Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged feminism

She Said, She Said (3/18/2009)

As a Wellesley alum, I am probably the perfect person to review Kathryn Chetkovich’s She Said, She Said, an intimate portrait of a group of friends who met at a women’s college and are now, years later, forced to contend with many of the sociopolitical issues they faced in the seventies. The triad of feminists, now in varying degrees, is shaken to the core when one of their own, Jamie (Shelley McPherson) reveals that her recent ex-husband Ross (Mark Hofmaier) has raped her.

Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema

Professor Negar Mottahedeh's critical study of post-revolutionary Iranian film industry, Displaced Allegories, is an intelligent, stimulating, and well-written analysis of "a woman's cinema" after 1979. The cinematic industry has been widely criticized by Iranian feminists for its problematic and stereotypical representation of women.

Our City Dreams

A film is the best way to showcase stories in motion—literally and figuratively. Our City Dreams is a combination love letter to overtly feminist artists and the city—New York City—in which they reside. Representing a range of women artists whose age and work span nearly six decades, the film’s scope never becomes too wide or convoluted. Throughout the movie, the lives and careers of the women shift, as some find new success, some take time off, and several celebrate their own artistic retrospectives and milestone birthdays.

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape

The Apostate: My initial reaction when I heard about the Yes Means Yes! anthology was mixed. It seemed that the problem of rape was being used for a catchy slogan's sake (the catchy slogan being a play on the anti-rape "no means no" rule), and not because it made any real sense.

A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World

Memoir can be a tricky genre, with nothing holding its premise together other than the author’s truth. In Marcia Tucker’s case, being an artist and curator also makes her one hell of a writer, a woman with a keen ability to spot details and covey her passion to a larger audience. A Short Life of Trouble is a breezy, enjoyable read as it traces Tucker’s fortuitous rise through the New York art scene, parallel with the surge of second wave feminism in the 1960s.

Feminism and Pop Culture

No matter how sophisticated you believe yourself to be, consuming pop culture is often inevitable in modern life. From reacting to coverage of major news events to understanding how advertising permeates our media landscape, chances are most self-identified feminists have considered how so-called low culture affects our perceptions of our selves and our world.

The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change

UK-based scholar and author Angela McRobbie has written extensively on women in contemporary popular culture.

Speaking Truth to Power

“I’m no longer scared to hear people’s truths, and that has been incredibly liberating,” says feminist writer, filmmaker, and activist Jennifer Baumgardner. Truth-telling has been at the heart of Baumgardner’s work since she left Ms. magazine in the late-90s to become a prominent third wave feminist leader.

The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America

Many people are rightfully weary of discussing and analyzing 9/11. While it could be labeled insensitivity, it more likely has to do with a stifled national discourse, repugnant media spin, and a lack of in-depth processing. For the past several years, we’ve all been hibernating, trying to escape the aftermath of the terrorist attacks rather than actively deconstruct their meaning.

Power Lines: On the Subject of Feminist Alliances

In the past year, I’ve noticed a trend towards bashing the contemporary Women’s Studies programs of U.S. universities. Mostly, I’ve heard critiques of this brand of academic feminism coming from (perhaps not surprisingly) communities of radical feminists, many of whom do not identify as scholars bound by an institution or a set of initials after their names. Myself both in the radical feminist category and also the past recipient of a gendered bachelor’s degree, I can sympathize with the range of emotions this topic can elicit.

Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction

Rosemarie Tong’s Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction offers a clear, thorough introduction to feminist theory.

Margaret Cho’s Beautiful Tour

Margaret Cho’s Beautiful Tour, which began in February 2008, is still scheduled to visit a number of lucky locations throughout the United States. As usual, Cho’s brand of feminist, LGBTQ, activist, and politicized humor was hilarious, raunchy, and thought-provoking. Unlike so much of the comedy gracing television screens lately, Cho continues to infuse her comedy with cutting edge analysis of race, gender, body image, and sexuality.

To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed

Two a.m. When you are young, this is the time that bars close, new love springs unbidden in doorways, and entire dramas are played out in the time it takes a traffic light to change. When you are older, with marriage and children under your belt, it is the hour at which a ringing phone wakes you in terror, not annoyance; when a voice in the darkness signals illness, not invitation; when awakening in a strangely empty bed, one will know that something has gone awfully wrong with the person whose warmth still lingers in the covers.

Live Through This

In the late nineties, playwright, singer-songwriter, and spoken word artist Sabrina Chapadjiev was an impassioned student playwright in college when she experienced an intensely creative period that put her on the brink of self-destruction. She had recently learned that a young, fierce playwright she had long admired, Sarah Kane, had committed suicide, and she was worried.

Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction

Live Through This is truly a feminist work. It takes the expressed experiences from individuals coming from a wide array of backgrounds, who candidly and publicly share their experiences with issues labelled taboo and private, offering strength and conscience to readers everywhere. The format of this work is an anthology of pieces from some of the most groundbreaking American cultural producers.

Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power

Men Speak Out is an important book for feminism.

