Love, Race, and Liberation: ‘Til the White Day is Done

Edited by JLove Calderón and Marcella Runell
Love-N-Liberation Press

The subtitle of of JLove Calderón and Marcella Runell’s curriculum, Love, Race, and Liberation: 'Til the White Day is Done, comes from the poem “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes.

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.

Love, Race, and Liberation is a multimedia project that aims at heart-level transformation, even while it equips activists for ground-level work for racial justice. The work is sponsored by NYU’s Center for Multicultural Education and programs, Eradicating Racism (1 + 1 + 1=ONE), and World Up.

This text includes twenty lesson plans, which can be used together or individually, and eleven love letters from performers, writers, educators, activists. The lessons, suitable for grade eight (approximately age thirteen) and above, are designed to take 90-120 minutes. Extension activities are included in many lessons, as well as supplemental resources. A couple of the lessons make use of the PBS film, Race: The Power of an Illusion (California Newsreel), and the film is recommended in the introductory notes. The topics covered include social identity, racial socialization, white privilege, immigration, cultural appropriation, and being an ally. There are lessons on newsworthy aspects of racial justice, notably housing, education, health care, and criminal justice.

Love, Race, and Liberation makes an excellent resource for a classroom teacher or community organizer. Whether a reader uses every lesson in the book, or chooses those topics most relevant for a given group of students, this guide will be very useful. From my reading of this book, I have already covered a couple of index cards with book titles, author names, and websites to explore.

The lessons on social identity had me remembering my undergraduate Sociology courses, when many of my classmates had not considered the multifaceted nature of our identities, or the ways in which our ideas of ourselves are socially constructed. As a white woman, I continually welcome lessons on being an effective ally in the struggle for racial justice, and Love, Race, and Liberation includes many practical reminders in this vein.

I found the love letters sprinkled throughout the curriculum very powerful. All of them reinforce the question that is the heart-matter of this volume: why are we in this struggle? To paraphrase Sofia Quintero: I am not in this to save anyone, but to liberate myself. Love, Race, and Liberation provides a welcome new set of tools for the job.

Review by Lisa Rand

The Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and Transformation

By Hector Aristizabal and Diane Lefer

Lantern Books

As a survivor of government sanctioned torture in Colombia, Hector Aristizabal was left with unsettled anger and fear. His wariness towards both his country and his future there worsens when one of his brothers is murdered by paramilitary soldiers. Aristizabal is eventually able to cast aside his bitterness, and find ways to aid others in their struggles by holding workshops for prisoners and victims of violence in the United States. While the dust jacket of The Blessing Next to the Wound gives the impression that it is a memoir of surviving both torture and a corrupt government, the book's focus is actually splintered. It tells many stories connected through Aristzabal’s drive to aid others set both before and after his imprisonment and torture for alleged political ties.

The Blessing Next to the Wound begins with Aristizabal aiding his pregnant girlfriend and other young women seeking an illegal abortion. While Aristizabal boastfully lists the many women he seduced throughout his life, he also offers sympathy for the plight women face in a country with limited birth control resources. This later motivates him to undergo a vasectomy following the birth of his own two children, admitting that while he may not always be faithful to his wife, he will never impregnate another woman. While Aristizabal shows himself to grow, his treatment of women is never shown to be fully resolved. As a feminist, I fruitlessly waited for this to be given some resolution during the course of the book.

Each chapter tells a different vignette from Aristizabal’s rich life experience. While this approach causes the book to lack a clear focus, and often a sense of chronology, the bits and pieces he shares from his life are nonetheless captivating and often moving. During the course of the memoir Aristizabal chronicles the hardships faced by his homosexual brother who eventually dies of AIDS, the effect of the cocaine industry on Colombia, the many human rights violations that exist in the United States, and how his theater-based therapy work aids others in places of crisis in their lives. Now and then Aristizabal will make a connection between the chapter’s experience and his time spent imprisoned and tortured; these connections serve to lessen the fragmented feel of the work.

Despite its lack of focus, The Blessing Next to the Wound offers a moving portrayal of finding inspiration and direction after surviving torture.

Review by Adrienne Urbanski

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart

Edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell
Park Street Press

How could the title of this book not hook you? Power. Women. Heart. So, maybe I was biased from the beginning. Honestly, I was hoping that the book would be “all that.” It was.

