book reviews

Somewhere within my past year’s reading the book Maiden USA: Girl Icons Come of Age by Kathleen Sweeney came into my orbit.  It seemed ideal as I traced the history of girls onscreen, on television, and within other forms of media.  Yet I wish I could give Sweeney’s book a more enthusiastic thumbs up.  Listed as a “media artist and writer” Sweeney has taught at various colleges and been active in media training programs for girls.  Her book began as a “curatorial project of films and videos by teenage girls entitled ‘Reel Girls/Real Girls'” which premiered in San Francisco.

Sweeney casts a wide net and she ranges from exploration of the Riot Grrrl movement to a chapter called “Mean Girls in Ophelia Land” which tracks the rise and fall of the “mean girl” movement within popular writing as well as on screen.  She correctly identifies that for the most part the Teenage Girl, (as she capitalizes it) was a “passive helping noun linked to Daddies, Brothers, and Boyfriends,” until certain cultural zeitgeists began to shift. As cultural interest in girls gathered momentum, the growth of what Sweeney names a Girl Icon has grown.  Sweeney is right on point when she chases this emergence through the past almost 20 years.

The book moves at a fast clip – her quick categorizations of Neo-Lolitas, Career Girls, Geek Girls, Cyber Chicks, as well as Supernatural Girls, Amazons, and Brainiacs, among other labels, often struck me as too glib.  Her most intriguing point is what now defines an Icon in contemporary culture, as well as her reinsciption of the term into the word “Eye-con.”  Sweeney calls an “Eye-con” an “image scam that must be navigated and brought to awareness by analyzing and naming its syntax,” not unlike a stereotype.  Eye-cons do their most damaging work, she says, when viewers are unconscious of their influence.  Within the pantheon of the “Eye-con” is the “Girl-con” she says, which are “Icons of girlhood which posit girls as inevitable Victims.”  Examples are “anorexic adolescent models selling a form of starvation beauty.” Media literacy demands that viewers name the Girl-con and then look beyond to alternative role models as Sweeney says she wants to consider Girl Power Icons for the new millennium against a “backdrop of current and retro Girl Iconography.”  Her writing about visual representation and even semiotics is at its strongest when she is doing this kind of analysis.

Yet, while impressive in scope, the book’s very breadth also serves as its limitation as depth is sacrificed for a sweeping survey of the cultural landscape. Sweeney’s enthusiasm for her subject is most strongly felt when she describes her first-hand work with girls.  Her final chapter “Girls Make Movies: Out of the Mirror and Through the Lens” was the most intriguing to me.  Sweeney’s passion as an activist comes out as she describes some of the current programs working with girls to advocate media literacy and develop their skills.  She mentions Reel Grrls in Seattle, Wash., and GirlsFilmSchool in Santa Fe, N.M., among others.  The book’s list of resources is also wonderfully thorough. I suspect undergraduate students would enjoy having this book assigned for its abundance of popular culture references, generous use of chapter subheads and discrete categorizations.

By contrast, another book I came across during my research was Mary Celeste Kearney’s Girls Make Media which became indispensible to me for both its range and its depth.  Kearney is an academic, now tenured at UT-Austin and the book’s research is admirable.  Neatly divided into three sections “Contexts,” “Sites,” and “Texts” Kearney also traces girls’ historical participation with media.  She delves into girls’ entry into the web, also the impact of the Riot Grrrls, zine culture as well as independent filmmaking.  Her focus on what happens when girls take over media production is what makes this book compelling.  At the same time, she contextualizes the institutionalized practices that have keep girls from participating fully.

Particularly exposing is the deeply entrenched sexism in the field of filmmaking (the idea that cameras are too heavy for female techs to lug and “peer networks” or “structures of acquaintanceship” that boys use covertly, but effectively, advance their ambitions and deny girls access).  Kearney’s cataloging is vast and its impact is felt as she reveals just how much girls who make media have to say.  She includes writing about the need for single-sex media education but steps beyond it to show what girls really do when they’re given access to media tools.  Their work often centers around exploration of identity and re-inscription of messages about gender roles that crack open a universe of deeply felt and powerfully smart dialogues about what most girls experience but hadn’t yet had a place to express.

