Catherine Nicotera

A Woman's Agenda 2011: Celebrating Movers and Shakers

beth — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

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. Five subject notebooks and highlighter markers, White-Out and staples and hanging file folders, colorful Post-its of differing size: these are a few of my favorite things.

As someone with a fetishistic love of organization, I appreciate a good annual planner. While I generally keep my schedule and to do lists updated using a variety of paperless tools—such as Outlook's calendar feature and Google Docs—there are benefits to having a hard copy version of my schedule: at a glance, I can see everything on my plate without needing to pull out my laptop. It also allows me to step out of the weeds of my day-to-day commitments and reflect about my workload and my year. Finally, because I'm shortly going to be spending the next two years volunteering abroad, I want to have a tangible, coherent vision of what's happening in my life next, during months of transition where I will feel lost and out of control for long stretches of time—and possibly with minimal technology available.

A lot to ask of a planner, I know. Still, A Woman's Agenda 2011 seems a good fit for my needs. Solidly spiral bound and measuring roughly five inches by eight inches, the calendar is hefty enough to accommodate the details of my schedule I need while still being small enough to fit in a purse or messenger bag—and feel manageable. Each month has two blank pages for notes; each week has space for an hour-by-hour breakdown of your schedule. Unfortunately, the weekends get short shrift, with fewer lines allotted for tasks on Saturday and Sunday.

This oversight is compensated for, to an extent, by the inspiration that dots the pages of this calendar: every month has a feminist luminary. Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and American politician Shirley Chisholm both receive two-page profiles, as do several Canadian women like women's hockey team captain Cassie Campbell-Pascall. Every week also has an inspiring quote, presumably by the woman profiled at the start of the month (those these are unattributed, so this is an assumption). Finally, there is a list of feminist websites to visit for further inspiration and community.

While A Woman's Agenda 2011 is flawed, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Snag one for the on-the-go feminists in your life, as they start to reflect on what they'll accomplish in the coming year.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, November 15th 2010

The American Way to Change: How National Service and Volunteers Are Transforming America

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

By Shirley Sagawa

Jossey-Bass

Mom. Apple pie. Service. In The American Way to Change, Shirley Sagawa convincingly argues that volunteering is both deeply rooted in American history, as well as a creative solution to modern societal challenges. Sagawa argues that service can be used to impact many entrenched social ills, including an ineffective public education system, an aging population with fewer family support systems, environmental degradation, and poverty. Service—whether through a national program like AmeriCorps or through individuals working at volunteer-run organizations like Citizen Schools—is a critical component to a functioning civil society, according to Sagawa, and fill gaps between programs offered by the government, businesses, and nonprofits.

Over nine concise chapters, Sagawa outlines American volunteer service and its impact on the people serving, the communities being served, and the nation at large. This impact is not just due to the net social good that's being enacted through these programs, but also through the innovations that result from passionate people dealing with real challenges with limited resources. She also describes the people who serve, who are mostly people in transition: college graduates, retirees, and the recently jobless, among others.

Sagawa, who has been called "the mother of the modern service movement," is a very credible author, and The American Way to Change isn't pure conjecture about the impact volunteers and service organizations could have on the big issues facing America. She describes, at length, the impact of the volunteer-based programs that are presently working in prose both matter-of-fact and moving. For instance, one successful venture is the Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program, which combats recidivism through teaching basic business skills to the incarcerated. Founded by a former Wall Street investor, the program has a return-to-prison rate of less than ten percent, and an employment rate of eighty percent within thirty days of release. This is one of literally dozens of programs that Sagawa profiles that are both very successful and have concrete results that help solve some of America's biggest challenges.

In this fast-moving book, Sagawa makes a strong case for service no longer being considered something "nice" done to pad a resume or pass an afternoon, but an absolutely necessity in changing the United States for the better. Buy it if you're passionate about service, looking for organizations to volunteer with that are making a substantial difference, or simply in need of inspiration about the power of human potential.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, August 16th 2010

All Over the Map

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Laura Fraser

Harmony Books

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. Laura realizes that she has a great apartment and a great job, but there is no great man in her life and she wants to change that.

