Chelsey Clammer

Shark Girls

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Shark Girls presents the reader with something horrific, and turns it into something humane. When a shark attacks eight-year-old Willa, her older sister Scat realizes that their lives are about to shift. At school, Scat becomes the one made fun of, because her peers don’t know what to do with the traumatic situation, but they know it would be mean to make fun of the victim of a shark attack. They have to place their confused and scared feelings somewhere, and so Scat becomes the bearer of their vulnerabilities.

As the sisters age, they both respond to the traumatic event in their own ways. Scat becomes a photographer of disasters and a pretty good drunk. Willa becomes more of a mythological force in the novel, as the media and her community label her “Shark Girl,” and believe that she has supernatural powers. While Willa and the shark attack are central to the story, the novel becomes more of a story about dealing with trauma, and learning how it affects all areas of our lives. Disability and the physicality of bodies is beautifully wrestled with throughout all of Shark Girls_, as they create visual reminders of tough emotional realities.

While the aftermath of the shark attack is the main setting to this novel, there is a cursory character development in the story that intrigued me. The girls’ mother, Jaycee, is a woman of her own actions. She has her children call her “Jaycee” because her name is not and never will be “Mom.” After giving birth to each one of her three children, Jaycee allowed herself the space to feel depressed, and didn’t push herself to be a mother until the wave of postpartum depression rolled over her. Jaycee comes off as being harsh and possibly uncaring, but I think there is also something be said here about how a woman can choose her life even in the face of motherhood. How much should a mother have to sacrifice her own identity in order to be viewed as a “good” mother?

Feminism is slowly making its move into the lives of these characters, but in the mix of trying to figure out what that means, the shark attack occurs and finding identity takes on a new path. Shark Girls_ reminds us that we haunted by our own pasts. But more than a story of personal ghosts and tragedy, we are reminded that the fragility of our bodies can become something to be in awe of, something we can be frightened of, and something we can try and forget in order to keep on living. Either path we choose, however, is a path that will always lead back to where we came from.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, January 26th 2010

Truth Belt: The Westie

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Truth

As more companies are becoming earth and animal-friendly, and the DIY movement has seen resurgence in the past few years, I have been on the lookout for a good selection of quality vegan belts. I’ve encountered a lot of hemp and vinyl belts, and even some belts made out of bicycle inner tubes, but I still haven’t found one company that offers a wide variety of both classy and funky vegan belts. Enter: Truth Belts.

Truth is an animal-friendly accessory company based in Canada. Started by Renia Pruchinicki in 2001, who originally started making belts from non-leather material, Truth began as a side project in making long-lasting belts from vegan material grew into a full-time business. Her business website also hosts an informative links page in which readers can find businesses, groups, journals, magazines, and other vegan and vegetarian-friendly information.

The belt that I was sent to review is from the hemp-woven line of belts. This particular design is called The Westie. The belt is constructed of polyurethane with a navy blue and khaki colored woven hemp outer layer. The buckle is an antique nickel color, and the whole thing looks wonderful with a pair of jeans. I’ve been wearing the belt around for the past month, and nothing about it has started to fall apart. It’s a very well designed vegan belt, and I’m excited to have another vegan clothing accessory in my life to prove to my friends that you can look good without having to wear parts of animals.

Aside from the casual woven belts, Truth also makes fake-leather looking classy belts, as well as funky elastic belts with argyle, stripes, and plaid designs. Truth also hosts a line of fashionable wrist cuffs and belts for kids.

Overall, I’m very satisfied with my vegan belt, and will probably buy some of Truth’s other belts for friends and relatives. Aside from supporting a company that promotes veganism, I’m also happy to be supporting a business started and run by one hard-working woman.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, January 20th 2010

Home Free

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:43:00 +0000

By Sharon Jennings

Second Story Press

Books with young female characters who love books make my heart smile. Home Free by Sharon Jennings made my heart shine with a full-faced grin.

Meet Leanna Mets. She loves books, aspires to be a writer, and is trying to figure out what life means. This alone is no easy task, but it’s especially hard as she’s trying to navigate her blossoming life under the strict and watchful eye of her conservative mother. Leanna just wants to feel free. Some of her classmates tease her and make life hard, so she escapes into the world of fiction—specifically stories about orphans, her favorite being Anne of Green Gables.

