Jane Haile

Jane Hailé is a social anthropologist whose research into the practical interpretation of Theravada Buddhism in Thailand has been published in the UK by Cambridge University Press, and Thames and Hudson; and in Thailand by the Journal of the Royal Siam Society, Bangkok.

For almost three decades she has worked with the United Nations in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans. Since 1998, as an independent consultant based in Brussels, she has collaborated with United Nations development agencies, European Institutions, national governments and NGOs in many countries and regions, with particular focus on gender and diversity issues, within a broader social development remit.

Jane Hailé has written and published extensively in her field and is staff reviewer of publications on gender issues for New York Journal of Books. Regular updating of her activities is available on her website. 

Book Reviews by Jane Haile

Reviewed by: 

CeCé Telfer summarizes her struggles in her eight-page prologue as the first transgender woman “to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) National Championships in the 400-meter hu

Reviewed by: 

Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl is the autobiography of a first-generation Korean American girl and then woman who tries desperately to fulfil the dreams her immigrant paren

Reviewed by: 

This charmingly produced little book is a new volume in the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series put out by Princeton University Press that aims to show how our contemporary preoccupat

Reviewed by: 

Beautiful: The Story of Julian Eltinge, America’s Greatest Female Impersonator depicts vividly, and in great detail, the extraordinary career of Julian Eltinge (1881–1941), born William Da

Reviewed by: 

Kara Loewentheil hosts a very successful podcast UNF*CK YOUR BRAIN: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone, and in her new book draws on cognitive psychology, feminist theory, and years of experience as “

Reviewed by: 

“This is a very important book and should be required reading for everyone interested in civil rights and gender equality in the health sector and beyond.”

Reviewed by: 

a fascinating collection of case studies of cross-cultural adoption . . .”

Reviewed by: 

After Sappho is labeled as a novel although most of the characters presented actually existed and the words and actions ascribed to them are translated, paraphrased, quoted with minor alte

Reviewed by: 

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity is a collection of essays by Julia Serano originally released in 2007.

Reviewed by: 

Sarah Ditum’s book covers a period that she refers to as the “long aughts,” lasting roughly from Britney Spear’s famous 1998 song of “Baby One More Time,” until March 2013 with the release by Robin

Reviewed by: 

In her introduction to Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth, Nathalie Haynes reflects on the view explored in her publication, that we humans create gods in our own image (rather than the

Reviewed by: 

The many readers and followers of Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group will certainly be aware of her participation in this “bigoted blackface prank”—the Dreadnought Hoax —but are unlikely to ha

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

“every essay, whether one agrees or not with the views expressed, is a pleasure to read and always thought provoking.”

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

“it is the vividness and frankness of her personal recollections that helps to lift this book above the usual run of self-help books on women’s empowerment.”

Reviewed by: 

Journalist and comedian Caitlin Moran wrote her bestselling How to Be a Woman in 2011 and has since been facing, and by her own admission, ignoring the question posed by many of her (usual

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

The author, herself bisexual, undertook the book “to bring the colourful world of bi-sexual scholarship out of the shadows” and to show that bisexuality “is a normal part of sexuality,” an ambition

Reviewed by: 

“for all its limitations NOW has transformed thinking on feminism and sexism in America.”

Reviewed by: 

This is a substantive, as well as rather substantial (616 pages) publication, whose primary task is to analyze international and regional human rights treaty legislation designed to eliminate gende

Reviewed by: 

“Despite his many travails and struggles, professional and personal—in relation to sexuality, class, ethnicity, and now ageism—Duberman acknowledges also his many successes in public as in

Reviewed by: 

Feminism by Bernadine Evaristo is one of a series of books commissioned by Tate Publishing and Tate Britain ahead of the rehang of Tate Britain’s collection in 2023.

Reviewed by: 

Gender by Travis Alabanza is one of a series of books commissioned by Tate Publishing and Tate Britain ahead of the rehang of Tate Britain’s collection in 2023.