All Over the Map is a like a less self-indulgent Eat, Pray, Love. Laura Fraser is a freelance writer who travels frequently for her work. In her previous book, An Italian Affair, she wrote about the breakup of her marriage and finding solace in an Italian romance—a cleansing, hedonistic break. In All Over the Map, Laura is in her forties and trying to find balance in her life. The book chronicles several years while she tries her hand at settling down, all while traveling frequently on assignment.

For Laura, the idea of what constitutes "settling down" changes gradually over the duration of the book. Initially, she thinks that she wants a husband and children, but after a series of half-hearted romances, and as her fertility wanes, she realizes that she'd rather find a place to settle herself as an individual, while remaining close to a circle of friends. You can feel her mood lightening as she shifts from an intense focus on finding a man and starting a family, to being a happy woman with a house in Mexico in a town full of artists and divorcees.

Laura Fraser is a frequent contributor to glossy women's magazines, and knows how to craft a gripping sentence. While All Over the Map could be considered a beach read, there are darker and more complex moments in the book. Among the most engrossing chapters are when Laura describes her travel to Italy and Samoa to interview sex workers for articles. These chapters begin as typical travel pieces, singing the beauty of these locations, and end up darker and more menacing. The men and women involved in the sex trade that Laura speaks to are full of anger, fear, and desire, and dealing with women's new roles as breadwinners around the globe while living in largely paternalistic societies. These chapters have really meaty implications about the shifting role of women around the world, and come at a point in Laura's life where she's struggling to become a wife and mother. It's an interesting contrast and comparison, though one Laura doesn't choose to explore.

Ultimately, the book shifts back to Laura's story and the happiness she's able to find for herself. It's a quick read with interesting implications about female vulnerability and independence around the globe. Buy it if you'd like a light, feminist read with some intellectual heft.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, July 21st 2010

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Dubravka Ugresic

Canongate

When she sleeps, her nose scrapes the ceiling of her small cottage. Her breasts hang from a pole over the fireplace, and she has a leg made of iron. She lives alone in a hut on chicken legs, and her gates are topped with human skulls. Passing heroes can flatter her and order her to do their bidding, but heroines must serve her in order to win her favor. Baba Yaga, a complicated crone from Central and Eastern European mythology, is a theme explored and exploded in Dubravka Ugresic's Baba Yaga Laid an Egg.

The novel has three parts, all set in Central and Eastern Europe. In the first, a woman deals with her aging mother's increasing senility and travels to their hometown in search of memory and meaning. In the second, three old women visit a health resort to relax and rejuvenate; romance and death follow. The final part is a meta-level, scholarly treatise of Baba Yaga written written from the perspective of a minor character in the first story and as though a folklorist had teased out all the feminine symbols woven throughout the previous two stories.

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg is an exploration of women growing older in a post-Soviet state where distance between people is becoming the norm. Like Baba Yaga, the older women in these stories are dealing with their aging bodies, are often alone or isolated, and are frequently misunderstood, though they help or hinder other characters as they please. While these women are marginalized, they are definitely not powerless. They have the power to transform lives, and this is usually done through wealth they've accumulated during their younger years.

At its core, this is a book about women, bodies, and journeys. While Baba Yaga Laid an Egg is a thicket of fairytale symbols and references to life in the former Soviet bloc, it can be enjoyed by those who don't have a prior interest in either fairytales or the locale. Ugresic is a clever writer who shows in this book that imaginary lands are dangerous places and little old ladies aren't as toothless as they may appear.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, April 2nd 2010

Westover: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own

admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Laurie Lisle

Wesleyan University Press

Few phrases in the English language conjure up more vivid fantasies than the words all-girl school. The education of women—especially in an all-girl environment—is highly political. The ACLU has made the argument that single-sex education has not proven to be noticeably effective, and that it in fact weakens Title IX. There is a constellation of preconceptions that swirl around single-sex education. Many assume that all-girl schools serve as a kind of cocoon and cage, sheltering girls from the real world to their detriment.

