A question for Dittany

[roseability]

Sorry to target you personally but I have noticed your name on a few threads of interest and you seem to know your stuff

Basically I am trying to stir up an interest in feminism and feminist thinking/discussion in my bookclub. I am tired of the usual 'chic lit' that gets recommended, the type that revolves around romance and needing a man (yawn). I also want to stretch my brain a bit after a long period of domesticity and motherhood (I feel chained to the kitchen sink!)

I have recommended Sheila Jeffreys Beauty and Misogyny and they seem to be keen. One is an English Literature lecturer, who is widely read in feminist literature. She hasn't read this though. Do you think this is a good recommendation? Is it maybe too hard hitting for a first venture into feminism (I haven't read much myself other than stuff about the medicalization of chilbirth to allow male control of pregnant women as part of my degree).

Hope you don't mind me asking. Your comments on the thread about pornography were a defining moment for me. I had no idea, and I wept for my baby daughter and vowed I would educate myself more so that I can teach her to respect herself and never be controlled by men.

Coming late to the party, but there have been so many feminist sf recommendations that I must also add in Octavia Butler, whose books I absolutely love (though some of them are tough going, particularly the Earthseed ones). In addition to being great, mind-expanding, feminist sf, she gives a non-White perspective as one of only a few well-known Black sf writers.

Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time changed my life in the 80s.

I got all nostalgic for the Women's Press and Silver Moon books at the weekend, it's all this third-wave of feminism on MN!

Gaaaagh, did Carlyle write something also?

Math Oops - as soon as I posted I knew I'd got it wrong - bang goes my feminist/historian cred

I shot mine to bits by mixing up Raising Arizona and Reviving Ophelia...

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
by Mary Wollstonecraft 1792
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION:
"After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess that either Nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilisation which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial".

A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf. First published in 24 October 1929. the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay is on women as both writers of fiction and as characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled "Women and Fiction", and hence the essay, are considered non-fiction.

The essay examines whether women were capable of producing work of the quality of William Shakespeare, amongst other topics. In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character Judith "Shakespeare's Sister", to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women....

Someone upthread mentioned Marge Piercy, and I wanted to second that - not just Braided Lives but a lot of her work is utter genius; not always in your face feminist but always examining alternative ways of living for women than the marriage-monogamy-children model.

Her book Gone to Soldiers is perhaps my favourite novel of all time. A WW2 war novel, but from the point of view of various women involved in the war, not the men. All war novels are about men, have you noticed? She ranges from a French Jew who joins the resistance in Vichy France, to an American lesbian who becomes a pilot, and it's just an amazing book.

"....I will venture to affirm, that a girl, whose spirit have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless confinement allows her no other alternative." Mary Wollstonecraft

"In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character Judith "Shakespeare's Sister", to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women...."

Which is why the Shakespeare canon is reinforced.

Actually, there was a female playwright (the first professional one) who wrote during the Restoration Period - Aphra Behn was her name - interesting life she led!

I read [http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/06/come-ye-now-and-heere-of-beating-of.html this very funny post]] on Tiger Beatdown and promptly ordered the Christine de Pizan Book of the City of Ladies. Maybe not your usual holiday reading but bloody brilliant, and extends the history of feminist writing right back to 600 years ago.

Ah, Aphra Behn - playwright and spy! Aphra is currently our front-runnner girl's name for DC1.

An observation for Dittany and others this time.

I was at a course for parents of children with ASD yesterday. There were about 60 people in the room six of whom were men.

We split into groups of ten or so to analyse case studies, big sheet of paper for the scribe, you know.

Then we fed back to the group as a whole.

The case study ie the question was always read out by a woman yet the "answer" was read out by a man. Every time! With seemingly no discussion about it. I was watching

In every case the paper was picked up by the bloke who hadn't written on it and he "mansplanied", getting it wrong in most cases.

Twas just like being back in college teaching lectures, few men all bloody talking!

Did none of the women speak up to make the necessary corrections?

Nope but the course leaders who were writing on the board for all left it blank with a dash -

like so, when the men didn't actually say what the underlying problem was other than "unacceptable behaviour" rather than giving alternatives to the calming things children with autism do.

And the solutions the men presented, ignored all the handouts with concrete examples and banged on about changing the challenging behaviour! I feel very sorry for the wives and children of these men to be honest.

