Table of Contents
I. Femininities
1. Women as Art
“The Oval Portrait,” Edgar Allen Poe, short story
“My Last Duchess,” Robert Browning, poem
“A Musical Instrument,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poem
“Their Last Visitor,” Young-ha Kim, short story
2. Women as Artists
“Diving into the Wreck,” Adrienne Rich, poem
“Sin Titulo,” Lois Griffith, poem
“A Girl,” Michael Field, poem
“Striving to be Selfish,” Ruthann Robson, creative non-fiction
“The Yellow Wallpaper,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman, short story
3. The Body
Dryope, myth
“and all she ever wanted,” Angela Costa, poem
“The End of Summer,” Kimberly Gorall, creative non-fiction
Excerpt From Women Without Men, “Mahdokht,” Shahrnush Parsipur, fiction
4. Women and Nature
Daphne, myth
“Sleeping Beauty,” fairy tale
5. Girlhood
“Girl,” Jamaica Kincaid, short story
“Hangin’ Fire,” Audre Lorde, poem
“The Changeling,” Julia Ortiz Cofer, poem
II. Masculinities
1. Fatherhood
“Fathering,” Bharati Mukherjee, short story
The Father, August Strindberg, play
“Son of Mr. Green Jeans,” Dinty W. Moore, creative non-fiction
“My Son, My Executioner,” Donald Hall, poem
“All I Know About My Father,” Brett Rutherford, poem
2. Boyhood
“Bar Mitzvah in Naples” From Return to Naples, Robert Zweig, creative non-fiction
“Accident, June 1948,” Seamus Deane, creative non-fiction
“Paul’s Case,” Willa Cather, short story
3. Male Identities
“Source of Comfort” From Triple Exposure: Black, Jewish, and Red in the 1950s,
Dexter Jeffries, creative non-fiction
“Veterans’ Dance,” Jim Northrup, short story
“Metrosexuals: Male Vanity Steps Out of the Closet,” Mark Simpson, essay
“How to Know You’re a Metrosexual,” Vanessa Raymond, essay
III. Sexualities
“Ode to Aphrodite,” Sappho, poem
Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti, poem
Excerpt From Monique, Luisa Coelho, novella
“Gauguin’s Stars (for Laura Nyro who loved Gauguin),” Angela Costa, poem
“The Company of Wolves,” Angela Carter, short story
“Afternoon with Canals,” Paul Lisicky, creative non-fiction
“The Women Who Hate Me,” Dorothy Allison, poem
“Reunion,” Xiaolu Guo, short story
“Mrs Rip Van Wrinkle,” Carol Ann Duffy, poem
“Say It in Sanskrit,” Ree Dragonette, poem
“Yellow Woman” Leslie M. Silko, short story
IV. Ethnicities and Identities
Excerpt From “I Hear America Singing,” Walt Whitman, poem
“I, Too, Sing America,” Langston Hughes, poem
Just Fine Elizabeth Primamore, play
“As It Was in the Beginning,” E. Pauline Johnson, short story
“Undertaker,” Patricia Smith, poem
“Fear of Crossing Over,” George Guida, poem
“Ain’t I a Woman,” Sojourner Truth, speech
“Sonnet Ghazal,” Roger Sedarat, poem
“Heirloom” from Dream Homes, Joyce Zonana, creative non-fiction
V. Roles of Women and Men in Society
“The Story of an Hour,” Kate Chopin, short story
“The Mother,” Gwendolyn Brooks, poem
“The Mother,” Anne Panning, creative non-fiction
“Black Mother Woman,” Audre Lorde
“The Consultation,” Barbara A. Holland, poem
“The Forsaken Merman,” Matthew Arnold, poem
“Living in Sin,” Adrienne Rich, poem
“And We All Stood Together,” Merle Feld, creative non-fiction
And They Call It Puppy Love (A Trans-Species Farce), Angela Costa, play
“After Making Love We Hear Footsteps,” Galway Kinnell, poem
“Clothes,” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, short story
Trifles, Susan Glaspell, play