By page fifteen, not having gotten past the editor’s introduction, I was pulsing with energy. I was ready to get my lazy butt up off the couch and pitch in. I was jonesing for my old “activist” days when I used to join in pro-choice marches and volunteer with the NW AIDS Foundation handing out condoms on the streets of Seattle.

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart is a collection of essays that were originally presented as lectures to attendees of the annual Bioneers conferences. Nina Simons, the editor and a co-founder of Bioneers, describes it as “a nonprofit educational organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet.” These essays cover a vast range of topics from truly knowing one’s self to finding your inner leader to mentoring, partnering, and imagining innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems as women see them. Some of the authors are household names such as Alice Walker and Julia Butterfly Hill, and others are simply women who are spending their energies learning from and teaching others to live authentically and purposefully. They will undoubtedly be household names in their own right soon.

Each and every essay contained in Moonrise is inspiring, touching, and revitalizing to the reader. Not all of the authors are women, but each and every one of them celebrates the unique gifts that women bring to the world in the form of their vision and perspective as caring, compassionate individuals who have found ways to rise above feelings of powerlessness and living in the minority to honor their communities, societies, and, indeed, the entire planet.

There are humorous tales of women fumbling their way through, led only by their instincts and their resolve to make a difference, painful stories of loss, and everything in between. This book truly offers something for everyone and I, for one, have decided to take the bait. If there are this many strong female voices out there clamoring for a change in the way we approach our collective challenges, it’s the least I can do to join in the march.

Review by Kari O’Driscoll

UK Feminista Summer School - Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre: London, England (7/31 - 8/1/2010)

Despite only existing since March 2010 and operating wholly through the work of volunteers, UK Feminista organized "two days of feminist training, explaining, and gaining," a free event on feminist activism in London. Held at Amnesty UK, it was overbooked and a visible ninety-nine percent of the 350 registered attendees came. The most amazing feature of the event was that it provided genuinely fun and interesting talks for activism beginners and veterans alike.

UK Feminista was started by Kat Banyard, the author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today, who gave a particularly inspiring speech during the first panel, "The Importance of Feminist Organising."

The enormous strength of the first day of summer school was its focus on practice. The afternoon was split into workshops on different levels of involvement: from how to organize a Ladyfest to running effective campaigns, organizing demonstrations, and planning direct action. All the materials from the workshops will be available at the UK Feminista website in the coming days.

Simultaneously to the events, UK Feminista volunteers were tweeting, providing quote selections and links so well that I didn't feel the need to take many notes. Instead, I have an online record of what was being said under the #femschool hashtag on Twitter. It is a goldmine of news, information, and people!

What struck me about the event, aside from supreme organization, was the enthusiasm of everyone involved, organisers and participants alike. People were chatting away and forming new alliances all the time. There's no better feedback for an event than when people just don't want it to end.

The second day was a lot more opinion- and discussion-based, but great training was still being given. We learned how to use media and influence politicians, how to fundraise and include disabled people in campaigning, the importance of promoting diversity within feminist groups, and why is climate change a feminist issue. The two arguably biggest events of the day, however, were the opening and closing panels. The first was with Jess McCabe of The F-Word, Hannah Pool, and Kira Cochrane. All three talked about their experiences with the media, and all agreed that to be a female journalist takes more effort and more talent, but their examples showed it was possible, and important.

The closing panel, "Feminist Question Time" with Bidisha, Dr. Aisha Gill, Sunder Katwala, Karon Monaghan QC, and Julie Bindel, provoked a lot more controversy. Bindel said there was a lot of terrible anthropological research concerning women in the sex industry, and that they should not be treated as an anthropological field research group; she went so far as to say that if she had one bullet in a gun, it would not go for the pimp, but for the academic who's all into the sex industry. Bindel also said, "we make a lot of excuses for men to the point where we praise them for not being fuckheads," which made everyone laugh, but later someone angrily said that the men in the audience must feel very excluded in the current talk, to which both Bindel and Bidisha reacted heatedly.

Overall I am inclined to say this was the best summer school I ever attended. It was a really inspiring, great opportunity to learn, meet people, and acquire skills and information to proceed with conviction and fury.

