Feminist Summer Reading List

Today we asked our awesome followers on Facebook and Twitter what feminist books they were reading this summer. Here are some of the responses we got:

Photo by Flickr user: smiteme

• "Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History" by Laurel Ulrich
• "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body" by Courtney E. Martin
• "Sappho's Leap" by Erica Jong
• "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center" by bell hooks
• "The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World" by Michelle Goldberg
• "The Shock Doctrine" by Noemi Klein
• "Woman: Intimate Geography" by Natalie Angier
• "Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape" edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
• "Impossible Motherhood" by Irene Vilar
• "Gender Trouble" by Judith Butler
• "Cunt" by Inga Muscio
• "Reclaiming the F-Word" by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune
• "Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism"by Danya Ruttenberg
• "Click" edited by J. Courtney Sullivan and Courtney E. Martin

Picture by Tumblr user: prettykooky

Here are some already made lists I found online:

Jezebel

Ms. Magazine

Autostraddle.com

WAM! (Women, Action, and the Media)

Which books do you think are missing? Let us know in the comments.

Feminist book review: The Story of Jane

Talk about things they didn't teach you in school - comprehensive sex ed, how to write a cover letter, America's underground abortion networks.

I've been pro choice since I was a kid, and I understood as a teenager that illegal back alley abortions killed women. But I'm a little ashamed to say it wasn't until recently that I learned about pre-Roe feminist organizations that linked women with reputable abortion providers. This is all changed when I read Laura Kaplan's social history The Story of Jane.

Kaplan was one of the Chicago women who served in Jane from 1969 to 1973. She interviewed her former colleagues from Jane to weave a fascinating narrative of how a few feminists organized an underground railroad through which thousands of women safely obtained illegal abortions.

The story is incredible. A University of Chicago student named Heather Booth was active in civil rights and women's rights, and desperate women kept asking her where they could obtain abortions. She became known as a local resource for referrals, and recruited a group of women to help her field phone calls from women with unintended pregnancies. They contacted doctors and negotiated prices for the patients.

When Jane members realized one of their abortion providers was not licensed or professionally trained as a doctor, they saw it was possible to provide quality abortion care without a degree. One of the Jane leaders, referred to in the book as "Jenny," believed the organization could assist more women if Jane members became providers instead of relying as heavily on local doctors, many of whom charged high fees.

Jenny and several other women learned to perform first and second trimester abortions, though they had little or no medical background. Despite police surveillance and several serious setbacks, they operated for four years until the passage of Roe enabled women to legally seek out doctors for abortion services.

Kaplan's brisk prose is refreshingly readable, not academic. I finished the book in an afternoon and was never bored. My only regret is I don't know the identities of the women who were involved with Jane. They are true feminist role models, and were too humble to want or need recognition.

Jane and its sister organizations in other cities set out to meet the overwhelming demand for abortion services in the late sixties, and of course we still face numerous barriers to abortion access today. But there are lots of ways we can organize to expand access. Your pro-choice campus group can join FMF's Adopt-a-Clinic Campaign to support your local clinics.

We can educate ourselves and our decision makers by speaking out on how abortion works, sharing abortion stories, and discussing how prevalent and safe abortion is in the US. In the spirit of Jane, we can increase the number of abortion providers by pushing states to allow nurses and midwives to become providers, and working with med schools to include abortion care in the curriculum.

Jane exemplified civil disobedience at its best, where individuals took collective action to improve women's lives. It is an important part of our past that must stay in the past, and a reminder of why we fight for women's lives today and tomorrow. I hope to be as plucky and dedicated an activist as the women of Jane, and I am excited and privileged to know so many pro choice warriors who continue to embody that independent feminist spirit. We know we must never go back, and we won't.

Day 2 of Feminist Summer Camp

Hello! My name is Emily Kunstler and as one of the brand new Feminist Majority Foundation Choices Campus interns. I am extremely excited to spend the summer at "Feminist Summer Camp." I am a queer feminist who loves reading, sports (surfing, swimming, running, basketball and horseback riding), the ocean, and activism.

A Gender and Queer Studies major, I currently attend Santa Monica College. This summer, I am particularly interested in working on the Reproductive Health, Rights & Justice, Women's Health Care, and Civil Rights for the LGBTQ community.

A few of my favorite books are Female Masculinity by J. Halberstam, Whipping Girl by Julia Serano, Feminism and Pop Culture by Andi Zeisler, The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Nobody Passes by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks, Backlash by Susan Faludi and Queers in History by Keith Stern.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

What To Give a Feminist for the Holiday Season

Are you bogged down with last minute holiday shopping? Not sure what to get for those secret santa office holiday parties? Tired of the same 'ol consumerist approach to gift-giving? Well, have no fear!

Here are some cool ideas for great purposeful and world changing gifts to make the season bright...with a little enlightenment!

• Stickersisters.com has a great collection of t-shirts, buttons, magnets, posters, and even school supplies that would entice any spunky young feminist in the making. Girl power!