So, why make a case for separate but equal schools for women? Myself a former student of an all-girl school, conflicted about my experience, I was curious to read Westover: Giving Girls a Place of Their Own. Written by an alumna, the book is a history of the 100-year-old private boarding school in Connecticut for girls. This well-researched and beautifully designed book tells the story of the headmistresses and headmasters from the school’s founding to the present, closing with an examination of recent debates about single-sex education.

From the very start, women had a voice in the operation of Westover. The school was founded by headmistress Mary Robbins Hillard, a formidable woman and a strong presence in East Coast schools around the turn of the twentieth century. The school was designed by one of America’s first female architects, Theodate Pope Riddle. Thanks to her ingenuity and taste, Westover's gorgeous campus with grounds sprawling over more than 100 acres is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Around the 1960s, a string of male headmasters took the school's helm; however, the current leader of Westover is female, a former math teacher who helped to bolster the science and math curricula at the school.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the description of the school's shifting demographics and what caused them. When Westover opened, it was white and socioeconomically homogeneous, with the student body largely comprised of the daughters of the East Coast elite. However, in the 1940s, Westover headmistress Louise Dillingham boldly stated that schools should take a stand on behalf "equality of opportunity in democracy,” and advocated for voluntary integration of the school. The school's board stood firm in their support of the headmistress' statement, though it was controversial at the time. While Westover's progressive pro-integration stance led to declining enrollment, there was an eventual increase in diversity at the school: currently, 21% of the student body is "diverse", per Westover's brochures.

The story of Westover is an engaging one charmingly told, and it gives a good overview of the shifting notions of what makes a well-educated woman throughout the twentieth century. However, when making a case for the continued existence of women's schools into the twenty first century as in the last two chapters of the book, the author—and the heads of Westover—rely strongly on difference feminism—the theory that men and women are fundamentally different in how they communicate and approach problems. I must admit that I'm not entirely convinced by this argument: I feel that all girls’ schools succeed—sometimes—because of more supportive parents, the absence of boys and other factors.

Westover isn't meant to be a scholarly treatise on all-girl's schools and so doesn't succeed as one. Don't read it for a well-balanced look at current debates on single-sex education. Do, however, pick it up if you're interested in the history of American education and possibly its future. To quote current headmistress Ann Pollina, "We need to send out a phalanx of girls who are going to do what the world needs, which is to embody those qualities of care and nurture and community that our culture is desperate for right now. The culture needs our girls." Girls—and not just those at Westover—should take note.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, November 21st 2009

The Widows' Might: Widowhood and Gender in Early British America

admin — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:18:00 +0000

By Vivian Bruce Conger

New York University Press

Honest. Scheming. Haughty. Charitable. Sinful. Virtuous. These are just some of the words used to describe American colonial widows by their contemporaries. Widows complicate the classic boundaries of the roles of “wife” or “mother,” and often have been forced out of the private sphere of their households into the public sphere of business in order to support themselves and their families. In The Widows' Might: Widowhood and Gender in Early British America, Vivian Bruce Conger examines the tension and complexity inherent in the public perception of the American colonial widow.

The book takes its title from the Biblical story of the widow’s mite. In the parable, Jesus and his disciples are at the temple, watching as the rich cast in money for the temple treasury. A widow approaches and drops in two mites, the smallest unit of currency at the time. Jesus praises the widow, saying that while others gave away their excess wealth, the widow gave to the temple all she had, despite her poverty. The selfless charity in the Biblical story is meant to be an example for women in the colonies, who were expected to dedicate their lives—and their money—to the greater good, specifically their family and community. Bruce Conger uses this story to illustrate “the mite and the might, the economic and social power” that widows had. She illustrates this power by examining widows’ wills, as will-making indicated that women thought that they had something to give, and that they were valued contributors to their families and communities.