Review by Marta Lucy Summer

A longer, more in depth review can be found at Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

Photo credit: Kirsty McCall-Thornley

Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community

By Roberta Villalón
NYU Press

I generally do not start reviews with blanket statements, but I simply cannot say enough positive comments about this book. As a student of Gender & Sexuality studies, as well as community activism and Hispanic studies, I was greatly interested and inspired by this thoughtful, critical, theory-meets-activism approach to the difficult and devastating reality of violence against Latina immigrants.

The author, Roberta Villalón, is a professor of Sociology at St. John’s University in New York City, where she is active with both the Committee for Latin American and Caribbean studies and the Women and Gender Studies Program. According to her author biography, Villalón was inspired by the corrupt, and often deadly, political regime of her childhood in Argentina, and has since dedicated her professional career to studying the harms and realities of inequality on multiple levels from institutionalized corruption to domestic abuse. With her academic grounding in political science, international relations, and sociology, as well as her Latin American/Latina focus and affiliation with various immigrants and women’s rights organizations, Villalón brings a fresh, critical perspective to the discussions of resistance in social movements, particularly activist feminist grassroots discourse and efforts.

In Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community, Villalón’s writing/research process was mainly based on her work on the ground as an activist researcher with a legal nonprofit organization that offers free services to individuals who have suffered from domestic abuse. The clients were typically female, undocumented immigrants, a population she notes as particularly vulnerable to violence: domestic, structural, cultural, and symbolic. In her book Violence Against Latina Immigrants, Villalón combines her observations and struggles with individual clients and their processes with the complicated bureaucracy of our national immigration system, with personal interviews with staff. Even though well intentioned, the staff and general organization were often limited by funding and legal restrictions. They were therefore, as Villalón claims, forced to work within and, unfortunately often perpetuated, the oppressive cycles and systems of structural inequality, specifically in their construction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ clients. Although the organization started from a radical, revolutionary grassroots project, many of the employees seem to be jaded, and accepted the limitations, an unfortunate although (arguably) sometimes necessary common ideological shift for non-profits when the practical issues such as funding, staff, and helping people in the immediate present are realistically addressed.

Villalón notes these frustrating contradictions and dilemmas that further the cycle and reproduction of inequality, and calls for more advocacy, networking between community organizations and policy changes that would aid this particularly vulnerable population. She calls for people, especially those with the desire and power to change policy, to “focus on the ways in which (these women) experience exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence” in order to make the “invisible, visible," while also avoiding the equally oppressive victimization narrative that would further deny their agency.

Overall, the text proves to be a critical study into the complex intersection between immigration, citizenship and violence, particularly in regards to race, gender, heterosexuality, and nationality, and I would recommend to all interested in women’s, immigrant, Hispanic, or general sociopolitical studies.

Review by Abigail Chance

Experiments In A Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project

Edited by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Lisa L. Moore, and Sharon Bridgforth
University of Texas Press

In June 2009, I participated in a writing workshop with Sharon Bridgforth, not knowing what to expect and not knowing what I was expected to give. I only knew that I loved music, having already pledged my undying love for jazz at a young age, and that I loved writing; but I never intended to leave with a blueprint for the foundation of how I would put pen to paper from that point on. Since then, my writing has been centered in being present in the here and now, a soulful, deep listening, improvisation (which brings together both the aforementioned), and an integrity that refuses to deviate from what makes up what is known as the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

According to Austin Project founder Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, the Jazz Aesthetic Manifesto “is a way to forestall the erosion of human connection by bringing to voice women of color and those white women who are able to learn the role of allies.” Jazz has always been about being in the moment, listening to oneself and to one’s surroundings, improvisation, and continuous change. Those precepts are among the few that shaped themselves into the manifesto that would become the Austin Project.

The Austin Project (tAP) was started in 2002 with a stone etching that “all women-all people-are inherently creative, are artists in their own right, and that claiming this identity can be transformative for individuals and communities.” It provides a space for women of color and their allies to write and perform in a jazz aesthetic as a strategy for social change, be they writers, performers, doctors, or social workers. It consists of collaborators Lisa L. Moore, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Texas at Austin, and Sharon Bridgforth, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of the bull-jean stories and love conjure/blues. Mentors and teachers of the women of tAP have included artistic nobility such as Laurie Carlos, Carl Hancock Rux, Virginia Grise, and Daniel Alexander Jones, to name a few.

