Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged feminist

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.

All the Strays

Sitting in a warm living room with your closest friends enjoying each other’s thoughts and company is exactly how you feel when the first song of this album strums - and it only gets better from there. Antara’s third solo album, All the Strays, comes at you like a warm cup of coffee… a fall evening by the fire… or an embrace of an old friend.

Technologies of Intuition

Jennifer Fisher makes an interesting observation in her introduction to Technologies of Intuition. If we define intuition as knowing without a conscious understanding of how something is known, there are two fields of endeavor which value intuition: art and spiritualism.

The Baby Lottery

Kathryn Trueblood takes on the weighty issues of motherhood in the age of abortion in her first novel, The Baby Lottery. (Trueblood is also the author of a book of short stories, The Sperm Donor’s Daughter.) Her characters are a circle of friends who have stayed together from college into their thirties. One is preparing for an abortion and coping with an overbearing husband. One is a nurse working with abortion providers.

The Women Incendiaries

The Women Incendiaries was reprinted in paperback this year from the nonprofit book publisher, Haymarket Books. This classic feminist text was first published in France in 1963 and translated to English three years later.

Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration

Third Wave Feminism opens with not only a foreword by Imelda Whelehan and introduction by the editors, but with note on the individual essayists included in the book.

I Had an Abortion

This documentary cuts to the core of reproductive freedom—to the stories of women's lives as told by ten women themselves. Distributed by Women Make Movies, the film features detailed accounts from a number of women, ages twenty-one to eighty-five, from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds who had abortions under different circumstances and at different points in their lives. Their stories are complicated and grounding - from a woman who had an abortion as a Mormon high school student in Utah, to a woman who had one at forty-four, married and with children.

Working the Skies: The Fast-Paced, Disorienting World of the Flight Attendant

In Working the Skies, Drew Whitelegg takes the interviews and study of a multitude of flight attendants and creates a readable, enjoyable tale of the perils and possibilities flight attendants face. The book is part psychology, part history and part cultural study with plenty of personal tales from retired and active flight attendants.

Free Food for Millionaires

Free Food for Millionaires is a coming of age novel by prize-winning author Min Jin Lee. It follows the main character, Casey, from her posh college graduation through her uncertainty about what to do with the rest of her life.

Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina

Hijas Americanas is a book that discusses the issues that Latinas raised in the United States face. It’s an extensive analysis of cultural differences and the different ways in which they assimilate, while still incorporating the values and traditions ingrained by family. Rosie Molinary conducted an extensive survey (which she includes at the end of the book) and based her book both on her findings and on her experiences growing up.

Global Feminisms

Global Feminisms is a beautifully compiled collection of feminist art from all over the world, literally. Instead of focusing on works from the past, however, the earliest of the pieces in this book date from the year 1990 and looks forward to the future of feminism and art. The countless paintings, sculptures, pieces of installation art, photographs, portraits, etc. come from fifty countries and all continents (excluding Antarctica), and challenges the notion that feminism is Western-centric and male defined.

Take Off: American All-Girl Bands During WWII

To all naïve readers who still think Kathleen Hanna, Courtney Love or Liz Phair were doing anything new by boldly storming their way into previously male territory, may I suggest Tonya Bolden’s Take Off?

Latina Activists Across Borders: Women's Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas

Milagros Pena’s book, Latina Activists Across Borders, is a significant attempt at recording the oral histories of women responsible for developing and running NGOs (non governmental organizations) in Mexico and the border cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez.

Sexy Thrills: Undressing the Erotic Thriller

Growing up, I loved Hitchcock films and film noir, an odd choice for a child who came of age with color television, Rambo and Reagan. Fast forward to post-college years later when I took a job at a video rental store to support a poorly stipend internship, where ninety percent of the store’s revenue was from the sale and rental of adult films. Did Barbara Stanwyck and Tipi Hendren lead to this? According to Nina K.

off our backs:the feminist newsjournal (Women and Fundamentalisms)

off our backs has been published continuously since 1970. These people know what they’re doing. Their position as such a long-running magazine gives them authority. The journal provides irrefutable evidence that women are being brutally oppressed in the United States and around the world. The cover of volume xxxvi, number 3 asks, “Is there room in heaven for women?” and focuses on the damage being done by the religious right—all of the religious right, not just Christians—and how the religious right functions through misogyny.

