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Okay. I have a confession. I’ve never taken a womens studies class. Well, I guess technically I did, but it was more international than an intro. So when people start to name some of the great feminists of the past and discuss various waves of feminism, sometimes I get confused. Let’s be honest, unless you take a class, and that class is most likely only offered in college, it’s intimidating to jump into the wealth of information around women’s history.
So I recently decided to attack my ignorance. I work in the women’s movement. I consider myself a feminist. Time to get grounded in the history and theory. With the help of Marcela and Deb at Advocates and my friend Shelby Knox, I now have a booklist. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share my journey with you Amplify readers, hear your thoughts and get your suggestions for other must-reads.
To start off with, over the holidays I read Angela Davis’ “Women, Race & Class.”
Holy crap. What an awesome book.
Speaking as a former teacher, we suck at teaching history to our students. Everything is segmented. Textbooks split history into thematic chapters and itty-bitty sections. Multiple-choice tests are used to test knowledge (thank you NCLB). We teach the abolition movement, suffrage movement and industrial revolution as separate events when in reality they all happened at the same time (sorry folks, “intersectionality” is not a cool new way to think of things). Each movement impacted the other and racism, sexism and classism were present throughout.
Angela Davis broke it down. Aside from realizing how much textbooks suck, some other points that stood out include:
- Frederick Douglas was a feminist and should be remembered as such in addition to his abolition work.
- Many of the heroes of suffrage movement were actually really horrible to people of color. I was upset for awhile that the anti-s have the home where Susan B. Anthony was born, but after reading what she said around the 15th amendment, they can have it.
- The North had plenty of pro-slavery crazies. There was even a massacre where 1,000 black people were killed in New York City in opposition to the draft for the Civil War.
- America’s problem of incarcerating black men goes back to reconstruction when plantation owners used incarcerated men as laborers. So they were extra excited to arrest folks.
So in conclusion, this book was awesome. I couldn’t put it down. It changed my life. I’m excited to read more. And no, those weren’t the only points I took away from the book, but you’ll have to read it to see the rest =P
Have you read this book? If so, what did you think? And do you have any other must-reads to share?
Thanks for the recommendation. The book I recommend for you is one that changed my life as well, lol. It really helped me understand how women of color related to the reproductive justice movement.
I recommend...
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice by Jael Silliman (Author), Marlene Gerber Fried (Author), Loretta Ross (Author), Elena Gutierrez (Author).
This book really resonated with me and brought to light all the questions I had about women of color and the struggles and triumphs they endured so that young women of color in our generation could have more options and opportunities.
Such an amazing book! :)
So awesome post and I really understand the insecurities in not knowing every detail about feminist or even social justice history.
Seeing as I haven't even gotten to college yet my feminist education has been from reading any and every book about feminism whether I like it or not (luckily i enjoy it).
Keep Reading!
http://www.feministcampus.org/know/book_list/feminism.asp