The course leaders were a bit dismayed I could tell.

I wrote about it on the feedback form. Sadly they may have to get used to it, or perhaps they already have. Very depressing though.

Dittany, is there anything written to get women to realise that it is not shameful to be ageing. My classmates are all turning 40 and on facebook I notice that they apologise for being forty, and are embarrassed of being forty like it was a sexually transmitted disease. They make jokes about being 32 wink wink. One girl said she was so at peace with being forty that she was only going to slit one wrist.

I hardly know the people making these comments. Just people who have 'friended' me. But this is my age group. They are all one by one falling on their swords for the hideous crime of having turned forty. I wish there was something, a book or a link that would penetrate their skulls and make them stop apologising for being forty. I refuse to do that. I turned forty recently and I get edgy when people tell me 'oh you only look about.... 37' as though I should be thrilled with the three year reprieve!

Don't worry Maggie00, after 50 you're entirely invisible! (Though one must ask: 'to whom?', then one must ask: 'Whom gives a f*!). Quite a relief, actually. I remember an interview with Dustin Hoffman in which he said that when he was made-up as a frumpy (youngish) middle-aged woman for his part in 'Tootsie', he noticed that, off-set, if he was talking to men, their attention would wander and they would be looking over his shoulder rather than at him/her. You can read 'em like a book.

MiladyDeWinter, who was it talking about a 'Rights for Women' march (in the 60/70's I guess), she said the men were shouting 'Whaddawewant?' and the women chorussed ''Rights for women!'

Ooh, just thought about Barbara Pym - 'Excellent Women' was a good one.

'The Myth of Monogamy': Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
By David P. Barash, Judith Eve Lipton
Applying new research to sex in the animal world, esteemed scientists David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton dispel the notion that monogamy comes naturally. In fact, as The Myth of Monogamy reveals, biologists have discovered that for nearly every species, cheating is the rule -- for both sexes.

Reviewing findings from the same DNA fingerprinting science employed in the courtroom, Barash and Lipton take readers from chickadee nests to chimpanzee packs to explain why animals cheat. (Some prostitute themselves for food or protection, while others strive to couple with genetically superior or multiple mates.) The Myth of Monogamy then illuminates the implications of these dramatic new findings for humans, in our relationships, as parents, and more.

They paraphrase the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who once suggested that monogamy is the hardest of all human marital arrangements.
"It is also one of the rarest," they write. "In attempting to maintain a social and sexual bond consisting exclusively of one man and one woman, aspiring monogamists are going against some of the deepest-seated evolutionary inclinations with which biology has endowed most creatures, Homo sapiens included."

I had an experience like that with men and women at a session during my divorce process. There was a presentation on 'what's best for the children' for couples (attending separately) in cases where custody was being contested. We broke into discussion groups to talk about minimising the impact of the divorces for the children and disrupting their lives as little as possible, keeping their interests first and foremost -- or so the intention went anyway. The groups were dominated by those men who had a big, hostile axe to grind against their ex partners, and clearly none of the well-meant programme had sunk in at all. It was easy to see why they were being kicked out of their homes and also why their partners didn't want them going near their kids.

Maggie, 40 is a big bugaboo for many. All those people won't bat an eye when 41 rolls around. 40 takes a bit of getting used to. I think 40 is about the age most of our mothers were when we turned into teenagers or when teenage life and home life started to rub each other up the wrong way. We see ourselves turning into our own mothers and the vision brings back unhappy or at best mixed memories?

Apologies first as haven't read all the posts but Marge Piercy is a fantastic author and Vida really changed my way of thinking.Am 41 and was raised in Newcastle in a very traditional family. Developed quite strong feminist views with help from my much older sister but this book made me think about "issues" myself. Prior to that my ideas of feminists were shaped by Milly Tant (cannot remember the spelling) from Viz! Also remember reading lots of Fay Weldon. Will read all the post eventually but also would appreciate recommendations.

Oh have thought of another one - Angel by Elizabeth Taylor. Not an especially feminist book but it is iykwim.

But what I want to know is: Where's Dittany? Why hasn't she posted on here for a while?

Could I add 'Are Women Human? And other International Dialogues' by Catherine MacKinnon and 'Pornified: How pornography is damaging our lives, our relationships and our families' by Pamela Paul

(Apologies if they've been mentioned. Had a quick flick over thread, but didn't notice them.)