Women Unbound Possible Lists

WOMEN UNBOUND Challenge

I am a feminist;  I believe in equal rights.    I know that the world has many places where women do not enjoy the freedoms I do in the US and yet we have some more work to go here in treating all humans with respect and providing opportunity and positive expectations of ability and brain power.     I admit that I have some work to do and am so looking forward to the learning experience of this challenge!    I absolutely love all the lists and everyone’s thoughts on feminism and women’s rights and the highlighting of awesome women all around the world.    Amen, Sister!

I’ve already read The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimarera.    This is a story of a little girl born into the family of a Māori village chief but he is extremely disappointed that she wasn’t born male.  She has a role to fill and does it with can-do spirit.    I look forward to re-viewing the movie.

I wanted to see if any in house books might also work for my options and these are the ones I came up with:

Fiction:  Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser, undiscovered gyrl by Allison Burnett,  The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty, Alias Grace by Atwood, I am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

Nonfiction:  Shooting the Boh* by Tracy Johnston, Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, and Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir.

My past reading in this extremely broad category includes a few of the more well known works:  The Feminist Mystique / Betty Friedan, The Beauty Myth / Naomi Wolf, and The Awakening / Kate Chopin.    But I really am looking forward to diving into books by Virginia Woolf,  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Audre Lorde, Tillie Olsen, Nancy Friday, Simone de Beauvoir…

And not just women’s issues books, but I would like to read bios of fascinating women:    Sandra Day O’Connor, Mae West, Margaret Mead;  and possibly that Geo Johnson book about Miss Leavitt’s Stars.

I’ve always wanted to read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.     I’m curious about Escape by Carolyn Jessop.   I am keenly interested in society’s expectations in the choice to have children or not (I don’t have any book titles in mind  yet.)

Thank you to everyone who has suggested books!    I’m still not committing because I keep changing and my mind when I read the other participants lists.

* I’m reading Shooting the Boh and can justify it with this sentence from the back of the book:  ”…perhaps the most frightening discovery that Johnston made was what she learned about herself:  about what it means to be an adventurer – a WOMAN adventurer – on the wrong side of forty, hampered by a changing body and the fear, loss, and envy that haunt any woman in a world that – even in Borneo – seems made exclusively for the young.”   This fits my desire to read about amazing women.

 

Updated to add this great quote I found at RENEGADEconversations

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute. (Rebecca West, “Mr Chesterton in Hysterics: A Study in Prejudice,” The Clarion, 14 Nov 1913)

The Wednesday Sisters

Thoughts   The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton, Ballantine Books 2008, 284 pages.

MOTIVATION for READING: This is the official selection for November’s In-Real-Life Book Club aka The Bookies.     We are also to read The Help (which I liked better.)    I had this book on my tbr wishlist since I read Trish’s review at Hey Lady! She gave it a 99/100 rating.

Where there is great love,
there are always miracles.
- Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

WHAT IT’s ABOUT: Four young ladies meet at the park in the neighborhood, begin a friendship and start a writing club.     Despite being from varied backgrounds, their loves and lives and writing careers are intertwined for many years with a strong enduring friendship.

WHAT’s GOOD: I thought it was fun to read about these very different women and all they went through.    I loved all the cultural references from the 70’s and seeing how much times have changed.   I enjoyed living vicariously through the struggling writer life.

WHAT’s NOT so GOOD: I know that a few of my Bookie friends did not much care for this and have complained about changes in viewpoint and style?   voice?     I look forward to hearing more of these issues at the club meeting in a few weeks.        This book was fine, I enjoyed it but I doubt it will turn into one of those memorable-over-time books for me.     Also, though I’m hesitant to bring it up, I don’t have any friendships like the ones described in this book.    Probably since I’ve moved so often in my life…

I tried to find some dissenting not-quite-so positive reviews in blogosphere but it seems like everyone just loved it dearly.       I do think this is a safe book to recommend to my friends if they ever ask for a recommendation.    (At least the ones that don’t teach English in High School.   ha!   kind of a private joke.   You know who you are.)

FINAL THOUGHTS: I liked it just fine.   I’m giving it four pie slices.   But I think I might have to just give it three – which does NOT mean it sucked!   Two pie slices means ‘only OK’, so three pies mean “I liked it.”    It’s just that it’s already been a few weeks since I read this and I’m not remembering much.   I didn’t take any notes on it, and so yes:  THREE PIE SLICES, it is.