Reviewed by: 

“these vivid studies of famous personalities and their interaction do tell us in some cases more about them than we knew, and perhaps confirm that this struggling model of conventional marr

Reviewed by: 

In her often witty and trenchant publication calling for revolution through female alliance, legal expert Diane L.

Reviewed by: 

In her trenchant and brilliantly written collection of essays in The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century Amia Srinivasan examines the positions taken by of different strands

Reviewed by: 

“food for thought as to how much things have changed, and how much they have stayed the same, or in some cases appear to be returning.”

Reviewed by: 

New Women of Empire is never less than a fascinating read, and many of these chapter case studies could well be expanded for fuller publication.”

Reviewed by: 

One reads Miguel Missé’s The Myth of the Wrong Body with growing excitement and thumping of the air not just because of one’s sympathy with its content, but also because of his sociologica

Reviewed by: 

Aware of the controversy and skepticism surrounding bisexuality, the author Julia Shaw, herself bisexual, sets out to trace the lineage of this condition that she insists is not “mysterious, threat

Reviewed by: 

Unshaved: Resistance and Revolution in Women’s Body Hair Politics deals with compliance with cultural norms of body hair removal—largely on the basis of data from American women— and the e

Reviewed by: 

Miranda Seymour has produced a detailed and exhaustive account of the life of novelist Jean Rhys on the basis of her short stories, novels, and an unfinished autobiography, Smile Please, w

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

Heyam has gone a long way to realizing their ambition to ‘open up space for so many more new ways to relate to gender . . .

Reviewed by: 

“Horowitz has pieced together a fascinating story of a woman who ‘lied all her life’ and died in 1954 at the age of 86 in a Hove nursing home, taking her secrets with her.”

Reviewed by: 

Challenges to Darwin’s view of the sexes are no longer a minority sport, though like all challenges to received opinion they have difficulty being heard in the Establishment they wish to rock.

Reviewed by: 

The ostensible template for these 24 musings on “singlehood” is Helen Gurley Brown’s 1962 cult classic, Sex and the Single Girl.

Reviewed by: 

“a fascinating book written with style and passion and deserves the widest possible readership.”

Reviewed by: 

Manifesting Justice will repay the very determined reader, and there are many shocking moments where the law is revealed to be, to an almost unbelievable extent, an ass.”

Reviewed by: 

This is a very engaging, lucidly written, and entertaining collection of autobiographical essays produced by debutante Myanmar writer, Moe Thet War, writing as is stated, as Pyae Moe Thet War.

Reviewed by: 

Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz has been greeted with rapturous anticipation by a range of American publications and blogs, Vogue, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Bustle, Electric L

Reviewed by: 

The King’s Painter is an outstanding publication that requires and repays a very close and careful reading.”

Reviewed by: 

In her most recent collection of essays, Siri Hustvedt provides a feminist analysis of a range of materials drawn from her own family life (particularly the intimate relationships with her grandmot

Reviewed by: 

“This is a long but never less than gripping book, though the rich examples are stronger than the analysis they feed.”

Reviewed by: 

“Schuller has produced a work of impressive scholarship and research, from which many readers and students will benefit, though the rich and complex material she has assembled seems to dema

Reviewed by: 

This is an enthralling and deceptively small book built around, at first sight, a rather unpromising story line concerning the prolonged struggles of a skinny, underweight boy against the efforts o

Reviewed by: 

This gorgeously produced book is a baby photo album with one major difference. All the Dads are gay men, married or single, who have become parents through surrogacy or by adoption.

Reviewed by: 

“Williams reflects . . . on an issue contentious for feminists and other women, namely her sexuality: ‘And one last thing.

Reviewed by: 

This powerful little book belongs to the Object Lessons series described by one admirer in the flyleaf as “the most consistently interesting non-fiction book series in America” (Megan Volpert,

Reviewed by: 

Meeting in Positano: A Novel by Goliarda Sapienza (1924–1996) is a disorienting experience for anyone who likes their fact and fiction to be distinct genres.

