Books on/for Young Feminists

The following discussion of books and other works on/by/for young
feminists appeared on WMST-L in January 2004.  For additional
WMST-L files available on the Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

hi everyone,

i am revising my intro to women's studies syllabus.  i would like to add
an anthology that contains essays written by young feminists -- with a
recent publication date.  our library does not contain a significant
number of women's studies materials, so i cannot go to the library and
browse.  i would greatly appreciate suggestions.

thanks,

jo

Jo Trigilio
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Philosophy
Director of Gender Studies
Bentley College
jtrigilio  AT  bentley.edu

Jo,
Have you tried ~Manifesto!~
Gill Miller
millerg  AT  denison.edu

Hi Jo and other~
Yes, I agree that _Manifesta_ is good as are:
Yentl's Revenge
Listen Up
To Be Real
Rebel, Rogue, Mischievous Babe: Stories about Being a Powerful Girl (authors
are girls and young women from across Canada)
A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World

There are also several chapters in Robin Morgan's Sisterhood is Forever that
you might find useful.

Cheers~
Janni

jaragon  AT  cox.net
www.janniaragon.com

As suggested, Manifesta is a great book about third wave feminism and
young feminists.  (Note that it's not an anthology, though it is a good
read.)

The "classic" anthologies - both fantastic compilations of third-wave
feminist writings - are:
  To Be Real : Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism
  Rebecca Walker (ed.) - 1995

  Listen Up : Voices from the New Feminist Generation
  Barbara Findlen (ed.) - 1995 (There's a new "expanded edition" that came
  out in 2001)

More recently, and predominantly Canadian in origin, is:
  Turbo Chicks: Talking Young Feminisms
  Allyson Mitchell, Lisa Bryn Rundle & Lara Kararian (eds). - 2001

Other interesting anthologies:
  Yell-Oh Girls!: Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing
  Up Asian American
  Vickie Lam (ed)

  Body Outlaws: On Body Image and Identity
  Ophira Edut (ed)
  (Originally published as Adios, Barbie)

  Yentl's Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism
  Danya Ruttenberg (ed)

If you want to come close to "browsing" these, try looking them up on
amazon - several have tables of contents and even excerpts online.

--jona

-=-=-
JonaRose Feinberg
UCSD Communication
jona  AT  ucsd.edu

Yentyl's Revenge:  The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism
eds.  Dayna Ruittenberg; forward by Susannah Heschel
Seal Press
2001

Our intro classes are using "Catching a Wave," edited by Alison
Piepmeier and Rory Block of Vanderbilt, and though I haven't used it, I
understand it's working well. Their intent was to incorporate more
theoretical readings with those personal accounts typical of 3rd wave
anthologies......

I have used most of the books suggested as Third Wave anthologies but I
have also used:

for global perspectives: Hernßndez, Daisy, and Rehman, Bushra. (Eds.).
(2002). Colonize This! Young Women of Color on TodayÆs Feminism. New
York: Seal Press.

for media issues: hooks, bell Outlaw culture : resisting
representations. NY: Routledge, 1994.

for essays about going online: Harcourt, Wendy, (Ed). (1999).
Women  AT  Internet. Creating new cultures in cyberspace. London: Zed.

for GLBT/stereotypes: Yamaguchi, Lynne, and Karen Barber, Eds. Tomboys!
Tales of Dyke Derring-Do. Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1995.

Web sites for Girlie (or lipstick) Fems:
<http://www.fem-me.com/girliesites.html>

Tess Pierce
kick ass liberal curmudgeon
tess  AT  etresoft.com
<www.tess.ws>

In my Intro WS course, I use Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist
Generation, edited by Barbara Findlen.  My students love this book, it
fosters more discussion than class time will allow, and the cost is
nominal.

Best of luck

Amber R. Clifford
Central Missouri State University

You also might want to check out excerpts from Sex & single girls:
Straight and queer women on sexuality, edited by Lee Damsky.

Also, the Bust Guide to the New Girl Order.

Colonize This and Listen Up are great.  I will mention that
Manifesta has been described by my students as "skinny straight
whitegirl feminism."  My students at a state college in Minnesota
loved it, but would have no parts of it at my present, liberal
college.  In fact, one of the founders of New Moon magazine goes
here and claims that what is written about the magazine in Manifesta
is completely inaccurate.  There is also very little discussion of race,
sexual orientation, or class.   It is very similar to the Bust Guide.
However, the section on activism in Manifesta is very good.