• Books, books, and more books! It never hurts to build someone's personal library. So spread some holiday cheer with Scroogenomics: WhyYou Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holiday by Joel Waldfogel or They Take Our Jobs!: And 20 Other Myths About Immigration by Aviva Chomsky. I bet these would be great conversation starters during your holiday feast!

• We can't forget about the children. What better gift to give than schoolin' the next generation of leaders. Here are some great children's books to consider: A Kid's Guide to Hunger & Homelessness: How To Take Action by Cathryn Berger Kaye; Grace For President by Kelly Dipucchio; A Life Like Mine: How Children Live Around The World presented by UNICEF; and VOTE! by Eileen Christelow.

• Support your local independent book or video store by purchasing dvds like: Persopolis, an animated film based on the graphic memoir following the life of a young Iranian girl during the Islamic revolution of the 1970s. The documentary Lioness directed by Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers about women in the military is a great one to pick up. And, of course, one of my favorites, Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed, details the experiences on the campaign trail as the first African American congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm runs for president of the U.S.

• Subscribe a friend to a year's membership of progressive, feminist magazines such as Ms. Magazine, Bitch, BUST, and Off our backs. Let's keep these babies alive!
  

• Give to a cause you believe in! Offer a donation on behalf of a friend or family member to local shelters, charities, rape crisis centers, community organizations or your local community radio station and/or newspaper.

Lastly, if all of these ideas for some reason just don't do the trick, give a gift that keeps on giving by sponsoring a young feminist to attend our National Young Feminist Leadership Conference in Washington, DC on March 20 - 22.

You can also find more gift ideas at our feminist online store!

Be sure to share with us your holiday gift ideas.

Happy Holidays from your FMF Fam!!

Happy Banned Books Week!

"Where books are burned, in the end people will burn." German poet Heinrich Heine, 1820

September 26-October 3, 2009 is Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read and free speech. We here at FMF love all our feminist librarian friends and thank them for their fight for open knowledge and empowerment through reading. Check out the American Library Association's Banned Book Week site for lists of frequently banned books and ideas of how to celebrate. Some of our recommendations of scandalous feminist tomes that are often the target of the book banning set:

• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
• The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• Forever, by Judy Blume (or let's be honest--anything by Judy Blume)
• What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters, by Lynda Madaras
• The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

Your recommendations?

Image via Zimpenfish

It's Hot Outside, Let's Read A Book Instead

This summer is a great time for young college feminists and all feminists around to catch up on that reading list that they started way back at the beginning of the school year, but never got to start because of all the reading they had to do for classes. Well summer is officially here everyone!

The Feminist Majority Foundation Campus website has a great list of some books that would be perfect for a summer read. Topics such as history & politics, global, feminism, and leisure.

As one of the fabulous FMF interns who needs to unwind after a long day at the office or needs some enjoyment during out commutes on the metro, here are some of my favorite picks for this summer.

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

• This 1970's novel that explores how society and the mind of a woman interact. Maria, an unfulfilled actress, recounts her life while recovering from a mental breakdown in an exclusive mental hospital. She was committed for having allegedly participating in the suicidal death her friend BZ. Through the eyes of this very self-destructive young woman and the debasing men she meets, the reader explores a woman, a time, and a society in crisis and how all three components have an affect on each other and cause people to change.

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin

• I just finished reading this very honest and real memoir by Stacyann Chin, who is Jamaican spoken-word performance artist. Through her inner strength, Chin finds warmth and humor in her nomadic and parentless childhood. The book catalogues her life from early childhood until early adulthood when Chin enters college. Chin's writing style and honesty makes this book relatable to any woman's life, from the pains of puberty to discovering self-identity.
  

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti

• Anyone who reads Feministing.com will know of Jessica Valenti's new work. Valenti investigate the United States' ever growing obsession with virginity, stemming from biblical times to present day in all sectors of life. She discusses on how and why this came to be and why this fixation of the "virgin" is so problematic for girls and women of today. In response to this fascination, Valenti sees alternatives to this which she describes for a future where women and girls are not valued based on the sexuality, but as people.

Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska

• Being the woman who has experienced the ways of the "old world" and lives in the "new," I look forward to myself reading this book while in DC for the summer. Sara Smolinsky, a young woman living with her Orthodox Jewish family in the 1920s, must combat her strict religious upbringing and her fathers refusal to assimilate. Rejecting the ways of her father and the "old country," she takes matters into her own and leaves home, gets a job, and puts herself through night school. Sara Smolinsky represents the feminist spirit in her refusal to stand for the way things are based on her social situation in search of something bigger and better for herself.

Trash by Dorothy Allison

• Allison's collection of fictional stories about women in the South, poor women, working class women, and lesbians give a voice to the emotional female experience of women at this time and place. Her frank writing style confront the reader with the hard hitting realities of the hard lives lived by these women in the stories. While the content and brashness of Trash are hard to swallow at times, the overarching theme of the book is the power in sharing stories and secrets in order to heal and grow as a community as women.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

• This book is not a religious book but rather the fictitious tale of powerful and influential biblical women that receive little to no coverage in the pages of the Old Testament in the shadows of their male counterparts. The women of this book share their plight as mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and aunts all within the “red tent” where the menstruating women gathered during their monthly periods, birth, and illness. The pages of this book provide a look into the ancient lives of these women that birthed, raised and married the men that take up the entire spotlight in the pages of the bible. Within the Red Tent, the women offer their courageous tales and share what the pages of the Old Testament leaves out: women.
  