Some of the titles Kearney includes tell a whole story: films such as Taizet Hernandez’s “Are You a Boy or a Girl?” which explores “real-life gender-bending of a young female” or Hernandez’s film “We Love Our Lesbian Daughters,” which explores coming out experiences and Kearney says offers “A rare glimpse into the lives of queer young Latinas” but focuses on sexual identity over ethnic identity.  She groups films about sexual abuse such as “Love Shouldn’t Hurt” by Tamara Garcia or “It’s Never OK” by Arielle Davis, and includes a cache of films about the ubiquitous doll such as in Lillian Ripley’s “What if Barbie Had a Voice?” Just a fraction of other titles include: “Looks Like a Girl” which “broadens young lesbian representations beyond white, Anglo culture,” and “Body Image” by Mieko Krell, meant to “raise awareness about girls’ different relations to and strategies for negotiating dominant beauty standards.”

When exploring girls’ zines Kearney includes telling excerpts as this one from “Bikini Kill: A Color and Activity Book” about why female youth should enact social change: “To discuss in both literal and artistic ways those issues that’re really important to girls: naming these issues, specifically, validates their importance and other girls’ interest in them; reminds girls that they aren’t alone.  To make fun of and thus disrupt the powers that be.”  Even a smattering of the zine titles reads like a found poem: The Bad Girl Club, Bi-Girl World, Lezzie Smut, The Adventures of Baby Dyke, Geek the Girl, Angry Young Woman, Pretty in Punk, Housewife Turned Assassin, Angst Girl, Pixxiebitch, Ladies Homewrecking Journal, From the Pen of a Liberated Woman. The book’s website is also a wonderful resource as the power of the girls’ voices can be felt shouting through the distance.

This here post comes straight from dear friend of GWP and mine, and fellow writer, Daphne Uviller — who I’ve been writing about of late, here and here! –Deborah

I visited Debbie the other day to try to help her nest a bit, and she gave me two books, one of which was Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, which she said was a little too much for her (meaning Debbie) at this point.  I agree — it’s not a book that should be read while pregnant, but later, while struggling with what it means to be a good mother or even, as I often do, how to get back to even wanting to be a good mother.

I read the whole book in one sitting and while I disliked a few parts, I admire Waldman for her honesty — I consider myself a very honest writer, but she goes where I hadn’t dared — and her talent and her insight.

Here’s what I took away from it:

1) Men MUST be equal partners, not just pay lip service. Okay, that’s old news, but never bad to be reminded.
2) Men do not worry about being good or bad fathers, they just are what they are. We should follow their example. This is wrapped up in the whole idea of observing, of living in the moment rather than judging and worrying. More old news, but still, good to hear.
3) I’m glad I don’t live in Berkeley.
4) I kind of wished I lived in Berkeley.
5) Part-time work that you love is the answer to the work/life balance conundrum. (She doesn’t state this explicitly, but confirms what I already figured out.  We writers, money permitting, have it made.)
6) I think I’d like to try going on Celexa.

And the chapter on her abortion between her second and third child (she has four) made me weep. It is powerful, powerful stuff.

-Daphne Uviller

A new book has caught my eye, covering some of my favorite themes: Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor (The Real Utopias Project), by Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers et al.

In a nutshell, the book proposes a set of policies-paid family leave provisions, working time regulations, and early childhood education and care-designed to foster more egalitarian family divisions of labor by strengthening men’s ties at home and women’s attachment to paid work. Its policy proposal is followed by a series of commentaries–both critical and supportive–from a group of distinguished scholars, and a concluding essay in which Gornick and Meyers respond to the debate over how best to promote egalitarian policies.

Contributors include heavy hitters like Barbara Bergmann, Johanna Brenner, Harry Brighouse & Erik Olin Wright, Scott Coltrane, Rosemary Crompton, Myra Marx Ferree, Nancy Folbre, Heidi Hartmann & Vicky Lovell, Shireen Hassim, Lane Kenworthy, Cameron Macdonald, Peter McDonald, Ruth Milkman, Kimberly Morgan, Ann Orloff, Michael Shalev, and Kathrin Zippel.

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up!)

When I was a kid, a familiar black and yellow flower-power poster hung above my mother’s dresser. It said: “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.”

Despite this simple message, we’re still fighting. U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the globe. By September, total war-related federal spending since 2001 will come to an astounding $915.1 billion.