In Leanna’s mind, and with her own experience with harsh maternal unit who thinks that girls should be quiet and submissive, she wonders who wouldn’t want to be an orphan? For an aspiring writer like eleven-year-old Leanna, it’s hard to find the words to describe your desires when your mother thinks writing is pointless and she practically forbids you to do it. Being parentless just might be the answer to her happiness.

When an orphan named Cassandra moves in next door to Leanna, her perspective shifts through their friendship. Our word-loving narrator starts to find her own voice as she begins to sort through her conflicting emotions toward her mother. The two girls become friends and eventually find their way to personal freedom—but not without some heartache, fights, emotional growth, and learned life lessons along the way.

Told in Leanna’s voice (the whole book is her attempt to write a memoir), we learn along with her the definition of words that will eventually start to set Leanna’s spirit free—from the sanctuary she goes to in her backyard to escape her mother and gaze up at the stars, to understanding that rebirth doesn’t mean you’re born again, but that your personality changes to make you a better person. This eleven-year-old girl is striving for and finding the elements of life that I’m doing now at twenty-six.

What ultimately what makes Sharon Jennings’s young adult novel so great is that women of all ages can be inspired by Leanna’s desire for freedom. Her struggles to find her way and feel free are life-long struggles. But Home Free reminds us all that books and words can be saviors, and that life struggles can be manageable (and sometimes even fun) with the help of words, friends, and a place to sit back and look up at the stars.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, October 26th 2009

The Woman You Write Poems About

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:28:00 +0000

By Danielle Montgomery

AK Press

Most of the time when I read poetry books, I’ll dog-ear the pages of poems I really like. I started to do this with Danielle (Dani) Montgomery’s collection, The Woman You Write Poems About, but within the first twenty pages I realized I didn’t have one non-bent-down page corner; every single poem in this collection is intriguing and amazing in its own way. What makes Montgomery’s poetry outstanding is that she brings out the brutal truth of really hard subjects. Furthermore, the language she uses to do this is breathtaking in the way that a life realization seriously makes you stop for a second, until you realize you aren’t breathing because you’ve been thinking these big thoughts instead. Montgomery’s poetry brings up these big thoughts and makes you stop for a moment (or more).

The truths that Montgomery bring to the page involve the harsh realities of being a poor, single mother attempting to navigate the different types of violence in our society, and trying to keep her sanity while doing it. In the poem “S.S.A.” Montgomery reveals:

on the phone after my (relatively) pleasant conversation with mr. social security, I’m feeling like the woman you write poems about not the woman who writes poems I’m feeling like that like a little tragic with my two screaming kids stained shirt messed up hair mr. social security wants to know why can’t you work are you worthy and I give my best brightest explanation but this is a poem from the woman you write poems about listen I can write my own maybe I already have I’m a bad ass on the phone filling out forms all day listen this is a poem from the woman you write poems about

She is the woman with the screaming kids. She is the woman who has no money and is trying to make ends meet with each roll of pennies. She is the woman who has been turned into a tool for artists seeking out an empathetic subject, but here she is becoming the artist. She is describing her own situation, and talking back to what has already been talked about her.

As a single mother and a poet, the two stereotypes of the poor single mother and the starving artist collide in Montgomery’s work. She discusses the hardship of being depressed and being a mother (“poem for mamas with postpartum depression: we can make it through”), as well as the moments in her life that have sparked joy and creativity (“what the living do”):

at nineteen I woke up in my apartment to the sound of a man pissing out back behind the dumpster and I shook off sleep to listen I loved the sound of him pissing in congratulations yes congratulations we lived through another night

Sarcastic, raw, refreshing, humorous, and relieving in all of her honesty, Montgomery exposes her readers to what it means to face life’s tough shit, look at it, do what you can with it, laugh, cry, and then continue to survive.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, October 25th 2009

I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde

admin — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:28:00 +0000

By Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Oxford University Press

I Am Your Sister is a collection for those who want and need to be introduced to Audre Lorde’s thinking, and it is a great anthology for those who have read and been inspired by Lorde’s writing all of their lives. How is this possible? Because I Am Your Sister is not just a collection of Lorde’s seminal work, but a celebration, an honoring, and a thoughtful presentation of who Lorde was—a black lesbian feminist activist and writer. The celebration consists of essays that changed the landscape of feminist thinking (such as the selections from Sister Outsider, as well as the full text of A Burst of Light), pieces of nonfiction that have been scarcely published or never before been published, speeches that have never before been seen in print, and a final section consisting of contemporary writers reflecting on the importance and meaning of Lorde’s work in today’s society.