Because I’m Awesome

Confession time: I’m a child of the '80s, but I never listened to Madonna, Prince or even the Talking Heads. I like to think I came of age with Gwen Stefani, Tori Amos and, well, Ani Difranco. Even when I was younger, lyrics took precedence over sound, substance or production, and I think these are the reasons why the first riff of The Dollyrots new album, Because I’m Awesome, was instantly appealing. With quick guitars, a girl singer and short, snappy songs, I was immediately hooked.

Belva Lockwood, The Woman Who Would Be President

In a moment of autobiographical reflection, Belva Lockwood once stated that while her work as an equal rights activist had failed to raise the dead, it had “awakened the living.” Jill Norgren’s biography of Lockwood, a little known but extremely important historical figure should and could awaken all of us to live a life of conviction and activism. At 232 pages long, Norgren eloquently and succinctly educates the reader on the story of the first woman to ever

Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood after a Lifetime of Ambivalence

After reading the first few pages of Baby Love in the aisle of a midtown Manhattan Barnes and Noble, I bought a brand new hardcover copy. In recent interviews Walker has said that this is the book she wishes she'd had to read when she was in her twenties. I thank her for writing it.

Balls

As I listened to Elizabeth Cook’s new album Balls, I wanted to open the window and scream, “Why doesn’t country radio play her songs?” I love country music that sounds authentic, the kind that one has to search the internet to find. Cook’s music definitely fits the bill. I really appreciated the blend of different old-time sounds: bluegrass, rockabilly and traditional country.

Gaining Ground: A Tool for Advancing Reproductive Rights Law Reform

Any act, implicit or implied, that limits or refuses a woman reproductive self-determination is a violation of her human rights. Countries have begun to move forward on this issue via the reformation of existing laws and the implementation of new ones. While progress appears to be afoot, many women remain without access to a safe pregnancy and childbirth, the right to a legal abortion, the right to use birth control and the right to equal partnership within a marriage.

Figures of Resistance: Essays in Feminist Theory

Figures of Resistance is a collection of essays, including previously unpublished lectures and essays, by the absolutely brilliant, feminist thinker Teresa de Lauretis. The texts in this collection span from the concept of feminist aesthetics (or deaesthetics) in film as well as the notion of the narrative, and lesbianism.

How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time

Before female adolescents in America had Oakland/Portland’s Bitch or Chicago’s VenusZine for feminism 101, there was New York City’s Sassy. In How Sassy Changed My Life, readers are given a magazine-size book that reads like a nostalgic love letter chronicling one of women’s crucial marks in journalism's history.

$pread Magazine

There is perhaps no profession as stereotyped, demonized, discriminated against, glamorized, unregulated and controversial as sex work. As a person who lives in a liberal bubble, I was shocked to hear a segment on a local radio station the other day that asked male listeners if they would ever date a stripper. The callers’ responses were appalling; one particularly vicious man called in and proclaimed he’d “rather date a murderer than a stripper.” This is why $pread Magazine is so important.

The Very Best of Lisa Loeb

Lisa Loeb is the kind of woman that I think, deep down, all of us sorta want to be. Maybe not entirely (because how many people can really pull off those cat’s eye frame glasses? Not many, my friends!), but in some little way. She’s smart, she’s a great songwriter, she plays guitar, she’s graceful and amusingly self-effacing and almost effortlessly pretty. She’s like the quiet, thinking girl of feminist-minded pop. Her songs exude a sense, somewhat difficult to pin down, but there nonetheless, that, regardless of the heartache and trouble they endure, women are strong, worthwhile people.

Waitress

The untimely murder of indie heroine director and producer Adrienne Shelley was inevitably on my mind as I watched her supporting performance. Waitress is set up to make you love it, and for many reasons, one can. Lush colors, laugh out loud humor and delicious-looking pies are enticing.

Swarm

If you love poetry—scratch that—if you love powerfully articulate, passionate prose meant to stir up your inner emotions and inspire you to stand up and create change, then you’ll love the brilliance that queer poet/activist Andrea Gibson serves up aplenty in Swarm. Primarily recorded in a bedroom, Swarm also contains a handful of live tracks that allow the listener to taste the raw energy of her live performance. The self-released album came out in 2004, yet the poignant words, occasionally accompanied by a backdrop of acoustic guitar, cut into you like knives and remain just as rel
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