Not often do I find it difficult to summarize the works of a collective into several hundred words; however, this is one of those times. Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic includes the works of some of the previously mentioned collaborative artists, as well as a veritable who’s who in all things to do with art, activism, and the academics. Jones wrote that in conceiving the Austin Project, she was trying to save her own life; consequently, many births seem to have taken place, for many artists have birthed a way of creating, organizing, and performing. Whether it is art, activism, or academia—being present, listening, body- centered, true to the both/and instead of the either/or all on an inclusive level all serve as the foundation with which to maintain the integrity of the jazz aesthetic. It is always a work in progress, as it should be.

Review by Olupero R. Aiyenimelo

Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris

By Jennifer Anne Boittin
University of Nebraska Press

Interwar Paris conjures up images of romance and renewal. From the ashes and rubble of the First World War, families reunite and rebuild under what seemed to be the end of the most dire of circumstances. Unfortunately, Colonial Metropolis fails to capture this magic, and yet it is an extremely thoughtful and methodical review of the local primary source material available, and would serve as a very strong academic referral source.

The author, Jennifer Anne Boittin, has a clear passion for the subject matter and conveys this well through her enthusiastic descriptions of the characters of the period who populated the anti-colonialism and feminist movements. The problem, for me, stems from the fact that we never feel the interaction between these players. These characters never seem to weave together into the larger story of feminist and anti-colonial activism, the tale that Boittin is seemed so hopeful to tell at the outset of the book.

Boittin lifts directly from the historical record to bring a multitude of characters from this period to life, but none so well as that as Josephine Baker. Pages and pages are dedicated to bringing her tantalizing and mischievous performances to life. Imagine the dedication and zeal of Marina Abramović crossed with the free wheeling sexual spirit of Isadora Duncan. Who wouldn’t want to be warped back to the front row for that show of an old theater in Paris?

With these high sensory moments scattered throughout, readers catch glimpses of the time gone by that was advertised to them, but even the best of these moments failed to sustain me from page to page. Clearly, Boittin’s integrity to the historical record speaks to her virtues as an academic; it just doesn’t make for a particularly interesting read.

Review by Nicole Levitz

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry

By Tiffany M. Gill
University of Illinois Press

In Beauty Shop Politics, Tiffany M. Gill documents the central role that Black beauticians played in the struggle against Jim Crow laws. Beauty shops were one of the few industries that offered Black women some economic stability and upward mobility in the face of segregation. The industry also offered Black women a respectable alternative to domestic labor, as well as a chance to not work for White people. As political tensions rose, civil rights organizers increasingly turned to Black beauticians for disseminating social and political information.

Initially, White English and French men dominated the hair care industry. Black men slowly worked their way in, serving as hairdressers for White women, but that period was short-lived, as the stereotype of Black men as sexual predators began to emerge. During the antebellum period, Black women began to emerge as hairdressers in greater numbers; the early twentieth century saw the emergence of Black female entrepreneurs, namely Annie Malone and Madame C.J. Walker, who played an integral role in expanding Black beauty culture.

Through hard work and sheer perseverance, the women fought for beauticians to gain the respect of the general public. The women had to fight charges that they were inhibiting racial uplift, particularly because their products appeared to straighten Black women’s hair at a time when it was culturally looked down upon. Still, the women fought to have beautician courses established at Black colleges, arguing that the industry provided Black women economic stability. They also fiercely promoted themselves to the public by contributing to various philanthropic causes.

In times of economic hardship, the beauty industry offered Black women an opportunity to enter a respectable profession that entailed a steady income and entrepreneurial opportunities. On the national level, women worked to create a national organization that would legitimize their profession. In 1912, Madame Walker argued that “hairdresser” was a derogatory term, and insisted on the use of the term “beauty culturist.” With their economic and professional status now in place, beauty culturists were quickly gaining a strong foothold and establishing their place within their communities.