I Am Your Sister is all of the things, and it is so much more. I see it as a revelation of sorts—an eye opener to how the struggles of past times continue to be what we grapple with today. Rudolph Byrd’s informative and phenomenal introduction to the anthology shows us how, “Whether addressing racism, sexism, or homophobia, Lorde was concerned always with complexity and the sense of possibility that the discourse of difference invokes.” This idea of difference, of this challenge to choose, as Lorde says, “to define my difference as you must choose to define yours, to claim it and use it as creative before it is defined for you and used to eradicate any future, any change” is an idea and challenge that is still present in today’s political and activist communities. I Am Your Sister, therefore, is also a tool for survival—a teacher to help us realize our possibilities for change.

Those familiar with Lorde’s work will also appreciate the never before published essays and speeches. While they touch on the themes that permeate all of her texts—difference, survival, sexuality, feminist communities, racism, fighting ignorance—they can be read as wonderful supplements to Lorde’s previously published work, as well as sparks of ideas that continue to inform new readings of texts such as Sister Outsider. In Lorde’s previously unpublished speech delivered at the first retreat of black feminists and activists in 1977, for instance, she states, “our unique position within this system is to constantly question its most cherished assumption and to radically change it, not merely to co-opt it and make it work for us.” These words enrich Lorde’s belief in the essay “The Transformation of Silence Into Language and Action” that “what is most important...must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the rise of having it bruised or misunderstood.” When these words are read together, we fully understand how embracing and creating different types of language and action are part of who we are as activists, and that this recognition will fuel our ability to challenge, not co-opt, the systems of oppression.

The last section of I Am Your Sister adds even more insight into who Lorde was as a person, who she was as a writer and activist, how these things are not separate from each other, and what Lorde means to us today. Part remembrance, part celebration, and part further interrogation in Lorde’s art, humanity, voice, and passion, the reflective essays from Alice Walker, bell hooks, Johnnetta Besch Cole, Gloria Joseph, as well as the insightful epilogue by Beverly Guy-Sheftall brings the anthology to a satisfying close. But, as is usual with Lorde’s profound prose and ideas, we are always left wanting more.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, June 14th 2009

Burnt Shadows

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:47:00 +0000

By Kamila Shamsie

Bloomsbury Press

Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel, Burnt Shadows, is a well crafted story, centering on the life of a fierce and feisty Japanese woman named Hiroko. The novel spans four historical world events as we witness Hiroko’s navigation through tragedy, love, family, and identity.

Beginning in Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, we first meet the smart and talented schoolteacher Hiroko and soon learn that she is in love with Konrad, a German man that she is helping to translate texts. As their conversations flow between Japanese, English, and German, Konrad eventually asks Hiroko to marry him. Their giddy love for each other grows within the seconds that Hiroko agrees to marry him, but Konrad has to leave her house to run an errand. Still tingling with excitement, Hiroko puts on her mother’s silk kimono with three black cranes on the back of it and within seconds those birds will remain engraved on her body forever. As the second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, the world for Hiroko turns deathly white, and the love of her life will never be seen again.

It is from this moment on that the rest of the novel unfolds. With her bird-scarred body and a huge hole in her heart from the death of Konrad and her father, Hiroko travels to India in search of Konrad’s sister, Elizabeth Burton—someone who can help Hiroko keep the memory of Konrad alive. The year is 1947, and as Hiroko seeks to find more of herself in India, while still remembering her home country, India is a shifting landscape on the brink of war. Entering into the second historical event of the novel, Shamsie introduces many deep and emotionally rich characters that reveal the complexities of Partition.