Ms. magazine has incorporated the voices of younger
women and I have used articles from that.

Christine Smith
Antioch College
casmith  AT  antioch-college.edu

>I use Listen Up and students love it but I personally don't think it has a
>lot of substance.

Diana Scully, Ph.D.
Director of Women's Studies/ Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies
Virginia Commonwealth University
Box 843060
Richmond, VA 23284
dhscully  AT  vcu.edu

Another good one -- "Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's
Feminism", edited by Daisy Hernßndez and Bushra Rehman.

Kate (kbride  AT  nf.sympatico.ca)

Jo,

You might have a look at Catching a Wave:  Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st
Century (Northeastern UP, 2003), which Rory Dicker and I edited.  It's a
collection of essays by young feminists, and the book is organized in a kind
of consciousness raising format--each section takes the reader through a
stage in a developmental process of coming to feminism.  We put the book
together with WS classes in mind.

For more info, have a look at my web
page--www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/piepmeier.

--Alison

Alison Piepmeier, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Women's Studies Program
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN  37235
a.piepmeier  AT  vanderbilt.edu

I have had success with

Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman, ed. 2002. Colonize This: young women of
color on today's feminism. Seattle, WA: Seal Press. 1-58005-067-0.

Barbara Findlen, ed.  2002.  Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist
Generation.  Seattle: Seal Press.  1-58005-054-9.

Both are collections of short first-person narratives by young women.

I also regularly use

Inga Muscio.  1998.  Cunt: A Declaration of Independence.  Seattle:  Seal
Press.  1-58005-015-8.

and have also used a bit of Manifesta.  Both are essentially repotted
second-wave radical feminism.  In this genre, Cunt is superior.  But I
also still have good success with Sisterhood is Powerful!

Eileen Bresnahan
Colorado College
ebresnahan  AT  coloradocollege.edu

I'm a big fan of Colonize This! which is writing by young women of color.

Emily Regan Wills
Political Action Coordinator, Yale Women's Center
emily.wills  AT  yale.edu

I suggest having students check the NOW Young Feminist website:
http://www.now.org/issues/young/taskforce/yf.html

There are profiles (in their own words) of the young feminists aged 30
or under appointed to advise on issues regarding young feminists in
the organization.

>From website:
"The task force members are a fascinating and diverse groupùsome in
high school, some in college or graduate school, some working, many
races and backgroundsùwith impressive accomplishments and enormous
interest in women's rights and equal opportunities, and geographically
representing eight of the nine NOW regions.
Casey Acierno (New Jersey) | Lauren Besser (Wisconsin)
Lina Cho (Massachusetts) | Erin Hanna (Rhode Island)
Ellie Klimas (Florida) | Allendra Letsome (Maryland)
Erin Matson (Minnesota) | Susannah Northart (Tennessee)
Atima Omara-Alwala (Virginia) | Jessica Rodriguez (Pennsylvania)
Alexandra Suich (California) | Sarah Walton (Oregon)"

Reading these profiles can lead to some interesting discussions.

Karen Bojar
Coordinator of Women's Studies Program
Community College of Philadelphia
1700 Spring Garden Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
215/751-8331 or kbojar  AT  ccp.edu

I'm using Manifesta this semester. It's very student-friendly. One of
the authors, Amy Richards, has a strong presence on the internet with
her feminist.com column "Ask Amy." Young women relate to her.

I also considered using Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing
Feminism, edited by Heywood and Drake.

I've used Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation, edited
by Findlen, in the past. It's good if you're looking for personal
essays.

If you assign websites to explore, as I do occasionally, you might
consider www.thirdwavefoundation.org/

Peace,
Shereen Siddiqui
Florida Atlantic University
siddiqui  AT  fau.edu

On 1/18/04 12:25 PM, "SHEREEN SIDDIQUI" <siddiqui  AT  FAU.EDU> wrote:
> I'm using Manifesta this semester. It's very student-friendly. One of
> the authors, Amy Richards, has a strong presence on the internet with
> her feminist.com column "Ask Amy." Young women relate to her.

Certainly, some young women do. But which ones? I'm thinking
mostly white, because "Manifesta" repeatedly dismisses "accusation
of racism within feminism" as backlash against feminism rather
than a real concern for feminists of colour and anti-racist white
feminists (later in the book, the authors do offer one sentence
that says, well, there were some racist stuff too).

