Woman: A Celebration to Benefit the Ms. Foundation for Women

This book celebrating all women is stunning in its ability to capture the diversity of girls and women across the globe and throughout time. Using life stages as the central organizing theme, the book offers visually rich photographs to expand our knowledge and understanding of what it is to be female in different countries, settings and social classes, and what it is to be young, middle-aged and old. Each stage and nuanced way of living--whether rich, middle-class or poor--is recognized and captured thoroughly by the lenses of a multitude of photographers. It also includes essays, but the photos are what I enjoyed the most. If I had one criticism, it would be that there are not enough photos of women in their 70s-100s; this dearth is common in the media (TV, magazines, movies, advertisements), but I thought that this book would have rectified the all-too-common invisibility of older women. "Woman:" would make a great gift. I bought mine for a friend, but ended up keeping it and buying her one of her own.

In Woman.: A Celebration To Benefit The Ms. Foundation For Woman, Carol Gilligan, Byllye Avery, Wilma Mankiller, and Letty Cottis Pogrebin provide illuminating and thought-provoking essays on the experience of being female in a spectrum of countries and cultures around the world. Profusely illustrated with 200 color and b/w photographs, Woman. is both a testament, a memorial, and a multicultural acknowledgment of women through a diversity of images reflecting the gender that "holds up half the sky". Woman. is an impressive and recommended addition to photography collections, women's studies lists, and would make an ideal gift for a friend, family member, school or community library.