In India, Hiroko meets Sajjad—a man who is paid by the Burtons to assist them with whatever they need, but he is more to them than a lower-class servant. When Sajjad and Hiroko discover they both have a love for languages, they begin to have informal language classes. The energy that flows between them in every language they converse in is overwhelming in the best way, and the unlikely pair of the displaced Japanese woman and Muslim Indian man eventually marries. Shamsie’s development of Hiroko’s character during this time is beautiful. Dealing with issues of grief—both for her lost fiancé and family, as well as for her home country that now feels lost to her—and her unfaltering desire to always be an emotionally strong woman, Hiroko emerges from this section of the novel with a resilience that carries her throughout the rest of the story.

The third part of the novel begins with Hiroko and her husband Sajjad sitting at their kitchen table with their son Raza. The time and place is Pakistan in 1982. Raza is an intelligent young man who enjoys doing multi-lingual crosswords—an outcome of having a Japanese mother who speaks at least four languages and an Indian father who speaks multiple languages himself. Raza is a stunning mixture of his heritage, and both his mind and physical body hold this history. As Raza grows into young adulthood he is increasingly mistaken for an Afghan, which becomes both a blessing and a curse.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is the third political event that Shamsie uses as a backdrop for her story. While the narrative concentration of the novel switches from Hiroko to Raza, the story continues to take on the issues of identity that helped to construct the reader’s relationship with Hiroko. Without giving away too much of the story, it is Raza’s need to find his identity that ultimately results in another huge life change for Hiroko.

Finally, it is 2001, and Hiroko is in New York City post-9/11. Raza finds himself in a dangerous situation in Afghanistan and the climax of the novel results in Raza trying to get to America to see his mother one last time. Interspersed throughout this story are characters that represent different historical times and locations. Like memories, they pop back up in the story to enrich and inform life.

While Burnt Shadows is rich with historical content and events, Shamsie’s thoughtful storytelling humanizes each situation. In the end, the reader is incredibly well taken care of. Shamsie is an expert at crafting a story in which the characters and setting help to create each other. Time, location, identity, and humanness can never be separated as single characteristics of the novel, but instead swell together to create an unforgettable journey.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, April 6th 2009

Hot Boy Shorts

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:47:00 +0000

By Girlie Pants

GirliePants is a fun company that creates cute and ironic designs for underwear and tank tops. The pair of underwear that I was sent were a royal blue color with a wickedly cute drawing of a flame on the butt that simply said “Hot” underneath. The design of the image is wonderfully playful, and I think I would wear the underwear all the time if they were actually comfortable. Maybe mine were a size too big, but I experienced the underwear riding up my ass all day long. The cut on the boy shorts is simply awkward. The short part is too short to be considered shorts, but they’re longer than plain-cut underwear.

In spite of the cut, the actual feel of the underwear was great. GirliePantss uses American Apparel for all of their designs so you know the cloth is going to have that soft feeling that is totally addictive. I wear American Apparel’s boy brief underwear as though it’s my uniform. If GirliePants decided to put their designs on a more comfortable cut of underwear, I would buy all of my underwear through them. The boy shorts from GirliePants are $14, compared to the $10 that American Apparel charges you for the same pair sans-cute design. I think an extra four bucks for some spunk is well worth it.

A final note: I’m curious about companies that use American Apparel for their clothing items. While American Apparel does create incredibly comfortable clothing in a socially responsible way, their advertisements are horribly sexist at best. Regardless of their labor practice ethics, why would a feminist (or at least female-friendly) company use products of a corporation that is known for its blatant objectifying advertising and an owner who has multiple sexual harassment charges filed against him? And yet, we still use their clothing for our feminist designs and I’m addicted to their underwear, socks, and thermal shirts.

While I love GirliePants’s funky designs and their desire to do something different, I challenge them to use a more comfortable cut for their underwear and to find a company for their clothing items that does not objectify women. And maybe my challenge for GirliePants is one that I need to make for myself as well.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, April 5th 2009

Red: Teenage Girls in America Write On What Fires Up Their Lives Today

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:17:00 +0000

Edited by Amy Goldwasser

Plume

My teenage years have always seemed to be something that I’ve wanted to forget: awkwardness, feeling clueless about life, not feeling comfortable in my body, navigating love and friendships, hating my family, loving my family, not knowing who my family really was, and knowing that there must be something more to life than what I was doing. Ugh, high school.