A few other good links that might give you more reading lists ideas are Feministing.com's (Not) Oprah's Book Club posts and a recent article from Women's eNews.

Happy reading everyone! And if you have any other summer reading ideas, feel free to place your suggestions in the comments section of this post. All ideas are welcomed!

Photo courtesy of Ed Yourdon on flikr.com

Vintage Dating Tips

So, several weeks ago, my mom and one of my sisters came to visit me and my sister brought me a fabulous present, an old dating guide (you know, because it's ironic to give someone working at a feminist organization a guide to getting a man to marry you).

It's called All the Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. It's got all of the goods on how to behave to get a man to marry you (because who doesn't love heteronormativity). Oh, and there's also a website.

Well, Maria and I have been reading excerpts every once and a while just for funnziess, and we thought it might be fun to share one with you! So, here's part of "Rule #13: Don't See Him More Than Once or Twice a Week," a rule that I, of course, follow faithfully:

Most men fall in love faster than women. They also fall out of love faster.....
To keep a man from getting too much too soon, don't see him more than once or
twice a week for the first month or two. Let him think you have "other plans,"
that he is not the only man or interest in your life.

In summary, if you want to get married, act like you don't care at all. Remember, men LOVE the hunt, they just don't know that they are really the prey. Remember, the prize for following the rules is marriage. Is it fair to say that I could use this book as a guide for how to not get married? Because as Bonnie just said "That's not much of a prize."

Photo courtesy of www.flickr/zabara_tango

The Luckiest Girl in the World

The Luckiest Girl in the World by Steven Levenkron focuses on a teenage girl named Katie. At first it seems like Katie has a lot of positive things in her life. She is an ice skater, has a supportive mom, and attends a good school.

However appearances can be deceiving. She feels so much pressure from ice-skating, her mom, and kids at school being mean to her, that she decides to cut herself in order to ease her pain. Is this the right way to deal with life stressors? I do not think so. Towards the end of the book Katie finally gets therapy. When she enters group therapy with girls around her age it proves to be very helpful, and she cuts herself less. The group therapy girls also become her new friends.

This book is an excellent read for anyone who is interested in issues that some female teenagers face. Also it is mind opening in that it gives one understanding as to why young women sometimes fall into self-mutilation. If you or someone you know needs help with self-mutilation contact S.A.F.E. (Self-Abuse Finally Ends).

Breaking out of the male-female binary

There are about 65,000 children born each year that have indeterminate sex, and go through surgeries to alter their genitalia so they fit with a specific sex and gender. The measurements and characteristics that determine which side of the sex binary the child falls on are socially constructed.

Gerald Callahan, a professor at Colorado State University, has recently published a book about intersex individuals called Between XX and XY. While I haven't had a chance to read it, I thought that I would just put it out there for anyone who was interested. According to the Salon piece, Callahan challenges the idea that we are either male or female.

While retelling the stories of the intersex individuals he spoke with, he argues that we all exist in between male and female. Something that he said in the interview that I thought was really interesting was, "We might say two people have brown eyes but that doesn't mean that they're brown in exactly the same way, or what is seen through those eyes is the same."

Each person lives an unique life that is influenced by their experiences, and I don't think anyone should be boxed in by a name or a category, like male or female, that does not even reflect the wide spectrum of people there are in the world. The stories and experiences of intersex individuals are important and are something that should be celebrated and explored.

P.S. Lizz informed me that Middlesex is going to be made into "some sort of media thing" and, it's a HBO series, in case you're interested!

Photo courtesy of www.flickr/lechampiondumonde.com

Celebrating Our Foremothers

I think it's important to take a moment to contemplate how the women's struggle has been memorialized in the written word. Female novelists, whether a feminist message was woven into the fabric of their texts or not, pioneered women's place in fiction. Women such as Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Charlotte Perkins Gilman have all forged the path to allow for women's voices to come to fruition on the page. These women from the 18th and 19th centuries wrote social commentary and in their own ways were trying to combat social ills.

Harry Potter did wonders for J.K. Rowling, but without an older generation establishing women's work at legitimate we might never have had the pleasure to read her work. Women of color are getting recoginition from the vanguards of Toni Morrison, Monica Ali had the opportunity to be published. Moreover, major publishing houses are now starting to invest in talents such as Zadie Smith. If it were not for Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group that published some of the greatest modernist fiction, a great deal of it written by women, where would we be?

The written word still has some dominance by men. Think of your top ten favorite books; how many of them are written by women? So, no matter if you read empowering chick-novels or esoteric writing, it matters that you're supporting female communication. Women's fiction gave words on the page a new meaning, even a feminist spin. Iit gave their positions a voice and their ideas a home, which we can cherish forever. Visit your local library and demand more women writers, take the time to read a novel by a woman, and honor their legacy by putting pen to paper.