I'm also thinking mostly straight, because "Manifesta" positions
bisexuality as a convenient tool for straight women to experiment
with their sexuality rather than its own legitimate sexual identity
or experience.

And I'm thinking mostly middle-class, because the particular
feminist achievements and advances "Manifesta" speaks about--e.g.
thirty years ago it was hard for women to go to college; now women
can go to college if they want to, or thirty years ago women were
to stay at home but today women can pursue career--are specific
changes experienced by the middle-class American women.

Which is not to say that that book is all bad, or that it should
not have been published. I realize that it's not fair to expect
a book to speak for all of its authors' generation, and so my
criticism is directed not toward the book itself, but to those
who use the book as the representative of young women's thinking.

My "research" on third wave feminisms used to consist of reading
scrawled letters and words of obscure feminist 'zines and
listening to the almost incoherent lyrics of Riot Grrrl tapes
recorded at someone's bedroom. Today it has become so much easier
because there are tons of books and anthologies on the topic being
sold at the bookstore, but I fear that the presence of established
intermediaries such as publishers and editors have contaminated
what people hear about.

Rules for talking about third wave feminisms:

1) "Third wave feminism" does not equal "young women's feminism."
Many older (and not so old) women have moved beyond their starting
point and are now part of the third wave. And someone simply being
young does not make it third wave feminism any more than someone
being a woman makes her a feminist.

2) "Third wave feminism" is older than what you think. Certainly
older than "Manifesta." Earlier "third wave" anthologies, especially
"Third Wave Agenda," make it clear that the "third wave feminisms"
sprung out of the work of women of colour and working-class women.

3) Don't believe everything you read or hear about young women
or feminists in the media--if you don't want young women not to
believe everything they hear about the "70s feminists."

4) "Third wave" publications are not the direct representation of
the third wave feminisms itself, but a product of the power
dynamics within the third wave feminisms, amplified by its
interaction with the broader social structures of power. Think
about what's *not* being published.

5) Let students teach you about their feminisms.


Emi K. <emi  AT  eminism.org>
www.confluere.com

--
http://eminism.org/ * Putting the Emi back in Feminism since 1975.

While I realize that talking about feminisms may have helped define feminism
by group, activity and time period, I think Emi's post is clear that it is,
to some degree, an inaccurate grouping or classification and doesn't quite
grasp the territory. Defining half for the whole was the error of men who
left women out repeatedly, and the defining of waves has the same structural
error. I agree with Emi but my view is larger.

Personally, after my historical research, I have always had a problem with
the ideas of waves of feminism because it seems to distort history as well.
I understand the reasons and benefits of having defined the waves, but from
my view, I have always seen the waves as part of a larger picture, the
ocean- if I may use the analogy. And the analogy for me fits in two ways,
that the waves are only defining certain activities, primarily waves
crashing on the shore, as if these are the most important. But being able to
know how the whole body of water moves that allows the rhythmic waves to
touch land is important. It is also important to not neglect the activity
that is happening under the water's surface that appears as if nothing is
happening inbetween the waves while in fact the whole body of water is
constantly moving. There are many insights that can be drawn from changing
perspective.

So, that's my view and has been for awhile, and I was wondering i if there
has been any body that has a similar view, if there has been any discussion,
or publications on the topic.

karen

Read Sara Evans' TIDAL WAVE. She beautifully explores the nuances of the
metaphor and is interested in all parts of the wave, not just the crash
at the end.
                                Temma Berg



------------------------------
Temma F. Berg
Professor of English
Coordinator of Women's Studies
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg PA 17325
tberg  AT  gettysburg.edu
717-337-6753

    For more guidance, see:
http://research.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/jane1.html.  In my contribution on
page 5, I argue that the ideas of one generation can be explained by the
events in their childhood.  In the ensuing months, I became convinced that
the "waves" concept is also supported by demographics--the Second Wave
represents the women of the Baby Boom, while the Third Wave represents the
children of the Baby Boom, or "Gen X and Y."  In other words, the
dramatically high fertility rate of U.S. women from 1946 to 1964, compounded
with the social turmoil stirred by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights
movement, made the Second Wave of feminism almost inevitable, and the Third
Wave was largely inevitable after the Baby Boom launched the Second Wave.

    I have paged through "Catching a Wave," and it seemed more conscious of
race and class issues than "Manifesta."  "Catching a Wave" has an article by
Emi Koyama, which is why I was excited to examine it.

