida) “This uplifting book engages with the dilemmas and joys facing all those women who, at some time in their lives, have had to cross borders of one sort or another. The United States is the point of arrival for most contributors, and their earlier experiences—as immigrant, refugee or displaced person, as educational or health migrant, or as seeker after freedom and opportunity—emerge vividly from every page. The rich cultural diversity of this volume extends to Latin America, Jamaica, Palestine, Africa and Finland with a series of thought-provoking tales of sorrow, hope and, particularly, of faith. Interdisciplinary contributions include fields as diverse as traumatic exposure, second language acquisition and human trafficking. Women Moving Forward provides an essential source—not only an inspiration to those women still forced to follow similar paths but a necessary stimulant to evoking understanding, sympathy and support from those whose way has been less traumatic. It will be rewarding reading for all.” Brenda Bolton, University of London (London, England, U.K.)