The World Split Open (89 page)

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Authors: Ruth Rosen

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Anne Carson,
Goddesses and Wise Women: The Literature of Feminist Spirituality 1980–92
, offers an annotated bibliography (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992).

Important works that influenced the growth of the movement include Paula Allen Gunn,
The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); Diana Bahr,
From Mission to Metropolis: Cupeno Indian Women in Los Angeles
(Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1984); Starhawk,
The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess
(New York: Harper and Row, 1979),
Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1982),
The Fifth Sacred Thing
(New York: Bantam, 1993); Caroline Bynum,
Jesus As Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Caroline Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman, eds.,
Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1986); Merlin Stone,
When God Was a Woman
(New York: Dial Press, 1976); Ginette Paris,
Pagan Meditations
(Dallas: Spring Publications, 1986).

Women's studies and feminist scholarship
. The best general overviews can be found in Marilyn Boxer,
When Women Asked the Questions: Creating Women's Studies in America
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1999); Ellen Dubois et al., eds.,
Feminist Scholarship: Kindling in the Groves of Academe
(Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1985), especially part 3, “The Response from the Disciplines”; and Christie Farnham,
The Impact of Feminist Research in the Academy
(Bloomington, Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1987). For a good sense of how far feminist scholarship altered the disciplines by the mid-eighties, see Kris Montgomery, “The Story of Women's History Month: Reclaiming the Past, Rewriting the Future,” in
Women Change America Gazette
(Sonoma: National Women's History Project, 1997), APA.

Working women. See early documents in Morgan,
Sisterhood
, and in Shapiro and Shapiro,
The Women Say;
see Denise D'Anne, “Working Women on Welfare,” 64; Lynn O'Connor, Fred Garner, and Par Mialocq, “Office Politics,” 45–51; Union WAGE, “Organizing Statement,” 73; Nine to Five, “The Bill of Rights for Women Office Workers,” 73; Union WAGE, “Purpose and Goals,” 74; Karen Nussbaum, “We Have the Power of Women!” 71; Jesusita Novarro, “I Am a Working Mother,” 72. Nancy Seifer, ed.,
Nobody Speaks for Me: Self Portrait of Working Class Women
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1976) is an important early work.

Young women responded to the women's movement during the 1980s and 1990s in a variety of ways. See the widely read Susan Bolotin, “Voices from the Post-Feminist Generation,”
New York Times Magazine
, October 7, 1982, 28–31. Books by “Third Wave feminists” include Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake, eds.,
Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1997) Paula Kamen,
Feminist Fatale: Voices from the “Twenty Something” Generation
(New York: Fine, 1991), Rebecca Walker,
To Be Real
(New York: Anchor, 1995), and Barbara Findlen,
Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation
(New York: Seal, 1995) and Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, eds.,
Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000). In her bibliography, Paula Kamen cites a number of other articles and studies that document the acceptance by young women of ideas originally promoted by the women's movement, and their simultaneous rejection of being identified as a feminist. See “The 35 Million: A Preliminary Report on the Status of Young Women,”
Institute for Women's Policy Research
, Washington, D.C. This report was released October 12, 1990. For conversations and interviews with young feminists, as well as the children of feminists, see Diane Salvatore, “Young Feminists Speak for Themselves,”
Ms.
, April 1983, 43, 89, and “WAC TALK,” a feature in
New Directions for Women
, January/February 1993, 19. Also see a collection titled
The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk About Living Feminism
, Christina Baker Kline, ed., (New York: Bantam, 1996); “Feminism Lures Young Allies,”
New York Times
editorial, June 2, 1986. For a study of young women and their attitudes toward feminism, see Rose Glickman,
Daughters of Feminists
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993).

Older women. Patricia Huckle,
Tish Sommers, Activist and the Founding of the Older Women's League
(Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1991), gives the single best history on the discovery of the “displaced homemaker.” Other important feminist works on aging include Betty Friedan,
Fountain of Age
(New York: Touchstone, 1994); Erica Jong,
Fear of Fifty.