Now that I’m past my teens and well on to other decades of my life, I haven’t taken the time to look back and consider all of those big Life Questions I once had. Amy Goldwasser’s anthology, Red: Teenage Girls in America Write On What Fires Up Their Lives Today, helped me to both reconsider my past wonderments and understand what teenage life is like for a whole new generation of young women.

If it were just fresh voices that evolved out of this anthology, Red would be an amazing and worth-your-while read. If Red were just about life as a teenage woman in America, it would still be a great anthology. But the unique articulation of each writer, the diverse experiences represented, the range of topics presented, the brutal honesty and uncertainties revealed in each essay, and the fierce tenacity to understand life that each writer brings to the page makes_Red_ not only phenomenal, but a feminist staple for every reader’s library. The anthology is composed not of adults editing and filtering the words of teenage girls, but the words of the young women themselves—with all of their incomplete thoughts and blunt renderings of life.

The topics covered in Red range from what you would expect from an anthology of teenage girls’ writings (i.e., body image, friendships, and family life) to groundbreaking essays by young women on politics, PTSD, pop culture, and war. This isn’t to say that the essays about body image, friendships, and family are not groundbreaking. In fact, these pieces challenge the reader to think about, reconsider, and understand the complexity of young women’s lives in America just as much as the essays on the larger world do. Whether the writers’ voices come across as determined and strong or hesitant and ambiguous each essay invokes the varied challenges of growing up as a woman in America.

I believe that the intended audience for Red is you. Whoever you are. You could be a young teenage woman living in America and obviously connect with Red, or you could be from a different generation and gender than the contributors and still find every essay meaningful. While phrases such as, “we exchanged screen names” definitely point to the youth of the authors represented in_Red_, when one of the contributors states, “I want to reach out so that someone somewhere will breath more easily because I have lived,” you begin to understand that these fresh voices speak their words with an awareness of the world around them, and the impact that these words might have on others—something that our society does not believe young women are capable of today. Red proves this notion wrong in brilliant and wonderful ways.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, February 20th 2009

My Brain Hurts: Volume One

admin — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:11:00 +0000

By Liz Baillie

Microcosm Publishing

Liz Baillie’s character Kate Callahan is everything that I wish I had been in school, as well as everything that I’m glad I wasn’t: a punk dyke; Mohawk-wearing, patches held on with safety pins-styling, multiple girlfriends-loving activist; and all-around New York City street-roamer. Think Diane DiMassa’s _Hothead Paisan _before she turned homicidal and got a cat. You could say that Kate’s a homicidal lesbian terrorist in the making—and in a good way, too.

While these character traits can be admirable in young queer activists, Kate is, at times, a little too rebellious for her own good, as she constantly teeters on the edge of getting kicked out of school. I’m inspired by Kate’s spirit, but I’m also aware of the grown-up in me telling me not to mess up my life. These are the complex reasons why I’m in love with My Brain Hurts.

Baillie’s drawings of Kate and her high school life are descriptive, ratty, fun, and what make up the intensity of story. A graphic novel compilation of the first five zines in Baillie’s series of the same name is both a harsh reminder of how difficult high school can be for queer youth, but the stories can also be a best friend for someone currently going through that struggle.

Aside from the rich drawings and Kate’s engaging personality, Baillie’s cast of characters is also amazing: Kate’s way-gay best friend Joey is fabulously flamboyant in a true but not mocking way, Desi is the Latina activist who can sway a crowd better than Barack Obama, and Verona is the older woman (yeah, she’s sixteen, and that’s old in this thirteen-year-old crowd) who digs polyamory. Through chugging 40’s and adventurous games of spin-the-bottle, Kate finds her sexuality in a tangle of identity confusion. Underlying this youthful narrative is a political beat that keeps a steady rhythm on each enjoyable page. My Brain Hurts is a great series for queer youth and older queer activists to relish together.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, April 18th 2008

Brainscan #22

admin — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:18:00 +0000

By Alex Wrekk

As a lesbian with an incredibly regular menstrual cycle, I generally don’t ever really think about birth control. It’s not something that affects my life, and other than the random conversations about birth control that I have with my friends and loved ones who do use it, I don’t usually find literature on the topic particularly interesting. With that said, the zine _Brainscan #22 _ not only discusses a type of birth control called Intra Uterine Device (IUD), but also presents the facts and personal experiences of the use of this device so well that even I took immediate interest in the topic.