Reviewed by: 

The author, Krys Malcolm Belc, is a nonbinary, transmasculine parent who shares his journey from giving birth to his son, to his decision two years later to take testosterone therapy, and to becomi

Reviewed by: 

In her enthralling book Emily Midorikawa tells the stories of women, many from modest backgrounds in the US and the UK, who parlayed their alleged communications with the spirit world into social,

Reviewed by: 

“an exquisite, engrossing, and very moving book.”

Reviewed by: 

The clichéd assessment “compulsively readable” seems the most appropriate response to Andrew Morton’s 385-page book on the Windsor sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret.

Reviewed by: 

In 2017, at 28 years of age Gabrielle Korn was the youngest Editor-in-Chief of an independent international digital publication called Nylon; she knew herself to be “younger and gayer than

Reviewed by: 

This little book is as candid and charming as its cover, and not coincidentally the kind of book its author, Lennie Goodings, likes best.

Reviewed by: 

Koa Beck’s book, White Feminism: From Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind, comes with a rather double- or even triple-edged endorsement from Gloria Steinem; “Don’t judge

Author(s):
Reviewed by: 

Carol Hay notes in her preface the current buzz of conversation around feminism, crediting the #MeToo movement with “laying bare the elephant in the room, skeletons burst from closets, dirty laundr

Reviewed by: 

The title echoes Virginia Woolf’s non-negotiable insistence that a woman writer needs a “room of one’s own,” and at the same time reflects one of the academic detours that Rita Colwell took when bl

Reviewed by: 

In her Introduction Helen Lewis defines what “difficult” means when applied to the feminist pioneers whose struggles she reviews and admires.

Reviewed by: 

Katie Roiphe is noted for her trenchant and often controversial views on all things feminist.

Reviewed by: 

Broadside: A Feminist Review was a “groundbreaking” Canadian feminist newspaper published between 1979 and 1989.

Author(s):
Reviewed by: 

“The reader should be prepared for an extraordinary though long and very uneven ride.”

Reviewed by: 

“What a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of a hypothesis!”
—Mary Wollstonecraft

Reviewed by: 

“Block’s book demonstrates the urgent need for some progress . . .”

Reviewed by: 

“Seen against the complex backdrop of her family circumstances, the machinations of literary London, and changing social mores that made a ‘female Byron’ no longer socially acceptable, L.E.

Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

In this lively and capacious volume Katie Hickman sets out to show that English women in India were a much more diverse group than the popular image of the “Memsahib” would suggest, though unsurpri

Reviewed by: 

Lean Out: The Truth About Women, Power and the Workplace though  purporting initially not to be about Sheryl Sandberg and her well-known treatise Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to

Reviewed by: 

“The stories presented here constitute a further step in dispelling negative stereotypes and in enabling gay men of these three generations to own their dignity.”

Reviewed by: 

“‘Armed with cool, nerdy facts’ the reader will be able to discuss language as an entry point into larger ideas of gender equality.”

Reviewed by: 

“even readers already somewhat familiar with Sulak’s extraordinary life will find many things here to engage and surprise.”

Reviewed by: 

“This is an enchanting and unforgettable little book, beautifully written and translated, which brings Stefania vividly to life.”

Reviewed by: 

“there is much to instruct and delight in the delineation of the ways in which the lives of these unusual women are reflected in their work.”

Reviewed by: 

In a rather lengthy introduction Orgad justifies her choosing as her study population privileged, educated, heterosexual, mostly middle class, mostly white, full-time stay-at-home mothers in single

Reviewed by: 

The author begins this book “hip-deep in the chaos that is modern American motherhood” but hastily clarifies that, while her own experience provided the impetus to write the book, it is not autobio

Reviewed by: 

Forgotten Women: The Artists is part of a “brand new series, which will uncover the lost histories of the women who, over thousands of years have refused to accept the hand they were dealt

Reviewed by: 

“a fascinating read for anyone interested in fin-de –siècle Parisian society . . .”