But what happens after war? More to the point, what happens when women put down their guns and come home? Shawna Kenney reviews the gripping new book, The Girls Come Marching Home — a chronicle of women’s lives after war, penned by author Kirsten Holmstedt.
The Girls Come Marching Home

The very idea of women serving in military combat is controversial. Critics fear a “feminized” and “civilianized” U.S. military. But while pundits debate, the reality is that female American soldiers serve in infantry and support positions in Afghanistan and Iraq every day. Author Kirsten Holmstedt captured some of these women’s voices from the battlefield in her first book, Band of Sisters. Holmstedt returns this year with round two: The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq (Stackpole Books).

The 18 soldiers profiled represent all branches of the armed forces, themselves a multicultural sampling of courage and humanity. Without being overly “rah-rah” or “hooah” for war, Holmstedt details the triumphs and struggles of military women returning from combat as they reclaim roles as mothers, daughters, sisters, service members and civilians while struggling with physical wounds, post-traumatic stress disorder, survivor’s guilt, and sexual assault.

All opinions about today’s wars aside, The Girls Come Marching Home is a must-read for anyone concerned about women or war. Gunfire, IEDs, child soldiers, racism, sexism and death are shown as part of wartime routine, with people in the armed forces making split-second decisions no human should ever have to make or imagine.

The most disturbing stories here depict an inept Veteran’s Administration, failing our military (men and women) left and right. Most touching was the author’s postscript, where she reveals the secondary trauma she experienced while researching the book. Flying in the face of military training, Holmstedt urges vets to believe that “it takes courage to be vulnerable” and that “counseling isn’t for the weak.” Holmstedt encourages all who need help to seek it.

The Girls Come Marching Home boldly continues the women-in-combat conversation. Here’s hoping that Holmstedt’s personal sacrifice for such a detailed account of women’s post-war stories will serve many for years to come.

Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher) and the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp). Her work has appeared in the Florida Review, Juxtapoz, Swindle Magazine, Veg News and Transworld Skateboarding, among others. She teaches online creative writing workshops for UCLA Extension and lifesabitchbooks.com and serves as Language Editor for Crossing Borders.

According to a recent report from National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 40 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2002 and 18 percent in 1980, were born to “unmarried” (their word) women.  And the other week (May 26), Cathy Young asked in a Boston Globe article (“Single Mothers and the Baby Boom“) whether we should be treating single motherhood as “the new normal” or (once again) as a problem that needs to be addressed.  Writes Young:

Today, we have two contradictory trends. Millions of fathers are involved in hands-on child care to an unprecedented degree; millions of children have little or no contact with their fathers. Ironically, the mother-child family unit takes us back to a very pre-feminist idea: family and child-rearing as a feminine sphere. (For both biological and cultural reasons, men are far less likely to parent on their own.) Male alienation is another likely result.…Certainly, many single parents do a wonderful job of raising their children and many married couples do not. But in general, the two-parent family does work best for children, women, and men, and marriage seems the best way to ensure it. No one wants to go back to the day when unwed mothers and their children were outcasts. But restoring a cultural commitment to married parenting is a goal that should unite sensible conservatives, sane fathers’ rights advocates, and reasonable feminists.

Call me unreasonable, but I’m not so sure.

And on that note, be sure to check out Rachel Lehmann-Haupt’s awesome new book, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood.  Rachel will be talking it up on Good Morning America next week, and keep an eye out for forthcoming reviews in both The New York Times and The Washington Post. This book is generating BUZZ.

(Thanks, of course, to CCF for the heads up on Young’s article.)

I launched the weekend by reading my first official parenting book: Amy Tiemann’s mojo-y book, Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family (the new editiion!).  And I am so thankful to have started here.  Many of you are familiar with Amy’s message from reading her blog (Mojo Mom), but in all honesty, it didn’t really sink in for me of course until I got pregnant.  Now it’s all gotten very personal.  And what a relief that this book exists.

Chapter 1 begins: “It is tempting to romanticize miraculous transformations.”  The chapter’s epigraph reads: “Sometimes you just have to take a leap and build your wings on the way down.”  Still barfing at 13 weeks, I’m having a wee bit of a hard time when well-intentioned friends and loved ones say to me “this is such a special time! enjoy each moment!”  Because it’s hard to enjoy it all when you’re on the verge of 24/7 puke.  Believe me, I am overjoyed beyond belief that I am at this particular juncture; but overjoy and “enjoy” are not the same thing.