In the first half of Brainscan #22, author Alex Wrekk describes what exactly an IUD is and how it works. For a quick overview, the IUD is a small T-shaped device that “is inserted through the vagina through the cervix and into the uterus as a form of birth control.” One type of IUD is wrapped in copper wire and acts as a spermicidal and ovicidal that works for up to twelve years. Another type of IUD is not wrapped in copper wire, “but instead contains low doses of hormones similar to birth control pills. The hormonal one can last up to five years.” The easy-to-understand information presented in this zine comes from all of the facts that Wrekk gathered from different pamphlets, doctors and nurses who know a lot about the subject, and any other information that she got on it while visiting Planned Parenthood for the insertion of her own IUD. After a quick discussion about the political aspects of getting an IUD in the United States, the second half of the zine veers away from a medical description of the IUD, to Wrekk’s personal experience. She describes the occurrence of pain from the insertion, and also the relief from knowing that she was pretty much set on birth control for the next ten to twelve years.

I was completely unfamiliar with the IUD prior to reading this zine. My friend who works for a feminist healthcare clinic read the zine and said that most of the medical information was right on, with a few variations in detail here and there. But the overall honesty of Wrekk’s experience, the simple language used to describe what an IUD is and why anyone would want one, as well as the appealing layout and concise gathering of information, makes this little zine a strong packet of good and accessible information. I only wish that _Brainscan #22 _could become available at every gynecologist’s office across the country.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, February 9th 2008

How Nonviolence Protects the State

admin — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 18:48:00 +0000

By Peter Gelderloos

South End Press

Do anti-war protests really stop the United States from invading another country? Do pro-choice marches affect legislation on abortion? Did sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement help to end racism? These are the questions that Peter Gelderloos asks in his new book How Nonviolence Protects the State. With a wealth of experience in anti-prison work, prisoner support organizations,and the anti-war and anti-globalization movements, Gelderloos brings his seasoned perspective to these important issues.

Drawing on large historical events, such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, Gelderloos shows how pacifists and nonviolent protests have not achieved the same results that active resistance has. At a time when everyone in the world, except for the US government, is realizing that US troops need to leave Iraq now, Gelderloos’ book argues how ineffective the current peace movement has been at stopping the war and creating any sort of political change. Before the war broke out over four years ago, “[s]ome groups, like United for Peace and Justice, suggested the protests might avert the war. Of course, they were totally wrong, and the protests totally ineffective. The invasion occurred as planned, despite the millions of people nominally, peacefully, and powerlessly opposed to it.” So how do we switch our peace movement from marching in the streets to actually resisting our government and creating change?

It is this question that Gelderloos has a difficult time answering. How Nonviolence Protects the State _is not meant to change any minds. Instead, it reads as a reassurance for those who already know the ineffectiveness of peace movements. Gelderloos’ language is aggressive at times, as he conflates peace activists with “good sheep.” But perhaps this is his point. Maybe if we started to realize that marches and nonviolent protests were ultimately tools of society to make people feel as if they are creating change, then we would actually find a way to resist our government and create the change we want on our own terms. Covering a diverse range of topics, from how nonviolence is racist to how nonviolence is patriarchal, _How Nonviolence Protects the State is an important book to read for anyone who recognizes the ineffectiveness of peace activism today. And while the text doesn’t provide many answers, it does inspire the reader to reconsider her notions of “activism” and “change.”

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, July 17th 2007

Maquilapolis: City of Factories

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:22:00 +0000

Directed by Vicki Funari, Sergio de la Torre

California Newsreel

Who made that pen you’re using? Who put your television together? Who sewed your pants? And what does any of this have to do with women in Mexico? Well, thanks to the initiation of NAFTA in 1994, big US corporations can make maximum profit off of the cheap labor of women in other countries. In the brand new documentary Maquilapolis, two female maquiladora workers document their lives and struggles as factory workers in Tijuana, and show why and how women are exploited for their cheap labor in the border towns of Mexico.