Because the Black beauty industry was owned and supplied by Blacks, and catered to the Black community, Black beauticians had some insulation from the economic hardships that their peers faced. Thus, they were able to participate in civil rights activism without the fear of losing their jobs or their customer base. Some, for instance, established literacy schools so that their students would be able to pass voter registration tests. Others distributed information through their beauty shops, which had become central locations for community organizing. Gill also extends her research to the present day, noting how the focus has now shifted from civil rights to women’s health initiatives.

Perhaps the best thing about this book is its accessibility to a wide audience. Gill writes in a clear and engaging style that makes the book an excellent choice for a non-academic reader who is interested in the subject. She includes noted figures in Black women’s history such as Madame Walker, Annie Malone, and Septima Clark, and uses compelling anecdotes about women such as Mahalia Jackson and Anne Moody, author of Coming of Age in Mississippi. Most importantly, Gill introduces the reader to a roster of lesser-known figures who also played important roles during this period. The book is an invaluable resource for women’s history and African American history scholars.

Review by Melissa Arjona

Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World (Version 2.0: Revised, Expanded & Updated)

By Bob and Jenna Torres
PM Press

Wherever one falls on the meat-eater to vegan continuum, you need to make the Torres duo your truth-speaking, profanity-spewing, tough-loving pals. They will move you closer to ethical veganism. For the already-vegan, Bob and Jenna offer the rationale and the moral support to stay that way. For four years, these wacky Ph.D.s have provided social commentary and intellectual critique to and for vegans through their podcast, blog, online forum and publications. In so doing, they've created the Vegan Freak ethos: a celebration of the way vegans stand out in a society that normalizes brutality and exploitation.

Two years ago my younger brother lent me the first version of Vegan Freak, a colloquial and genuinely caring guide to going vegan—covering everything from basic animal rights theory to getting along with non-vegans to where and how to find vegan products. I'd gone vegan as a teenager, emotionally devastated by exposés of modern industrial agriculture. But with the onset of my adulthood, Whole Foods markets were popping up like dandelions, and no less than Peter Singer had given the seal of approval to "humanely" raised animal products. The ideology of mainstream animal advocates looked hopelessly confused, applauding vegan diets and marketing cage-free eggs in the same breath, and my own veganism needed a shot of re-commitment. Vegan Freak offered that. In its pages I found a consistent, insistent morality and a practical guide to living it.

Now, the new edition appears and, as promised, it's been rewritten from the ground up. A thicker book both in page count and ideas, Version 2.0 reflects the clarity and maturity the authors have developed through years of vegan outreach. It still covers surviving holiday dinners and finding vegan alternatives for the leather fetishist in your life. Bad puns, tangential rants, and non sequitur chapter titles preserve the fun of the original. But new sections address recent trends in the vegan world: environmental veganism, veganism-as-body-image complex (or the Skinny Bitch effect), Oprah's vegan cleanse—all are sliced with a scalpel of abolitionist rationale.

For Bob and Jenna, there's no bad reason to go vegan, per se. Just inadequate reasons. Their goals—to help others go and stay vegan, to build a social movement recognizing animal rights—inform all their advice and criticism. Empathy bleeds through every sentence, but the Torreses treat their audience as responsible adults. They are not going to let us off the hook for failing to check if a soup is made with chicken stock or if our running shoes are all man-made materials. They are not content with vegetarians; cheese addicts get their own special page to bookmark and turn to whenever the craving strikes. Really, Bob and Jenna are sure we can make it through the traumatic dinner party with nothing but iceberg lettuce, and when we think about it, we are, too.

To their credit, the authors do not pretend to know what they don't. They frequently refer readers to other sources. The number of times they recommend Googling vegan product X will get tiresome if you read the book in one sitting. But for anyone attempting to make any kind of change, Vegan Freak is applicable and inspirational. The three-week, cold-tofu approach to personal lifestyle change worked for me when I decided to begin exercising regularly. And their thoughts about "impoverished veganism"—veganism that is only about what we consume and how we spend our money—encourages the already-vegan to think beyond personal choices. Most seriously, I credit my present involvement in any kind of activism, vegan-focused or not, to Bob and Jenna's inspiring, grassroots-y influence.