Bruce Conger studied women’s wills and court documents from a 120-year period starting in the 1630s in Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina, to examine the commonalities of widows’ experiences throughout the American colonies. Surprisingly, attitudes towards widows were remarkably consistent across time and place, due to the colonies’ close cultural relationship with Britain. Prescriptive literature imported from Britain—including the Bible, sermons, advice books, and plays—were read by elite women, expounded from the minister’s pulpit, and mentioned in newspapers. In this way, ideas were spread from community to community, and from woman to woman.

Over the course of five chapters, Bruce Conger explores the ideology and the reality of marriage; widows’ interpretations of the law and legal practices; widows’ identity as “fathers” as well as mothers to their children; widows as providers and recipients of charity; and widows in their roles as businesswomen. She focuses on widows who did not remarry, as they were able to define their position in society in ways that widows who remarried were not. These women were able to challenge the stories told about them in the public spheres of church and courthouse by telling stories of their own.

This book is intended for an academic audience, and is somewhat dry at times. However, I found the complexity of rules governing widows’ behavior—and the ways in which women either resisted or internalized them—utterly fascinating. This book is slender, clocking in at about 160 pages of text, followed by lengthy footnotes. Despite its being a quick read, the incongruity of the competing definitions of widow in the book stay with you long after the covers are closed, particularly the words of Cotton Mather: "Some Women have the Names of Men, a little altered, as Jaquet (from Jacoba), Joanna, Jan, Jennet (all from John), Thomasin, Philippa, Frances, Henrietta, Antenia, Julian, Dionysis, and the like; But all our Widows are put upon thus doing the works of Men, may their God help them!"

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, June 13th 2009

Yi As Akh Padshah Bai (There Was a Queen)

admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Directed by Kavita Pai, Hansa Thapliyal

Other Media Communications

Yi As Akh Padshah Bai (There Was a Queen) is a documentary that tells the story of women in Kashmir, the northwestern region of the India currently controlled by Pakistan, India, and China. The directors dub it "the world's most picturesque conflict zone". India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, and conflict has been a constant in the region since the 1990's when Kashmiri separatists began clashing with both Pakistani and Indian forces. Shot between 2005 and 2007 by an all-female crew, the film opens with two people telling stories of their children going missing without warning. Grief and missing children are themes that recur throughout the film.

The documentarians travel between cities and villages, and speak to Kashmiri women about their experience with the conflict. They ask the women what they think will bring about peace. Despite differences in geography and age, the women's experiences are remarkably consistent. Many tell stories about husbands, brothers, and sons being taken from them by armed men in the middle of the day, or being arrested under false pretenses and tortured until they confess to being a separatist. After false confessions have been extracted, the men are released, only to be picked up months later and interrogated again.

Other times, men vanish from their homes, leaving in the middle of the night to join one of the fighting factions. All the women are subjected to violence, either beatings from police or the gunfire and bombings that explode throughout the day. Most of the women can't imagine what would need to be done to bring about peace, and Hajra, a woman with four missing children, remarks, "Anyway, if your heart is rotted, what does it matter if peace will come?" For Hajra, and for many mothers like her, a ceasefire won't bring an end to her mourning.

While Yi As Akh Padshah Bai is concerned with the survivors of the conflict, it also deals with those who are missing and the gaps and silences. People and stories vanish without an explanation, and there is no clear narrative. The difficulty for someone unfamiliar with the Kashmiri conflict or the region is in trying to make sense of what's unspoken. Because Kashmir has a blend of cultures and languages, even the directors—who are themselves Indian, though not entirely fluent in all the local languages—miss pieces of the women's narratives.

Despite the difficulties in translating culture and language, what shines plainly through the film are the Kashmiri women's rage and grief at their powerlessness. The women have no legal recourse to seek restitution for their missing sons and husbands, who are the primary breadwinners for their families. Yi As Akh Padshah Bai is a film that is shocking, heartbreaking, and more than a little confusing.

Written by: Catherine Nicotera, May 29th 2009