Following the daily routines of Carmen and Lourdes, the film depicts every feature of their lives. From having to pick their steps carefully as they walk through their shanty towns - because life-threatening, shoddy electricity zaps and sizzles near polluted water, to sending a son to buy a five gallon jug of water that costs the same price that these women are paid at the maquiladoras for two hours of work - the film doesn’t leave out one aspect of these women’s personal lives. The film, however, never asks for the viewer’s pity. Just as you think it’s going to turn into a commiseration about the harsh life realities of the marginalized Other, Maquilapolis weaves in another narrative—that of these women’s political life.

Carmen and Lourdes are both aware of how their bosses treat them. Viewed as ignorant women who do not understand what human rights are, the patrons of the maquiladoras overwork the women, underpay them and provide unsafe working conditions for the young female workers. Carmen’s political battle with her former bosses is over denied severance pay. When the company decided to move their operations to Indonesia, because of cheaper female labor overseas, all of the women working for the company in Tijuana were fired without being given any severance pay. Carmen understands that “in globalization, woman worker is like a commodity,” but that due to the multiple injustices slapped upon her by the hands of big corporations, she “can’t stay quiet anymore.” With these powerful words Carmen organizes her fellow workers. After a large legal battle the women are finally paid the thousands of dollars that was owed to them.

Lourdes also understands how, through globalization, women are “just objects, objects of labor.” Her battle, however, is one about the aftermath of a factory closing. One corporation that left Tijuana did not take any of the necessary precautions with demolishing their factory, so all of the metal and factory bi-products were left to rot and corrode. This abandoned factory sits on a hill above the maquiladora workers’ neighborhood. All of the chemicals from the corroded building, as well as those from the factories that are still functioning near by, run off into a creek that flows through the workers’ neighborhood. The entire shantytown is polluted with harmful chemicals, and the effects of these pollutants can be seen on the workers’ bodies in the form of the rashes and spots. Lourdes’ battle against the government and corporations to clean up its waste is a long battle that has yet to be fully won. But the incessant Lourdes and the environmental group that she organized have made small victories in this overwhelming war.

Maquilapolis is a film that does not attempt to create any pity. While it does show the horrific living situations that female maquiladora workers have to negotiate along with their physically stressful and low-wage jobs, it is also a film of angst, rebellion and unrelenting political action. Maquilapolis is both a call to action and an eye-opener for anyone who has never considered what, exactly, goes in to making their pens, their television, their clothes and all of the cheap, plastic crap that no one really needs. In a world where globalization is seen by the privileged as a blessing, Maquilapolis exposes how globalization functions in the lives of marginalized women.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, July 3rd 2007

The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison

admin — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:47:00 +0000

By Kathleen A. Cairns

University of Nebraska Press

In her astonishingly well-written account of California’s first female death row inmate, Kathleen Cairns weaves the story of domestic violence and the influence of the media into her telling of one woman’s life. Nellie May Madison shot her husband in their Southern California apartment in March 1934. During this time period, the media easily conflated Nellie with the film noir femme fatal image that was popular at the time. From the introduction to the text, we know that Nellie was eventually released from prison before the courts took her life, and we also know that domestic violence and sexual abuse were the cause of this. But Cairns writes the story so well that the actual facts of the case unfold in the same way that the general public must have learned of them seventy years ago. The compelling story and Cairns' captivating writing keeps you turning each page wondering what will happen next in this horrific case.

More than just a true crime story about a woman battling the California court system, Cairns’ investigation is a critical look on the position of married women during the Great Depression. Discussing issues such as socially constructed feminine norms and the refusal of a court system to recognize that a man could sexually assault his own wife, the overarching themes of the text bridge together Nellie’s struggles with the expectations of her society. Even more interesting is Cairns’ analysis of the women’s prison system in California. During the time, the purpose of having an all-women’s prison was to be able to reward the women with good behavior in order to set them on the road to “virtue.” Virtue was defined as “the ability [of the female prisoners] to support themselves until marriage and domesticity—the ultimate goal.” Set with this as a backdrop, it’s amazing that Nellie May Madison, who was nicknamed in the press as the “Enigma Woman," the “much-married” woman or as a woman “good with ponies and pistols,” was ever able to escape the prison system.