African-Americans. Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey,
The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1967), provides the background for the uproar that the
Moynihan Report
started. Celestine Ware,
Woman Power
(New York: Tower, 1970), was the earliest book to discuss and challenge the new feminist movement. Toni Cade,
The Black Woman
(New York: New American Library, 1970), offered the first essays that were widely debated. Some important articles that addressed the relationship between feminism and black women include Linda La Rue, “The Black Movement and Women's Liberation,” in
The Black Scholar
1:7 (May 1970); Charlayne Hunter, “Many Blacks Wary of ‘Women's Liberation Movement,'”
New York Times
, November 17, 1970, 60; Angela Davis,
Angela Davis: An Autobiography
(New York: Random House, 1974); Gloria Hull, “My Life,” APA; Toni Morrison, “Interview with Claudia Tate,” in Claudia Tate, ed.,
Black Women Writers at Work
(New York: Continuum, 1983), 117–31; from Third World Women's Alliance, “Black Women's Manifesto,” n.d.; Linda La Rue, “Black Liberation and Women's Lib,”
Transaction
(November-December 1970); Toni Morrison, “What the Black Woman Thinks About Women's Lib,”
New York Times Magazine
, August 22, 1971; La-neeta Harris, “Black Women in Junior High Schools,” in Tanner,
Voices
, 216. “The Sisters Reply,” September 11, 1968, Mt. Vernon, N.Y., responding to “Birth Control Pill and Black Children,” a statement by the Black Unity Party in Peekskill, N.Y., n.d.; Patricia Robinson, “Poor Black Women,” n.d., all in Nancy Gray Osterud Collection, SL. For additional views, see Frances Beale, “The Double Jeopardy of Black Women” in “Documents from the Black Women's Liberation Movement,”
Women's Liberation Movement
, in Documents from the Women's Liberation Movement, an On-Line Archival Collection, Duke University. For articles and manifestos that appeared as African-American women organized in the 1970s, see Michelle Wallace, “On the National Black Feminist Organization,” June 1975, reprinted in Redstockings,
Feminist Revolution
, 174; and The Combahee River Collective,
The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties
(New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1985 edition), pamphlet, APA.

For overall histories on black women, see Paula Giddings,
When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America
(New York: Bantam, 1984), and the collected essays in Darlene Clark Hine and Wilma King, eds.,
We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible: A Reader in
Black Women's History
(Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson Publishing, 1995); Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith, eds.,
All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men and Some of Us Are Brave
(New York: Feminist Press, 1982); Nancie Caraway,
Segregated Sisterhood: Racism and the Politics of American Feminism
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986); Joyce Ladner,
Tomorrows Tomorrow: The Black Woman
(New York: Doubleday, 1971); Gloria Joseph and Jill Lewis,
Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives
(New York: Anchor Books, 1981). The writer bell hooks has been extremely influential in offering theoretical challenges to assumptions held by white feminists. See bell hooks,
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
(Boston, South End Press, 1984), and
Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black
(Boston: South End Press 1989). For writing by Angela Davis, see
Women, Race and Class
(New York: Random House, 1981) and
Women, Culture and Politics
(New York: Random House, 1989). Other books that have informed and inspired are Audre Lorde,
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
(Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press, 1984); Barbara Smith, ed.,
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
(New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); Adrien Katherine Wing, ed.,
Critical Race Feminism: A Reader
(New York: New York University Press, 1997); Kristal Brent Zook, “A Manifesto of Sorts for a Black Feminist Movement,”
New York Times Magazine
, November 12, 1995, 86–89. Michelle Wallace,
Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman
(London: Verso, 1990 edition). Audre Lorde, “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House,” 1979, is a classic work reprinted in Moraga and Anzaldua. See bibliography in
Unequal Sisters
, pp. 585–590.