Reviewed by: 

Ben Barres’ autobiography is a matter-of-fact record of a very unusual life, and was completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017.  Barbara Barres—as Ben was born in 1

Reviewed by: 

“Even within its self-imposed limitations this book could have done much more justice to its allegedly dangerous subject matter.”

Reviewed by: 

Any reader of the magazine Vanity Fair particularly in the 80’s will be familiar with the glittering cast of celebrities, including celebrity villains, parading the pages of The Vanity

Reviewed by: 

This collaborative collection of comics representing a variety of voices and experiences was sparked by the concern that under President Trump abortion rights and other aspects of Obamacare would b

Reviewed by: 

In Fifty Million Rising: The New Generation of Working Women Transforming the Muslim World Saadia Zahidi provides a welcome corrective to the dominant mage of “the tired story of the downt

Reviewed by: 

In Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower, Roseann Lake, who worked at a television station in Beijing, provides us with a new angle on the usual narrati

Reviewed by: 

With its cover image of an eroticized version of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring this book would draw the eye on any coffee table, though what this  image says in terms of Grace Banks’

Reviewed by: 

Halberstam begins his “quirky” text with a tribute to David Bowie, whose gendered appearance “part man, part woman, part space alien” inspires his reflections on the relationship between sex, gende

Reviewed by: 

"a delicious little book packed with erudition and pleasure . . ."

Reviewed by: 

Stephen Greenblatt, Pulitzer Prize winner and a specialist in early modern literature, explores in The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve the enduring fascination of the Genesis story

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

“This courageous memoir is a worthy addition to the growing trans canon.”

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

This lively little book comes with an endorsement from Gloria Steinem who most memorably addressed this issue in the October 1978 issue of Ms.

Reviewed by: 

“an extremely interesting approach and a much-needed paradigm shift in the treatment of racialized trauma . . .”

Reviewed by: 

Although described as a publication of general interest How to Understand Your Gender is primarily directed to people pondering their own trangender/non-binary/gender diverse iden

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

The Sarcasm Handbook expands Lawrence Dorfman’s already very considerable range beyond his bestselling series on Snark.

Reviewed by: 

"an engaging idea that does not quite achieve its aim . . ."

Reviewed by: 

DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution is described in the Authors’ Note as an “unabashedly personal view both of the history and the issues.” The co-authors also stress that book repres

Author(s):
Reviewed by: 

Anyone interested in gender equality is by now used to Rwanda coming very high on the international gender scoreboards.

Reviewed by: 

This timely publication addresses much of the misinformation about the trans community that persists despite increasing media coverage both popular and serious.

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

For dedicated fans of Richard Russo these four stories mark a break with his usual “blue-collar” territory.

Reviewed by: 

Inheritance from Mother is a novel for the connoisseur by an author regarded as one of the most important writers in Japan today.

Reviewed by: 

This is a brilliant, erudite and very readable book exposing how Jane Austen, while seemingly embroidering the small domestic canvas with which we are all familiar, was in fact deliberately using h

Reviewed by: 

Camille Paglia’s relentlessly controversial public persona and pronouncements tend to overshadow her actual work.

Reviewed by: 

Perry’s skewering of evolutionary rationales to explain and justify gender inequalities should keep us going for a while.”

Reviewed by: 

The focus of this book is “the use of employment law and practices in the United States to exclude gay people from public social spaces.” The book focuses on discrimination in the U.S.

Reviewed by: 

This book presents itself as the “coming out” of Bennett and her Feminist Fight Club, a girl gang that banded together in 2009 to develop strategies for dealing with “sneaky micro-aggressions and o

Reviewed by: 

“Overall the book achieves its aim most efficiently and pleasurably, serving as an introduction to the academic world of Queer Theory . . .”