Combining a critique of social norms and the power that the media has over profiling criminals, with the events of one woman’s astounding life, Cairns’ historical text is a pleasure to read on multiple levels. It’s smart, well written and astonishingly addictive.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, June 22nd 2007

The Butterfly Effect

admin — Sun, 27 May 2007 19:06:00 +0000

By Susan Hawthorne

Spinifex Press

While reading the first half of Susan Hawthorne’s newest collection of lesbian poems, The Butterfly Effect, I found myself lost in footnotes. Each poem reads on the right page, while footnotes to the poem fill up the left page. Most of the time, the footnotes are as long as, if not longer, than the actual poem. At first, I thought this was a brilliant idea. Then I started to get slightly annoyed by the footnotes and felt that they were a little pompous and unnecessary. How dare Hawthorne interrupt the poetic flow with a useless footnote!

But I re-thought this assertion, and wondered if there are readers out there who are not aware of Sappho, lesbian bar culture, the history of lesbian literature, the lesbian prisoner stereotype or the importance of pool in lesbian culture. My final conclusion of the footnotes is one of intrigue: either Hawthorne uses the footnotes to educate the reader to the purpose of every image that she used. She also uses the footnotes to create a steady pause between each image, giving the reader more time to really think about what she is trying to create.

Either way, footnotes or not, each poem is breathtaking in its imagery, emotionality, creativity and political conscious. The second (and footnote-less) half of The Butterfly Effect stems from the tumultuous emotions brought on by her mother’s death. Hawthorne invites the reader into a twenty page “Dialogue With Death,” recounting the situation surrounding her mother’s death and the aftermath of grief and loss. Hawthorne executes each poem with great style and courage. As a whole, this book of poetry is intended for the smart reader, the emotional reader, the relentless reader and the lesbian who wants to understand the depth of her herstory. The Butterfly Effect is an enchanting collection of profound poetry.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, May 27th 2007

Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan

admin — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:14:00 +0000

By Ann Jones

Metropolitan Books

Usually when I read a memoir, I don’t really expect to learn anything. I might laugh or cry at the writer’s personal tragedies, but my expectations for experiencing some profound level of enlightenment is absent. After reading Kabul in Winter, I will now only read memoirs that are as thoughtfully written, educational and eye-opening as Ann Jones’s account of her time spent in Afghanistan.

Even though this book will probably be found in the “Current Events” or “Politics” section of any radical bookstore, Jones’s account of her travels is better written than most memoirs. Immediately, the reader is dropped into the streets of Kabul post-US invasion of Afghanistan. Permeating every personal thought that Jones includes is an historical account of the political situations of Kabul. Jones takes us through the streets, the prisons and the schools of Afghanistan’s capital, describing the city’s horrendous situation without ever provoking the reader to view the people of Kabul as a charity case. Jones has the professional and intelligent capability of showing a situation, yet not sensationalizing a marginalized community that so many authors and journalists are incapable of achieving.

Most of the previous reviews of this book have used either the words “haunting” or “disturbing” to describe Jones’s exposition. The word that came to my mind when I read it was “honest.” Your response to the book will probably depend on where you are coming from politically. If you are new to thinking about the corruption in international politics, what a city looks like after it has been through a war, and how women are treated in patriarchal and sexist societies, then the narrative will probably feel like a “haunting” account. If, however, you are aware of the destruction that the US did (and still does) to Afghanistan, how women are treated in prisons and that not every school in the world has sufficient materials or even a classroom in which to instruct children, then you will extremely appreciate Jones’s honesty and unwavering attention to detail.

Also, a feminist rhythm pulses throughout her entire narrative, as Jones decided to report on the situation of the women’s prison instead of discussing the difficulty of men finding jobs in Kabul. Not that one of these topics is more important than the other, but Jones finds a way to report on the plight of women that dominant media sources usually ignore. I had such pleasure, yet also a strange sense of relief to read Jones’s feminist, honest memoir and political portrayal of Kabul.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, May 11th 2007