Womankind: Faces of Change Around the World

Nebenzahl, a columnist for the Montreal Gazette, and freelance photojournalist Ackerman teamed to produce this lavish volume on women who have committed their lives to repairing the world. With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, they traveled the world""to get to the heart of why women care... enough to dedicate their lives to helping others."" For each of the 45 women or teams of women, they present four pages of photos and text in various font size, with a listing of contact information at the book's end. These women's concerns range from basic survival/rescue work (e.g., Olayinka Koso-Thomas's work against genital mutilation in West Africa) to environmental activism (e.g., Sharon Labchuk's Earth Action group fighting pesticide pollution in Prince Edward Island) to spiritual activism (e.g., Chatsumarn Kabilsingh's campaign for Buddhist women). A few, mostly in the developed world, work to improve the status of women (e.g., Kathe Kollwitz's Guerilla Girls fighting sexism in the American arts community). The volume skews toward African activists (caring for AIDS orphans, empowering rural women) and is curiously devoid of Middle Eastern women. American readers may be surprised to find so few grassroots activists (there's Katsi Cook, a native healer; and Clementina Chery, an anti-gang violence activist in Dorchester, Mass.), but a full spread on writer Robin Morgan. Although the sepia-toned photos are very handsome, the selection seems strange: some of the American entries are tired, recycled and even irrelevant in the company of other women struggling for more basic causes.