Review by Charlotte Malerich

Tillie Olsen: One Woman, Many Riddles

By Panthea Reid
Rutgers University Press

Part of Panthea Reid’s title seems to allude to Tillie Olsen’s 1961 collection of short stories, Tell Me a Riddle. It also seems to highlight the layers of complexity in a woman hailed as an iconic writer and feminist. Reid doesn’t idealize Olsen. This was a woman who began lying at a young age and continued throughout her life. She cheated on her husband, cheated Random House out of an advance for a book she never wrote, and cheated her daughter out of the experience of having a devoted and attentive mother. However, Reid does give full credit to Olsen’s work as a writer, feminist, and social activist. All great figures in history, I feel, have complicated relationships to the world and to other people. It is important to understand and acknowledge a great figure’s humanity as well as celebrating his/her greatness.

Reid was able to interview and get information from Olsen herself before Olsen’s death in 2001, and she also spoke with Olsen’s siblings, one of her daughters, other relatives, and Olsen’s colleagues and fellow writers. The book is well-researched and provides an in-depth look at her life. It doesn’t seem to have been an easy task for Reid. Reid worked on the book for ten years, and the ins and outs of Olsen’s life seem at times overwhelming.

Olsen had many roles throughout her life, and in a quote from her diary from age eighteen, she wrote: “With dozens of selves, quarreling and tearing at each other—which then is the natural self? ...None.” This seems fitting for a woman who ended up intertwined in some of the century’s most historic moments: she was a communist and revolutionary in the 1930s, promoted equal work for equal pay in the 1940s, earned the nickname “Tillie Appleseed” for planting the seeds of feminism and women’s studies, was an anti-war activist in the 1960s and 1970s, and was investigated by the FBI for subversion. The book is broken down by chapter into time periods from “Magnetic Personality: 1925-1929” and “Early Genius: 1934” to “Image Control: 1981-1996” and “Enter Biographer: 1997-2007.” It includes some black and white photographs of Olsen from childhood through to adulthood.

Reid doesn’t necessarily unravel all the riddles around Olsen, but she does an incredible job at bringing the parts of the riddles to light. We see Olsen as a self-absorbed and manipulative woman; Reid definitely knocks Olsen off any saintly pedestal. But she does this without lessening the impact of Olsen’s work. The book is readable and engaging; it isn’t just for scholars.

Review by Kristin Conard

Women's Movements in the Global Era: The Power Of Local Feminisms

Edited by Amrita Basu
Westview Press

The fight for equal rights is not an easy one. What many consider basic rights in one country are denied to women in another. Nevertheless, advocates for the women's movement continue to fight throughout the world. Women's Movements in the Global Era documents the history and current activity of the women's movements in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, India, China, Poland, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, Palestine, Iran, and the United States. Each chapter begins with basic information fact sheet about the country, such as language and population, as well as detailed information about the current status of women, including literacy, political representation, and economic position.

Despite the differences in political conditions and the location in the world, many of these movements share similarities. For example, the words used in the movement have a big impact, or moreover, the creation of new words in the language needed for the women's movement. In the chapter, “The Chinese Women's Movement in the Context of Globalization,” authors Naihua Zhang and Ping-Chun Hsuing note that the Chinese language did not have a word for domestic violence until 1995. Before then, the closest word was dalaopo, which means wife beating and indicates that the wife is a piece of property.

Another word that has a stigma attached to it in many countries, including the United States, is feminism. Elzbieta Matynia, author of the chapter “Polish Feminism Between the Local and the Global: A Task of Translation,” states, “feminism, the word, which exists in [the Slavic] languages, is so pejoratively loaded that for a long time it was considered political suicide for a woman active in public life to identify herself with feminism and feminist issues.” To keep these movements going, many activists chose to identify their work as “gender equality” or “women's movement” to prevent alienating other people who have the negative connotation of the word feminist.

While a thick book, Women's Movements in the Global Era provides great insight to the work women are doing around the world in the name of gender equality. Some of the chapters include photographs of the work activists are doing. Each of the authors give an in-depth coverage of the women's movement in their country, and what they hope for in the future.