Queer Queens of Qomedy (08/01/2008)

Lesbians, like feminists, have no sense of humor. Or so we’ve been told… repeatedly. Poppy Champlin and her troupe of hilarious women-loving-women are busting that stereotype wide open. In various venues across the United States, the Queer Queens of Qomedy are met with crowds of queer fans and a hail of riotous laughter. I joined in on the gayety this past Friday night at the historic Birchmere music hall in Alexandria, Virginia, and I must say I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

Feminist Media Reconsidered

Some of the most incisive feminist analysis today is being published in the groundbreaking make/shift magazine. Started by three activists – Jessica Hoffmann, Daria Yudacufski, and Stephanie Abraham, who first worked together as founders and editors of the feminist zine LOUDmouth – make/shift is run by an editorial/publishing collective committed to antiracist, transnational, and queer perspectives.

Herizons Magazine (Spring 2008)

I am not a mainstream media fan, and I haven’t been one for a long time. I like to think that, as I have gotten older, my dynamic and sometimes contradictory critical feminist analysis (can you tell I was a sociology major?) has deepened from the angry polemics of a surly teenager to something a little bit more complex. But, I have to admit, politically speaking, I have been really lazy lately. As I withdrew my attention from celebrity news and headlines that held no interest for me, I wasn’t so conscientious about cultivating a batch of new, alternative news sources.

Sex and the City: The Movie

Far as I can tell, there’s never been a consensus on Sex and the City’s feminist appeal. It shows intimate female relationships, but it’s heteronormative, white, and the characters often talk past each other. The women live (mostly) sexually liberated lives, but they’re nevertheless forever in search of the perfect man to fulfill their emotional needs.

Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War

A book about women's involvement in war that shows, in part, their commitment to nonviolence? It may seem contradictory, but it's just one of the fascinating aspects of this well-researched book, Mobilizing Minerva: American Women in the First World War. Jensen presents case studies ranging from female physicians and aid workers to women in combat, delving into their relationships with the state and the dynamics of violence.

Bitch (Issue #39: Wired)

Having never read an issue of Bitch, I found myself apprehensive when beginning my read of "The Wired Issue." The word "bitch" conjures a menagerie of intimidating persons to mind, and my expectation was that the content would be something similar. While I encountered a few impassioned articles and editorials, the majority of the issue's content was exploratory, explanatory, and thought provoking. The magazine describes itself as the "feminist response to pop culture," and its content covers a range of topics including technology, the media, music, and film.

It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments

If you keep up with the purported leaders of feminist blogging, or if you heard any of the controversy about the John Edwards campaign bloggers last year, the name Amanda Marcotte may ring a bell.

Reclaiming Feminist Motherhood

In 2003, _The New York Times Magazine _published “The Opt-Out Revolution,” by Lisa Belkin, a now nearly infamous contribution to the never-ending “mommy wars” collection of work. The cover story asserted that the nation’s most educated career women were “opting out” of their professional lives to become full-time stay-at-home moms.

Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones

Still unknown to many, the life story of Claudia Jones is equally inspiring and heartbreaking. Guilty of being everything she was labeled, Jones maintained many overlapping identities—feminist, Black Nationalist, Communist, and journalist—working in the early to mid-twentieth century on a wide array of equal rights causes. Her activism a precursor to much of the 1960s American counterculture resistance, for which we often remember recent history’s leaders of color.

Cheryl Ann Webster: Beautiful Women Project (3/20/2008)

When I initially heard about the Beautiful Women Project, I was engaged by the apparently simple nature of its message. I thought of the work as conveying many feminist interpretations of the relationship between feminine constructions of body image and media. On speaking to the artist and viewing the collection, I was struck at the memories it brought up for me.

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories

Aside from the fact that I have two wonderful roommates (one being my male partner) and a massive dog-like cat, I don’t have sleepovers much anymore. I’m a night owl who likes to take walks after midnight and eat in bed, but aside from my usual default companions, the closest thing to a sleepover I’ve had this year was reading Katha Pollitt’s feminist confessions about editing paperback porn, Googling an ex, and ignoring fashion and beauty standards after turning forty. As an admirer of those who confess, I love demolishing formal social boundaries.

Canon / Verses

Being an Ani DiFranco fan has been a part of pretty much every feminist’s rite of passage since she came on the scene in the early ‘90s with the release of her self-titled album. Now seventeen years, two DVDs, and nearly thirty albums (including remixes, tributes, and live discs) later, DiFranco has simultaneously released a retrospective double-CD and book of poetry that show just how much she has grown personally, politically, and artistically.

Strange Piece of Paradise

When I picked up this memoir in early July, I was expecting to navigate a woman’s difficult journey from surviving a brutal, anonymous trauma into an enlightened state through making peace with the crime scene and its effected community. What I did not anticipate was the systemic analysis of social problems, personal depth and conscious processing that this book contains.

Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Girls Gone Wild

As if we needed more proof of the very existence of feminism—and how it has been interpreted through the mainstream culture—Deborah Seigel has handed us a history lesson wrapped in a hot pink love letter. In her nonfiction book, Sisterhood Interrupted, Seigel imparts that not only has feminism had its mis-steps, it's fallen clear away from its foundation.
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