But I digress.  I really wanted to use this post to send a HUGE shout out to Amy for writing this book, and for writing a second edition of it, one which addresses more of the cultural conversation around motherhood.  I’d been feeling intimidated by all those books with light pink covers written about pregnancy and mothering and couldn’t bring myself to read anything other than The Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, which Marco picked out for me early on.  Mojo Mom is helping me build confidence that I will find my own way into this whole pregnancy and motherhood gambit, that there are motherhood books written for women like me, and that there are fellow travelers out there–Amy did a PhD in neuroscience and is on the executive team of MomsRising.org (and a longtime supporter of Women for Women International)–to guide the way.

For some more hardcore political reading, definitely check out the opeds in today’s NYTimes on what to give mothers in the developing world, and the stats and links Kyla rounded up over at The REAL Deal (“Motherhood by the Numbers”).

And to all the moms out there, the moms-in-the-making, and the moms-in-waiting (I have a number of friends in this latter camp), and to my own extremely amazing mother, who I am becoming more and more grateful for every day, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Seriously.  I kid thee not.  In the May 18th issue currently on the stands, two members of my writers group have features!

For an adaptation from a chapter of her forthcoming book, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood (Basic, May 11), see “Why I Froze My Eggs” by our very own Rachel Lehmann-Haupt.

Four pages later comes “Listening to Madness” by our Alissa Quart–also part of chapter of a forthcoming book.  The article looks at “why some mentally ill patients are rejecting their medication and making the case for ‘mad pride'” and is, like Alissa, rather brilliant.

It’s been humbling and inspiring and instructive to be part of this writers group, which we affectionately call Matilda, after the cat who lives at the Algonquin Hotel where we first met.  Rachel’s book in particular has paralleled aspects of my life–as it will the lives of many of us living on, as she calls it, the edge of our fertility.

For more on In Her Own Sweet Time, which should be available in bookstores asap, check out this interview with Rachel over at YourTango.

I got lots more to say on the whole fertility front, but I leave that for another post…

We’re pleased to bring you another cross-post from our friends at Feminist Review. In this week’s edition, Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum reviews Michelle Goldberg’s The Means of Reproduction. –Kristen

In The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, author and investigative journalist Michelle Goldberg uses her abilities to uncover the truth about the reproductive rights (and lack thereof) for women around the world. As we grow into a global community, the politics of sex, child bearing, and child rearing are monumental issues that are overlooked for the convenience of those in power. This book explores the reality of the situation, including many real life accounts of the struggles faced by women in countries that span four continents.

Chapter one begins with a heartbreaking tale of the first victim of an abortion ban in Nicaragua. The country deemed that abortion in any form was illegal. Jazmina Bojorge began suffering a miscarriage and due to fear of legal repercussions the doctors, against their better judgment, gave her medicine to stop the labor because helping her with the miscarriage—that is, terminating the pregnancy—would have been illegal. The delay in action caused her to die. If the doctors could have performed medical assistance in ways that are associated with abortions, it would have saved Jazmina’s life.

The book goes into great detail about the various issues that surround women’s rights and the laws and culture that repress them. Topics include contraception, pregnancy and childbirth, AIDS, female circumcision, abortion, sex-selective abortion, rape, and the role of women in society. The political stances of both the Left and the Right are dissected with suggestions of what should be done and how women can stand strong together to fight against the torment we collectively endure.

The Means of Reproduction is a hard hitting read. Goldberg opens the eyes of the reader to the unjust treatment of women due to reproduction. Feminist activists will be motivated to take stronger action after reading this book. Anyone else will be hit with the realization that they can no longer choose to be ignorant. The facts are stacked up, and it’s time to take action.

Review by Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum

(Crossposted at Feminist Review)

Courtesy of Feminist Review, I am excited to be able to continue the conversation on GWP about the relationship between feminism and religion. Last week, Allison McCarthy brought us an interview with Leora Tanenbaum, author of Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality. Today Renee Leonowicz reviews Mary Henold’s Catholic and Feminist (UNC Press) and the rise of a feminist movement that originated within the Catholicism it hopes to change. –Kristen

It may be customary for some to place Catholic and feminist identities in opposition to each other, but Mary Henold’s illuminating and meticulous examination of the Catholic feminist movement unearths a critical link between feminist consciousness and activism, and Catholic tradition and conviction. Her comprehensive research illuminates an exhaustive timeline of the Catholic feminist movement that incorporates information gathered from texts and periodicals, a number of self-conducted interviews, and archival documents.