   Lastly, I reviewed "Tidal Wave" in the Fall 2003 issue of our department
newsletter:  http://www.mnsu.edu/womenst/newlettereditionsof.htm, page 5.
Evans uses "waves" more as a thematic device than a figurative reference to
demographics, regardless, the book is excellent.  Although I went a bit
overboard (we are at sea with these nautical references!), I still consider
"Tidal Wave" the "definitive" book on the "history of American feminist
struggles over the past 40 years."

Hannah Miyamoto
Women's Studies Graduate Student
Minn. State Univ., Mankato
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com

There is one small point I would like to add to this discussion.

I think that one of the dramatic demographic characteristics of the
so-called Third Wave (I am not wedded to wave theory) is the much higher
rate of higher education among this generation and their childlessness
either because they have not yet had children or they plan not to have any.

Most of the feminists I worked with in the 70s and 80s had four-year
degrees. Most of them--lesbian or not--had children. Most had stay-at-home
mothers or mothers who had come up working-class and had always had to
work. However, the spread, from Molly Yard (91), Betty Friedan (who will be
83 in February), Gloria Steinem (who will be 70 in March) and Eleanor Smeal
(who will be  65 this July) , Lillian Faderman (62), Patricia Ireland (58)
to people like me--I just turned 53--means that the so-called second wave
encompasses a few generations. The ideology of these women depends on their
political affiliations, marital status, education, where they came into the
movement, who defined their leadership, etc.

You can't put Betty Friedan and Patricia Ireland on the same page,
ideologically; but you could put Molly Yard with me, despite an age
difference of almost forty years.

Dra. Rosa Maria Pegueros, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of History
    & Women's Studies Program
217C Washburn Hall
80 Upper College Road, Suite 3
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, RI 02881
         E:mail: pegueros  AT  uri.edu

Web pages:
http://www.uri.edu/personal/rpe2836u/
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/pegueros.htm
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I distrust those people who know so well what God
wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides
with their own desires."     -- Susan B. Anthony.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On 1/20/04 9:57 PM, "Hannah Miyamoto" <hsmiyamoto  AT  MSN.COM> wrote:
> I have paged through "Catching a Wave," and it seemed more
> conscious of race and class issues than "Manifesta."  "Catching
> a Wave" has an article by Emi Koyama, which is why I was excited
> to examine it.

Well, thanks. But that is an article I wrote way back in 1999,
which may not seem "way back" to some of you, but it is for me
since that's when I was still working toward my bacheler's degree
and had just moved to a big city for the first time in my life.
As you know, it takes a long time for a paper to go through the
publishing world...

The paper, "The Transfeminist Manifesto," is a radical feminist
text that followed the radical feminist orthodoxy as closely
as possible while attempting to make a pro-transsexual and
transgender argument. The problem is that in the process I had
to limit myself to defending only certain *kind* of trans people,
while remaining silent about others because they did not fit
into the radical feminist worldview that I was basing my argument
on. Its consideration of race, class, and other social factors
was also weak, because at the time I did not feel confident
enough to challenge the primacy of sexism as the fundamental
oppression.

At best, the paper was my attempt to reconcile the radical
feminist views I had been taught at undergraduate Women's Studies
courses and my frustration at a major bashing campaign against
a transsexual woman friend that was happening at the time in
Portland, Oregon lesbian community (you can read about this
particular transphobic incident in Diana Courvant's piece,
"Speaking of Privileges," in "This Bridge We Call Home" as well
as Deke Law's "Evolution" in "This is What Lesbian Looks Like").

I have since come to disagree with much of what I wrote in the
"Manifesto" itself, as I became more confortable discussing
trans issues (and anti-racism, anti-classism, and so on) on
its own merit rather than from within a preconceived framework,
and so the published version of the "Manifesto" in "Cathing
the Wave" now includes a "postscript" that explains this and
invites more transfeminist manifestos to be produced.

So anyway--if any of you ever use this paper in the class, I'd
appreciate it if you could specifically discuss this change in
the author's perspectives as expressed in the "postscript"
section.


Emi K. <emi  AT  eminism.org>
Confluere: A Network for Social Change <www.confluere.com>
--
http://eminism.org/ * Putting the Emi back in Feminism since 1975.

I don't think this piece has shown up in the discussion of
waves...apologies if message is redundant.

See

Springer, Kimberly. 2002. "Third Wave Black Feminism?" Signs 27: 1059-1082.

followed by 3 (i think) replies to her piece and a final reply by springer.

laura.kramer  AT  montclair.edu