Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged feminism

Hey, Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets

Difficulties concentrating in school, shame, depression, guilt, fear, low self-esteem, poor body image, and powerlessness are just some of the repercussions that victims of sexual harassment at school experience, according to research conducted by Girls for Gender Equity (GGE). This Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization works to “improve gender and race relations and socioeconomic conditions for [the] most vulnerable youth and communities of color.” Joanne N. Smith, Mandy Van Deven, and Megan Huppuch of GGE have collaboratively written Hey, Shorty!, which tells GGE’s story, while providing a model for teens to teach their peers what constitutes sexual harassment and how to prevent it. The book also gives activists, educators, parents and students a hands-on guide to combat sexual harassment and violence in their schools and neighborhoods.

Herizons Magazine (Winter 2011)

When I first moved to Canada, Herizons was virtually the only magazine I came across that dealt with feminism and issues concerning women. My understanding of the women’s movement before that point was primarily focused on within the U.S., and it’s not exactly the same. The laws are different in Canada. Thus, they affect women in a different way and Herizons helped me understand that.

Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism

Jessica Yee and I have a lot in common, personally and politically. For one, last year we were both curating collective published works that simultaneously construct and deconstruct contemporary feminist theory while broadening the scope of who is seen as legitimate enough to be a theory-maker. I wasn't aware of her work, and so far as I know, she wasn't aware of mine either. Despite being topically similar, the results of both projects are strikingly different. And I have a few theories about why.

The Scholar and Feminist Online, Issue 8.3 (Polyphonic Feminisms: Acting in Concert)

In hindsight, I probably should have waited to read all of the articles in this issue of Barnard Center for Research on Women’s The Scholar and Feminist Online journal, “Polyphonic Feminisms: Acting in Concert,” before emailing out sections that resonated with me and the work I’m interested in doing.

Correspondence Course: An Epistolary History of Carolee Schneemann and Her Circle

A giant hot pink book filled with nearly 500 pages of letters, emails, and images, when merely considered as an object, Kristine Stiles’s compilation of of artist Carolee Schneemann’s correspondence is intimidating, impressive, and a little bit sexy. The material is no less overwhelming. Carolee Schneemann is an artist whose art played with the boundaries of bodies and embodiment, and of taboo and the abject.

Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen

Unruly Girls, Unrepentant Mothers: Redefining Feminism on Screen by Kathleen Rowe Karlyn is a fascinating look into the movies and television I watched as a kid. As a woman in my mid-twenties, I can safely say that my age group, for the most part, was the target audience when the films and television shows mentioned in the book were being produced. Or, at least, one of the target audiences.

No Excuses: Nine Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power

When I heard Gloria Feldt being interviewed on NPR, I thought I might have some problems with No Excuses, so I asked to review it and follow up with a telephone interview of Feldt. When I read the book, my first impression was confirmed. After an hour interview with Feldt, who I had met previously in Arizona, she seemed such a nice, genuine person concerned for women that I was torn about what to do with the review.

Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency

Motherhood is often a topic of confusion or contention among feminists. The process of birthing demonstrates just how awesome and powerful women’s bodies are. However, the institution of motherhood is constructed in ways that oppress women and privilege certain classes, races, and sexualities.

Goddess Durga and Sacred Female Power

Author Laura Amazzone offers her own intimate experiences (including the most painful ones) and personal growth in a book that is richly dense with information and observation. Goddess Durga and Sacred Female Power encompasses spirituality, mythology, feminism, history, travel, and philosophy. Nearly every paragraph made me set the book down to consider or visualize ideas. In a very tight nutshell: Amazzone delves into the multicultural history and symbolism of this incarnation of the Goddess, offering a model of spirituality and feminism to a world that greatly needs it.

Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks, and Consumer Culture

In the past decade, America cinema has shown a change towards producing more women-centered movies, depicting independent unmarried women who seek out their own empowerment and gradually changing society’s view of single women. The women of Sex and the City, for instance, celebrate their singledom, showing it not to be the pitiable state it was once thought to be. While these women possess many feminist qualities, they also have attributes that separate them from the traditional ideals of feminism, a perspective which media studies scholar Hilary Radner labels neo-feminist in her current work, Neo-Feminist Cinema.

Written on the Body of The Erasable Woman

When did you start writing poetry? At a very young age—probably when I started writing with chalk on my bathroom door or adding my own two cents to my parents’ biology textbooks they tell me I always furiously flipped through. I experienced a lot of racism, (hetero)sexism, and different kinds of regulation at a young age too, and I think what that did was make me really quiet and closed up in a lot of ways.

Women's History Has Many Points of View

With the question "who gets to write history?" at its center, RE/VISIONIST is an online publication started by a handful of graduate students at Sarah Lawrence College who study women's history. Many historians push to catalog the discipline of history as a pure science, but this group is instead interested in critiquing the supposed objectivity of their discipline, and giving credence to subjective perspectives. Even more, the editors aim to analyze history through the lens of multiple feminisms.

Made in Dagenham

I am not much for plays. I generally prefer to sit bundled in my comforter, wine in hand, and watch a movie. However, I was recently convinced by a friend to join her for Mrs. Warren’s Profession, the main attraction of which was Sally Hawkins. I know Sally Hawkins only from Happy-Go-Lucky where her cheerfulness, tireless as the Sony synopsis describes, was also guileless and irritating.

Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women

As we entered our hotel after a day of sightseeing while on vacation in New York City in September 1984, my father lifted me onto his shoulders so I could see what the fuss was all about in the lobby. The lights were bright and there were lots of tall men in suits all around us. With my father’s direction, I could see the backs of the heads of the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential candidates trying to navigate the crowd. I can still picture the back of Geraldine Ferraro’s head; all I remember from that moment was that her hair was blond and in a hairstyle similar to my mother’s.

A Woman's Agenda 2011: Celebrating Movers and Shakers

Whenever I walk into an office supply store, my heart bursts into song. Traipsing rapturously down the aisles of Staples or Office Depot, it's all I can do not to spin like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

The Material of Knowledge: Feminist Disclosures

This is a book for the post post-modernist thinker. Written by professor of political science, Susan Hekman, The Material of Knowledge: Feminist Disclosures seeks to alleviate the theorist's conundrum with the material consequences in the events of natural disaster and destruction. Many theorists today are curiously silent on tsunamis, terrorist attacks, and earthquakes and Hekman sees this as a problem of post-modern thinking.

Critical Intersections: Reproductive and Economic Justice Conference (9/22/2010)

On an unseasonably hot and humid day in September, I took the train from Brooklyn to 116th Street to attend the Critical Intersections: Reproductive and Economic Justice conference, which was held at Barnard College's new Diana Center. Having suffered a massive allergy attack due to the weird weather, I shuffled quickly across the Barnard campus and entered just as the conference's feature film and lunch break were finishing up.

I Spit On Your Grave

There's very little chance of spoiling anyone with this review. The original I Spit On Your Grave is notorious, if not for its legend then for its lingering controversy, especially amongst feminists. Meir Zarchi, writer and director of the 1978 film, apparently based his simple rape-revenge story on his own experience finding a woman who had been brutally beaten and raped near a park in New York City.

Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939

This past May, the birth control pill celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. News outlets all over the country covered the story, yet the early years of the birth control movement were seldom mentioned. A lack of academic research has led to the history of the early birth control movement being plagued by misinformation, myth, and appropriation by the right, particularly regarding the history of the movement’s founder, Margaret Sanger.

African Americans Doing Feminism: Putting Theory into Everyday Practice

There are many well-meaning people in society who identify as feminists, yet do not know what they can do to put their feminist ideals into action. African Americans Doing Feminism is an excellent resource for these people.

Glamour: Women, History, Feminism

The word glamour has lost a lot of its allure and power these days, bandied about by fashion writers who use glamour interchangeably with polished, chic, elegant, and sophisticated.

UK Feminista Summer School (7/31 - 8/1/2010)

UK Feminista was started by Kat Banyard, the author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today, who gave a particularly inspiring speech during the first panel, "The Importance of Feminist Organising." The enormous strength of the first day of summer school was its focus on practice.

Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement

What happened to the feminist movement that meant so much to all of us in the 1970s? Is it dead and gone for good? The answer is no, and UK authors Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune are on a mission to spread the word. “Article after article proclaimed that feminism was dead,” they write, “and stated that young people in particular are uninterested in this once vital movement.

The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage

The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage, written by Iran native Roxana Shirazi, was a complete and utter waste of my time. The book was championed by writers Neil Strauss and Anthony Bozza, who met up with Shirazi one faithful day and immediately became enthralled by her tails of debauchery with bad up and coming rock ‘n’ roll bands, as well as some oldies, but not so goodies like Guns N’ Roses.

It's Not That I'm Bitter...: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World

Challenging the norms of our modern society and how the feminist movement has evolved into a misfire of sorts (a mix of improvements with unexpected setbacks), Gina Barreca wrote her book It’s Not that I’m Bitter... to share her perspective.

All Over the Map

Author Laura Fraser has just celebrated her fortieth birthday and is attending a college reunion. While observing the range of accomplishments that have been accumulated over the years by her former classmates—and mentally comparing herself with them—a friend shares with Laura the idea of a Manhattan trifecta: you can, over the course of your life, have the perfect relationship, the perfect job, and the perfect apartment. Just not all at once.

The Carrie Diaries

Sex and the City the television series ended six years ago. One might find this hard to believe, considering the characters and the lavish lifestyles they live have been far from gone in the mainstream media.

The Promise of Happiness

In the introduction to her new book The Promise of Happiness, Sara Ahmed asks readers a provocative question: “Do we consent to happiness? And what are we consenting to, if or when we consent to happiness?” Ahmed takes on the elusive topic of happiness not to define it, but to look at how it works. Amazingly, this book does not get trapped in abstraction.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Bella Swan has never been a character I’ve related to. She’s frustratingly timid, overwhelmingly insecure, and apparently has no interests or hobbies aside from her obsession with Edward Cullen. Sure, she’s had her redeeming moments, and yes, it was Bella who saved Edward from exposing himself to the Volturi in New Moon.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem

This fascinating novel, which won France's Grand Prix Littéraire de la Femme, offers readers a vivid re-imagining of the life of a historical figure mentioned only briefly in the transcripts of the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials: a slave woman of Caribbean origins, accused of practicing voodoo.
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