Henold traces the beginning of the feminist movement within the Catholic community to around the same time of the emergence of the larger women’s movement in the United States. She asserts, however, that religious women’s embrace of feminism was not applied to their faith as a mere reaction to the political climate at large. Henold argues that their feminism was actually propagated by their faith, and explores the inherently radical nature of Christianity through the actions of practicing feminist Catholics who declare social justice as a principle of their faith.

The American Catholic community underwent a radical reconstruction in the 1960s that brought blossoms of feminist consciousness into the church. This change led to a struggle to assert women’s autonomy and integrate progressive ambitions within the staunch conventionalism of the church’s hierarchy, and resulted in confusion, doubt, and subdued optimism in the 1970s. A fissure formed between women who were disenchanted with, and repudiating, the church, and those still hopeful for improvement. Henold chronicles the beginning of those divergent paths, which continue today.

In Catholic and Feminist, readers are introduced to the encapsulating sisterhood of religious women, theological scholars, and laywomen born of the prestigious and virile hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Whether ruminating on the sexist implications of the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, demanding ordination through grassroots organizing, or marching against injustices alongside nonreligious activists, Catholic feminists have incorporated their zeal for revolutionary equality with their faith to challenge sexism and other forms of oppression within the church and society at large.

Review by Renee Leonowicz

Cross-posted from Feminist Review

In a happy arrangement with our friends over at the blog and editorial collective Feminist Review, GWP is pleased to start offering MORE feminist reviews, courtesy of crosspost!  Here is the first, a review of Letters from Black America (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), edited by Pamela Newkirk.  The review is penned by Brittany Shoot. Here we go…And a big fat shout out to Feminist Review!  –Deborah

While it would help to appreciate and admire the historical importance of preserved letters, you don’t have to be history buff or correspondence enthusiast to delight in Letters from Black America.  In a time of quickly typed emails and SMS, tangible letters hold weight for many who value thoughtful, deliberate communication. In this compendium, Pamela Newkirk skillfully compiles an assortment of missives from the past three centuries that shine a light on the humanity and continued struggles of ordinary and exceptional African American men and women.

Divided into seven sections, the collection of 200-plus letters examines family dynamics during and after slavery, education as a locus for social activism, and Black military service from the Civil War to Iraq. In everyday yet often poetic language, details are revealed about married couples separated by the slave trade and babies born without the presence of their fathers. Open letters previously published in newspapers are included to showcase a wide range of letter writing and how it can be used as a tool to promote public discourse. Prominent Black artists and academics correspond and share visions of hope. One man proposes marriage and later asks to set a date, confirming his lady’s affirmative answer, though the reader never knows what else was actually said.

While the collection does include an interesting cross-section of letter writers and receivers, many are notable figures in Black history, and many—like W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Derrick Bell Jr., and Booker T. Washington—have letters included in several sections. This is not without merit, but letters to and from prominent, highly educated Black leaders are more common than those passed between ordinary citizens. This does not diminish the significance of the selections. At times, it is rather helpful—if not necessary. The often-lengthy writings of Frederick Douglass, for example, comprise a significant part of the letters about politics and social justice. This is not a burden, but an opportunity. Many of these letters are not easily found, even in a time of ubiquitous technology and information. Each letter is introduced with background about the writer and recipient, and these small but critical details make Letters from Black America an incredible reference guide.

While many of the book’s sections are enthralling—love letters from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Coretta Scott (King) and a coming out letter from Joseph Beam to his parents are particularly noteworthy—the climax of the compilation is the third section, “Politics and Social Change.” Some of the most formative communication of our time is found here, including letters between Shirley Du Bois and Langston Hughes, Bayard Rustin and Eldridge Cleaver, and Toni Morrison to then-Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama.

To address the changes in communication over time, the book ends with letters from “Across the Diaspora.” Communiqués between Pan-African leaders of the last hundred years, across oceans and decades, remind us that even as we move into a time when travel and the Internet make our work easier, we have come very far and yet have so very far to go.

–Brittany Shoot

(Crossposted at Feminist Review)