Written by:
Jaclyn Barcewski, Amy Silverman, Laura K. Cucullu and Diane Anderson-Minshall
These books will guide you through your career, give you the inside track on recent legal issues for lesbians, and inspire you to do better.
Legal and Financial Planning
Legal Essentials for California Couples, Ed Sherman and Susan Cameron (Nolo): This new book helps readers understand how laws in this progressive West coast state affect couples, what you can do to protect yourself and how domestic partnership differs from marriage. Legal is a hybrid legal/relationship book and offers a bonus CD — and it serves as an important resource that can extend beyond the state’s borders. http://www.nolopress.com The Rights of Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals and Transgender People, Nan D. Hunter, Courtney G. Joslin, and Sharon M. McGowan (NYU Press): In this fourth edition, this ACLU handbook goes over legal doctrine in basic language, covering everything from employment in the private sector to housing issues facing queers. http://www.nyupress.org Women and Business
Passion v. Arrogance: A Dana and Goliath Story of Wine, Women and Wrong!, Margaret E.J. Broderick (Passion Power Press): If this novel doesn’t inspire you to savor your last sip of vino, then I don’t know what will. In this real life tale of entrepreneurship, two gallant women make a courageous journey to launch a small winery business in the heart of the Midwest. With a little bit of edge, the determined life partners forge a career plagued by financial, legal, medical and emotional obstacles but ultimately sustained by their creative vision. A must-read for any would-be small-business owner, Passion v. Arrogance shines as a cautionary account of following one’s dream regardless of corporate backlash and legal loopholes. Whether besieged by a flood of gushing wine or tyrannized by villainous bankers, the women in Passion v. Arrogance offer a keen and often humorous insight into the world of the start-up while also showcasing the neurosis of wine enthusiasm. Written with biting wit and relevant testimonials, this first literary book is sure to go best with an aged Pinot Noir. http://www.passionpowerpress.com The Woman Road Warrior: A Woman’s Guide to Business Travel, Kathleen Ameche (Agate): A VP at West Monroe Partners, LLC, Ameche is on the road a lot, which is why she penned this book, one of the first guides to address the needs of women business travelers. Basic points include troubleshooting dangerous situations and finding a hotel, but beyond those basics, Ameche offers up ways to parent from the road and how to entertain yourself away from home. http://www.womanroadwarrior.com An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas, Diane Wilson (Chelsea Green): Diane Wilson didn’t set out to be an environmental activist. It all began when she read a newspaper article ranking the county where generations of her family have lived and worked as shrimpers as the most toxic in the nation. An Unreasonable Woman is the story of her fight to preserve the livelihood that is so intertwined with the people of this small Gulf Coast town that the water of the bay is like the air they breathe. Wilson stops at nothing to demand corporate accountability, risking her family, losing her job and even going on a hunger strike. http://www.chelseagreen.com Doing It Yourself
The Accidental Entrepreneur, Susan Urquhart-Brown (Career Steps): Billed as practical wisdom for people who never expected to work for themselves, The Accidental Entrepreneur is a must-read for its simple and encouraging tone, which takes the mystery out of running your own business. Urquhart-Brown, who authored the “Going Solo” advice column in the San Francisco Chronicle for several years, is herself an accidental entrepreneur, and every page of her book offers money-saving strategic advice tailored for women in business (without all that complicated business jargon that can so often be a distraction to getting the job done). http://www.careersteps123.com Finding the Open Road, Mike Marriner, Brian McAllister, Nathan Gebhard (Ten Speed): Three years ago, three college guys were unsure of what they wanted to be when they grew up. So they set out across in America in a bright green, 31-foot motor home for three months, interviewing women and men they met along the way about their own lives and careers. From that came Roadtrip Nation, a documentary, book and TV program that sends college students (including a range of queer students) out on trips to explore worlds they never knew existed. This book shows you how to create your own experience and offers interviews with women (like the young, African-American executive director of Rock the Vote, Jehu Greene) and men about their own paths to authenticity. http://www.tenspeed.com The Pocket Idiot’s Guide Repairing Your Credit, Edie Milligan (Alpha): Think those maxed-out credit cards and old student loans aren’t affecting your ability to get a job? Think again: More and more employers are checking credit before they even consider making a job offer. Even if you’ve got a good job and are just sick of dodging bill collectors, this easy-to-read guide offers strategies to repair credit reports and an overview of new consumer laws that are on your side. http://www.idiotsguides.com The Lesbian Market
Business, Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market, Katherine Sender (Columbia University Press): An insightful, well-researched look at the emergence and complications of the gay consumer market. Communications professor Katherine Sender’s analysis of the primarily male gay market includes interviews with publishers, advertising and marketing reps; reviews and analysis of ad materials; and comparison to other “minoritized” markets, such as those based on ethnicity.
Accepting the premise that the gay market and its related “professional homosexuals” (openly gay execs who research and define “gay identity” for consumers, gay and straight) were created, not discovered, is necessary to carry Sender’s argument; starting with advertiser’s cry of “business, not politics” when pressured to explain ads that target a gay market, Sender effectively proves that the two are intertwined beyond anyone’s ability to extrapolate them.
Tracing the history of ads in the queer press (originally and, in some cases, remaining largely sex-based) as well as “mainstream” ad relationships on a broader scale, and exploring the conflicts created by greater LGBT visibility in media and criticism from both conservatives and queer nonconformists, Business, Not Politics is a study in both historical and trendy acceptance. The de-sexualizing of the gay male, the way stereotypes of nonconsumer feminists or ugly, hairy dykes contribute to the lack of a lesbian market, and the presence of a depoliticized slant in a community known for its activism have all contributed to the assimilation of gay culture in the consumer marketplace.
Sender pays heavy attention to the trend-setting gay male as an object of marketing, and in the end concludes (almost redundantly) that “the distinction between ‘business and politics’ is bogus: Marketing images of and to GLBT must necessarily involve both.” Though she reiterates the same points with the same quotes a little too much for my taste, it’s not overly academic and is definitely worth the read for anyone interested in how identity drives modern-day consumerism.
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