Mordant Belle

When people think of “feminism”, they think of a specific media-generated image that usually involves “unseemly” body hair, bra burning, child- and man-hating, angry, masculine women, lesbians, and (weirdly) by turns promiscuous and prudes, depending on which end of the popular culture spectrum you’re coming from.

Thankfully, this feminism does not exist.

Many of these stereotypes are exaggerations (child- and man-hating), while others are specific to a certain subdivision of feminism (not shaving or wearing makeup). Some were simply made up to sell papers. (There was never any bra burning. Bras are expensive, hello. This was an exaggeration of an event where many feminists, in protesting a Miss America pageant in the ’60s, threw their bras into a trash can…unlit.) While a few have some basis in fact, in general, the popular perception of feminism is completely misconstrued.

Trying to define feminism in any strict way is similar to trying to define Christianity in any strict way. There is hardly anything on which there is not SOME form of disagreement. And while the movement as a whole does have commonalities, it’s important to understand the different particular strands which a given feminist can belong to.

Again, it’s like Christianity: do you know the difference between Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Latter Day Saints, and the Presbyterians? Some do, but odds are you don’t. Even when these denominations can agree on certain broad tenets, many believe that the others are STILL going to hell, for whatever doctrinal reason. It’s very important to notice the differences between the different types.

The following post was adapted from notes from my Sex, Power, and Politics Women’s Studies class.

Keep in mind that some of these types of feminism can and do overlap, and that individual women can subscribe to more than one of these feminisms.

Let’s begin, then:

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Women, Race, and Class
by Angela Davis, 1983, Vintage, 288 pages
Mel’s Reading Status: UNREAD

Commentary:
Angela Davis is pretty much required reading, especially for feminists who care about understanding the impacts of race and class as they intersect with gender. A word of caution, however: the WOC blogs I read complain about us white folks thinking that reading and quoting Angela Davis (and other prominent WOC authors) at certain times makes us “un-racist”, or serves to address the concerns of minority women and poor women. It does not.

It certainly is a good starting point, though.

Summary, Description, and/or History:
Angela Davis is one of the most prominent multiracial feminists out there. This book was the first of it’s time to really explore the ties between the suffragettes and the abolitionist movement of the first wave. In many ways, the suffragettes (the first feminists, though they did not identify themselves as such; the term became more widely used later during the women’s liberation movement) were compelled to form a women’s rights movement in conjunction with abolition. In both the first and the second wave, women’s political consciousness was born fighting for rights for minorities, only to discover (in the case of the suffragettes) that they could not speak at rallies or appear in public because of stigmas about women (they were expected to stay behind a screen at public meetings). In another interpretation, working for civil rights for others made women more aware of the stigmas and restrictions placed against themselves. So in many ways, women’s liberation was born out of the fight for rights for African Americans.

Davis is an ubernerd in terms of education; she went to many colleges both in the U.S. and abroad, showing her deep love of learning. She was associated with both the Black Panther Party and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the ’60s and ’70s. She is a socialist and was previously a political candidate in the Communist Party USA. She became famous after she was connected to the murder of a judge who was held hostage during a Black Panther prison escape attempt; she fled underground, and was eventually captured, arrested, tried, and acquitted in a famous trial. She is now a professor at the University of California and Presidential chair at UC Santa Cruz.

Additional Comments always welcome.

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Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild
by Deborah Siegel, 2007, Pallgrave Macmillan, 240 pages
Mel’s Reading Status: READ

Commentary:
This book was assigned as a textbook in my “Sex, Power, and Politics” Women’s Studies class, and I loved it. Deborah Siegel does a great job of describing the history of the “mainstream” feminist movement, the one that immediately springs to mind when you hear the words “suffrage”, “women’s rights” or “women’s liberation”.* Which most people think they have a pretty good grasp on, and which most people really don’t.

And don’t discount the importance of history; as Siegel points out, many young feminists like me end up reinventing the wheel all over again because we know so little about the reality of this movement that has completely and utterly impacted every area of our lives. When the progress feminism made begins to break down, or when we seek to raise our consciousness or explore our sexuality, we do so without realizing that the trails have been blazed before, and we could learn from seeing where they went, rather then trying to break new ground to end up in the same place.

Reading this book, in combination with my amazing professor’s wealth of knowledge, helped me understand the real history of feminism, where it’s been, where it’s broken down, where it’s been effective and where there is still work to do. I especially love the list of links and resources in the back. As far as I’m concerned this is required reading for anyone who is interested in feminism, but most especially for anyone interested in making feminism part of their activism and daily life.

Additional Comments always welcome.

* I say mainstream because there is/was actually an equally powerful, and some argue more effective, feminist movement among communities of people of color, both before, during, and after the rise of the second wave. Siegel touches on this briefly, and I actually learned quite a bit from her about the movement of women of color, but that’s mostly because I was completely and utterly ignorant that there WAS such a movement, so her few paragraphs were a revelation. She makes clear in her introduction that her book that her history is not meant to address the issues, progress, and history of the feminist movement in communities of people of color.

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The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls
by Joan Jacobs Brumberg, 1998, Vintage, 336 pages
Mel’s Reading Status: UNREAD

Summary, Description, and/or History:
This book is both historical and sociological, exploring the ways in which perceptions of the female body (and it’s importance to a girl’s self-worth) have changed over time. Not only has the development of girls’ body changed — menstruation and sexual activity begin much earlier — there is also much greater emphasis of the body as defining your self. Girls grow up believing that “good looks”, rather than “good works” — personal, communal, and professional accomplishments — are the highest form of female perfection. It includes previously unpublished entries from the diaries of girls across America, as well as a photo essay with photographs, advertisements and postcards that show how girls and their bodies have changed since the nineteenth century. Per the book’s web site:

From corsets to body piercing, The Body Project demonstrates how the preoccupation with the body has intensified and why adolescent girls and their bodies have born the brunt of social change in the twentieth century.

Additional Comments always welcome.

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