Chicanas. The best historical overview of Mexican-American women can be found in Vicki Ruiz,
Out of the Shadows: Mexican American Women in the Twentieth Century
(New York: Oxford, 1998). For important primary documents, see Alma M. Garcia,
Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings
(New York: Routledge, 1997), and Martha Cotera,
The Chicana Feminist
(Austin, Information Systems Development, 1977). Important sources also include Nancy Nieto, “Macho Attitudes,”
Hija de Cuauhtemoc
1:1 (1971); Mirta Vidal, “Women: New Voice of La Raza” (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1971), reprinted in Chicanas Speak Out, DU. Segura and Pesquera, “Beyond Indifference and Antipathy: The Chicana Movement and Chicana Feminist Discourse,”
Aztlan
(Fall 1988): 69–80; Adalijiza Sosa Riddell, “Chicanas and El Movimiento,”
Aztlan
5:1 (1974): 155–65; Mary Pardo,
MELA
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); Gloria Anzaldua,
Borderlands: The New Mestiza
(San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute, 1987); Gretchen M. Bataille, Kathleen Mullen Sands, and Gloria Anzaldua, eds.;
Making Face, Making Soul: Creative
and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color
(San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1990); Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga, eds.,
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
(Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1981), which includes a number of documents by lesbians who felt they belonged nowhere. Carla Trujillo, ed.,
Living Chicana Theory
(Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1998), provides a range of important essays, as does Trujillo,
Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About
(Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1991).

Native American women. Among the hundreds of new works on Native America women, I found these particularly useful: Paula Gunn Allen,
As Long As the Rivers Flow: The Stories of Nine Native Americans
(New York: Scholastic, 1996); Theda Perdue,
Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change 1700–1835
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Carol Devens,
Countering Colonization: Native American Women and Great Lakes Missions
(1630–1900) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Margaret Jacobs,
Engendered Encounters: Feminism and Pueblo Culture
1879–1934 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999); Kathleen Donovan, ed.,
Feminist Readings of Native American Literature: Coming to Voice
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1998); Diana Meyers Bahr,
From Mission to Metropolis: Cupeno Indian Women in Los Angeles
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993); Luana Ross,
Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); Sabine Lang, John L. Vantine, tr.,
Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); Ruth Roach Pierson and Nupur Chaudhuri, eds.,
Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Paula Gunn Allen,
Off the Reservation: Reflections on Boundary-Busting, Border-Crossing Loose Canons
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1998); Paula Gunn Allen,
The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992); and Rayna Green,
Women in American Indian Society
(New York: Chelsea House, 1992). Gretchen M. Bataille,
American Indian Women, Telling Their Lives
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984); Elsie Allen,
Porno Basketmaking: A Supreme Art for the Weaver
, Vinson Brown, ed. (Happy Camp, Calif.: Naturegraph Publishers, 1972); and Shirley Hill Witt, “Native Women Today: Sexism and the Indian Woman,” in
Civil Rights Digest
, Spring 1974, are useful works for understanding American Indian women's relation to feminism. See also the bibliography in
Unequal Sisters
, pp. 599–605.

Asian-American women. A good collection of essays on Asian-American women is Sonia Shah, ed.,
Dragon Ladies: Asian-American Feminists Breathe Fire
(Boston: South End Press, 1997), as is Elaine Kim and
Norma Alarcon, eds.,
Writing Self/Writing Nation
(Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1994); Asian Women United of California, eds.,
Making Waves: An Anthology of Writing by and about Asian-American Women
(Boston: Beacon, 1989); Shirley Geok-lin Lim and Mayumi Tsutakawa, eds.,
The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian-American Women's Anthology
, (Corvallis, Oregon: Calyx Book, 1989); Nobuya Tsuchida, ed.,
Asian and Pacific American Experiences: Women's Perspectives
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982); Eui-Young Yu and Philip H Phillips, eds.,
Korean Women in Transition: At Home and Abroad
(Los Angeles: California State Univ., Los Angeles, 1987); Le Ly Hayslip,
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace
(New York: Doubleday, 1989); and see the bibliography in
Unequal Sisters
, pp. 590–593.

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