Review by Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch

Get Opinionated: A Progressive’s Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action)

By Amanda Marcotte
Seal Press

A few years ago, my uncle, the family’s token conservative, sent me a copy of Dinesh D’Souza’s Letters to a Young Conservative, probably to irk my mother. Despite my inclinations, I decided to give it a try. The first chapter of Letters is masterful, beginning with a lecture D’Souza gave at Columbia University, at which he was greeted with crowds of angry, rioting, liberal students bent on silencing his conservative point of view. D’Souza recalls fighting his way through bullhorns and posters saying things about “capitalism” and “imperialism.” D'Souza presented this situation as a testament to the sorry state of modern liberalism. Although today this sequence may remind us of a Tea Party rally, the image of the crazed young liberal beating drums and waving signs is one that’s hard to shake.

I thought of D'Souza's Letters while reading a new book on modern progressivism, Get Opinionated by Amanda Marcotte, editor of Pandagon and regular contributor to RH Reality Check and Slate's Double X blog. Both are fiery calls to action from well-respected authors. Unfortunately, both are also a little light on facts and evidence.

Marcotte clearly sees her goal as motivating liberals—ostensibly young liberals—to become more politically aware and take steps in their own lives to see their ideals realized. “Consciousness raising isn’t just for identity politics,” she tells the reader, urging him or her to leave comments on blogs to foster intellectual discourse. Marcotte says that to counter anti-government histrionics from conservatives progressives need to put forth “positive, truth-based counter-arguments to raise people’s consciousness.” If only Get Opinionated practiced what it preaches.

The problem is that Marcotte isn’t arming her readers with strong arguments. Instead, Get Opinionated teaches readers that hyperbole will suffice when it comes to shaping political beliefs. If Marcotte urges her readers to go forth and debate, then she should also explain that they should be equipped with serious arguments and evidence, which some progressives aren’t.

Marcotte acknowledges that liberals often have a PR problem. Addressing the war on drugs, for example, she reminds us that stoners don’t make the best spokespersons, stressing that, instead, sensible drug policies are best fought for by someone who looks good in a suit, doesn’t smoke pot, and will discuss the social and economic ramifications of mass incarceration. But while Marcotte notes that a reasoned liberal makes a stronger case, she doesn’t always follow her own advice.

“Deep down inside, we all wish people read and thought about subjects in a little more depth,” she writes. But when it comes to offering a framework for addressing more touchy subjects, Marcotte has a harder time presenting sober, nuanced opinions. Take, for example, her discussion of terrorism. The language used in discussions about terrorism is tricky, with liberals often confusing their emotions about Bush's misadventures in Iraq with the separate issue of terrorism. Marcotte herself falls victim to the dangers of emotional rhetoric. “The most likely explanation for the unnecessary histrionics at airport security is that they’re part of the ‘frog in boiling water’ strategy of introducing a stronger police state,” she writes. Such an argument echoes the kind of wacky conspiracy theories that keep liberal opinions from being taken seriously. Perhaps Marcotte is right, but such accusations need evidence. Presented only as speculation, they are no better than Fox News claiming Barack Obama is a socialist.

Political debate should not rely on ad hominem attacks, but that good idea is frequently overshadowed by the ways in which Marcotte fires at conservatives. A great blogger, journalist, and feminist, Marcotte is just the person to demonstrate the sexist implications of social conservatism. Instead, she intimates that socially conservative men get turned on by talk of “family” and that they spend an inordinate amount of time “monitoring the status of their teenage daughters’ hymens.” These accusations are counterproductive, sidetracking the debate from the actual reasons social conservatism harms women. Marcotte risks alienating potential supporters of women’s rights by giving a distasteful comment while setting a low bar for political debate.

Marcotte is at her best when she argues that “You Don’t Have to Be a Stinky Hippie to Care about the Environment,” the name of her first chapter. She paints an enticing picture of a life in which Americans ride bikes, grow gardens, eat less meat, and save energy in myriad ways. But most liberals already accept that America needs to reduce its carbon footprint. So even though this is a strong point, it is by far the most conventional.

What Marcotte misses in her book is that liberal thought today still lacks a coherent and well-reasoned approach to national security. It’s too bad she took a reactive stance rather than the positive goal of creating a new, liberal approach. It is precisely because Marcotte repeatedly invokes the power of conversation, debate, and good information that the lack of careful reasoning in the book is so strange. Get Opinionated is clearly Marcotte’s own vision of liberalism, one that she hopes will inspire others to think and talk. However, she should demonstrate how to formulate intelligent and persuasive opinions, not just encourage her readers to get political.

