Sue Monk Kidd’s The Dance of the Dissident Daughter has been a feminist repose in my summer. Thanks to Elizabeth, I’ve been reading it, one chapter a week, and discussing it with brilliant, creative women.
I read Kidd’s later novel The Secret Life of Bees years ago, and loved it. Reading Dance shines so much light [...]
Filed under: books on June 28th, 2010 by Anna Lisa | No Comments »
As of this time, Chinese writer Wei Hui’s second offering, “Marrying Buddha,” is not yet banned in China. Her first novel, “Shanghai Baby,” earned notoriety after its release in 1999. The Chinese authorities put it on their watch list, declaring the author’s penchant for “Western decadence and debauchery” and her novel a bad influence to [...]
Filed under: books on December 20th, 2009 by Elen Farkas | No Comments »
Alice Ogden Bellis collects a variety of womanist and feminist interpretations of the Hebrew Bible in Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes, specifically focusing on the women in these stories. She traces this tradition of biblical interpretation to 19th century suffragists, a movement whose mainstream was made up of white women. Similarly, white Bellis’ first edition of [...]
Filed under: books on January 6th, 2009 by Anna Lisa | 2 Comments »
Kate Jacob’s The Friday Night Knitting Club is a delightful novel about community building among women. The story is inspiring – single mom creates successful business, and influences other women to go after their own dreams and overcome deep fears, as well.
If the book had pushed a couple of sociological issues a bit further, it [...]
Filed under: books on September 26th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | No Comments »
Two years of Etty Hillesum’s diaries have been gracefully collected into a fabulous book by J. G. Gaarlandt. Etty was a Dutch Jew of Russian descent who died in Auchwitz in 1943. Her diaries from 1941-1943 are filled with brave mysticism, bold social values, and bright philosophy.
While Etty did not ignore the horrors of [...]
Filed under: books on August 17th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 1 Comment »
!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>
Fatema Mernissi follows the harem into Western literature, art and psyche, sharing fascinating insights on misogyny in Middle Eastern and Western culture along the way.
During her book tour for Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, she was surprised by [...]
Filed under: books on June 20th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 2 Comments »
!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>
Does Wicked promote feminism? I would love to ask author Gregory Maguire that very question!
In this society, women have fewer vocational and public opportunities than men, and seem to be bound by family obligations more than men are. That sounds [...]
Filed under: books on June 17th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 3 Comments »
I don’t think a memoir can be patriarchal. I believe that the act of telling one’s own story is inherently empowering, A person can be a complete racist, misogynist jerk and lie all throughout a memoir, and the book could be used to promote and support patriarchy. But when written with integrity, a memoir is [...]
Filed under: books on April 19th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 1 Comment »
This past week, author/speaker/researcher Lyn Mikel Brown came to town to speak about the themes in her book, Packaging Girlhood. In the book, Brown asserts that girlhood is being commercialized and shaped in ways that are unhealthy and damaging to our children, primarily through false notions of empowerment, profit-driven manipulation [...]
Filed under: books, events on April 12th, 2008 by Chris Hardie | 2 Comments »
!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>
Everyone talks about the trilogy’s religious implications, what about gender? It sure seems like a fantasy series with a female main character would be a clear triumph for feminism. But Will still dominates – in part because he is older, but [...]
Filed under: books on March 8th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | No Comments »