Reviewed by: 

This is an important book on an important subject, but not for the faint-hearted in its very detailed treatment of the ebb and flow of citizenship recognition and rights for LGBT individuals in Ame

Reviewed by: 

“an entirely convincing portrait of an entirely unconventional and brilliant individual.”

Reviewed by: 

In Sex Object: A Memoir Jessica Valenti, a feminist writer and commentator, chronicles her teenage and young adult years of sexual harassment on the streets and in the subways of New York.

Reviewed by: 

Few right-thinking people would question Maya Angelou’s status as an author, historian, intellectual, poet, social commentator, activist, and genuine Renaissance person.

Author(s):
Reviewed by: 

Labor of Love: the Invention of Dating is the witty title of Moira Weigel’s entertaining history of “dating” in the U.S.

Reviewed by: 

“MariNaomi does not disappoint her many fans.”

Author(s):
Reviewed by: 

Andi Zeisler, cofounder and creative director of the non-profit organization Bitch Media, sets out her stall in her introduction, reminding us that the point of the magazine Bitch was “to

Reviewed by: 

Described as a novel, this formidable example of that increasingly popular genre—biographical fiction—tells the life of the brilliant and celebrated 19th century English novelist George Eliot (1819

Reviewed by: 

The subtitle of Brooke Hauser’s new biography of Helen Gurley Brown—The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman—is well chosen.

Reviewed by: 

The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye “presented by” Sonny Liew is a collector’s item—like a good wine or a piece of fine, old furniture—in its beautiful and artfully aged presentation; and al

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

Described as a “fictional recreation” The Dig tells the story of the excavation of the famed Sutton Hoo burial site in Suffolk, the findings of which now have pride of place and a permanen

Reviewed by: 

This slipcased two-volume edition contains the unique issue of It Aint Me Babe (1970) and 17 issues of Wimmen’s Comix produced between 1972 and 1992—all of which are now out of pr

Reviewed by: 

The well-known author and biographer, Claire Harman, has given us what could be the definitive biography on Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855).

Reviewed by: 

This book addresses the issue of societal transformation “from male to female dominance” drawing on a range of statistical sources, publications, and anecdotal experiences, plus eight stories “from

Reviewed by: 

Curvology purports to take us on “a scientific journey into the evolution of women’s bodies and what that means for their brains.” Engagingly, David Bainbridge attempts to diffuse the unea

Reviewed by: 

This happy little stocking-filler is based on Sarah Galvin’s writing a column called "Wedding Crasher" for The Stranger newspaper in Seattle.

Reviewed by: 

The basic thesis of this book, which modestly sets out to present a “science in the making,” is that “scarcity is not just a physical constraint.

Reviewed by: 

This is an engaging idea for a book engagingly written.

Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

If you are an appreciative reader of Adam Kirschs’ articles and reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere you

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

This is a book that can be read as an amazing story of high altitude climbing, skiing, ballooning, and biathlon: and as a commentary on the Great Questions of Our Time, relative to gender stereotyp

Reviewed by: 

“. . . no doubt it will please the loyal fan market to which it is directed.”  

Reviewed by: 

In The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism and the Reality of the Biological Clock Tanya Selvaratnam presents her own story of “heartbreak and self-discovery” relative to her attempts to become

Reviewed by: 

In the introduction to her book The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World Alison Wolf states that “until now all women’s lives, whether rich or poor,

Reviewed by: 

“. . . exciting, provocative, and even dangerous . . .”

Reviewed by: 

“. . . thoroughly researched, cogently argued, and elegantly expressed . . .”

Reviewed by: 

A new publication by Jung Chang the author of the bestselling Wild Swans is always going to be an event, and the Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China seem

Author(s):
Genre(s):
Reviewed by: 

Kat George’s Pink Bits is an example of the growing volume of media products—books, blogs, films, television shows—produced by young women primarily for a specific demographic of girls and

Reviewed by: 

This entertaining and well-structured book is an ethnography of the New Domesticity movement which the author sees as sweeping America.