“I want badly to say that reading this book means you’re already on the right path, but humility forces me to declare that it is only marginally deeper than Jon Stewart’s book featuring naked pictures of historical figures,” Marcotte says. She could argue that Get Opinionated was all in good fun, that this review is overblown because she wasn’t that serious. But publishing a book has responsibilities, especially when it purports to represent a liberal viewpoint. Marcotte is smart and could have done better. Instead, she may have accidentally given D’Souza new fodder for a second Letters.

Review by Pema Levy

This article was created by Campus Progress.

Grow Your Own Tree Hugger: 101 Activities to Teach Your Child How to Live Green

By Wendy Rosenoff
Krause Publications

As a woman with young siblings, I have a vested interest in all materials that help me to have a positive influence on the adults they will grow up to become. I was very excited to see this new title by Wendy Rosenoff, an environmentalist who works with children through the Girl and Boy Scouts. Grow Your Own Tree Hugger contains, as noted, 101 activities that you can work through with your kids to help them better understand the planet and how to take care of it.

I often find it challenging (though necessary) to discuss lofty concepts with kids, and Rosenoff’s book helps because the activities serve as examples or analogies to larger, more complicated issues. For example, it might be difficult to get a child to understand the impact of pesticides and chemicals on our food, especially when these foods look the same as organic ones. Rosenoff suggests that you take two pieces of fruit—one organic and the other non-organic—and put them in the refrigerator. After several days, the organic fruit will be green and withered while the chemically enhanced one will still look new. This is a great, visual way to illustrate how pesticides prevent the natural decomposition process for kids.

Some activities do not actually involve activism, but offer a fun game as a way to encourage open conversation. Rosenoff suggests you make and fly a kite with your child and then use the opportunity to talk about wind power. She also encourages parents to take their kids out to experience nature, something the modern child often lacks exposure to.

In this day and age of the internet, video game devices, and television, some kids don’t spend much time outdoors at all. Rosenoff believes you should take them to examine tree stumps and determine the tree’s age, or get outside and plant something. She even includes recipes that parents and kids can make together with organic ingredients.

In working through Grow Your Own Tree Hugger, you not only inform your kids about the environment and the ways in which they can have an impact, but you get to spend time with them doing hands-on activities that are actually a lot of fun. You will probably both benefit from the time you spend growing your own tree hugger.

Review by April D. Boland

Leading the Way: Young Women's Activism for Social Change

Edited by Mary K. Trigg
Rutgers University Press

When I read Leading the Way, I felt the same way I did the first time I read Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards or Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation by Barbara Findlen. I felt inspired, challenged, and optimistic about the future of feminism. I felt I had a roadmap of feminist ideas I could apply to my own life, and I knew I had incredible, real-life examples of women creating social change in their lives.

Leading the Way is a collection of essays straight from the pens—and hearts—of twenty-one young women activists. Their personal reflections are honest, illuminating, and sometimes raw. What makes this collection unique is that the authors all share a common experience in their feminist journeys: participation in the Rutgers University's Institute for Women's Leadership certificate program. The program is directed by the collection's editor, Mary K. Trigg. Trigg handpicked the authors and essays in this collection, and her choices represent a diverse, creative group of women who are applying the knowledge gained in the program directly to their lives.

Trigg also wrote the book's "Introduction," which provides a clear vision of where feminism is now, and where it is likely to go tomorrow. I found it to be incredibly informative and the perfect starting point from which to explore the numerous feminist issues contained in the consequent chapters. Contained in those chapters, the reader will find stories by women who are Latina, Muslim, gay, straight, White, African American, Asian American, musicians, writers, and much more. The women's stories are about their careers, relationships, academic studies, and communities. The women are doing amazing things with their lives, such as teaching English to young people in Kenya, promoting films created by women, and working as a nurse in Brooklyn.

For those who claim that women in their twenties are disengaged from feminist thought and activism, Leading the Way provides the proof that the new generation of young women are taking their leadership and their feminist activism seriously. These women are directly applying feminism to their lives, and their essays will move your toward creating more time for feminist activism in your own life.

Review by Meg Rayford