Halfway to 70

Yesterday was my beloved's bday.

We celebrated by:

Going to church from 10-12. Thank you, stake conference!

Playing Ticket to Ride while baby Z took a nap.

Sharing dinner with dear friends, which included honest and invigorating conversation.

Eating German Chocolate Inside Out Cake. Yum! Rich. Divine.

Opening presents. The best, by far, was T's present to his dad. He picked out some awesome fabric and together, we made pajama pants. He was so proud. He marched through the fabric store, telling anyone who would listen, "I'm making pajama pants for my dad for his birthday!" And he was thrilled that he dad would never be able to quietly sneak by him in the night. Those pants are exciting!

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Women Unbound, A Preliminary Reading List

The guidelines for this challenge are simple: select and read any nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad topic of ‘women’s studies.’ The dates for the challenge are Nov 2009 to Nov 2010.

I'm going for the Suffragette level. That makes me think of my favorite song from Mary Poppins: "Our daughter's daughters will adore us, and they'll sing in grateful chorus, Well done! Well done! Well done Sister Suffragette!" Suffragette also brings to mind Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of my feminist heroes. To become a Suffragette myself, I need to read 8 books that fall in the women's studies category. Fun, fun!

Here are my initial ideas.

Non-Fiction
A Midwife's Tale: The of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812
by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: Ulrich, a historian, uses the personal diaries of Martha Ballard to draw conclusions on larger themes of women's status and issues in the early days of the US. Ulrich's Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History is one of my all time favorite books and Ulrich herself is one of my feminist heroes.

The Book of the City of Ladies
by Christine de Pizan: This is one of the earliest feminist texts and in it, de Pizan confronts 14th century misogyny head on. By constructing an allegorical city of ladies (I love this idea), she showcases the strengths of all sorts of different women--saints, warriors, scholars, artists, and prophetesses.

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
by Sue Monk Kidd: This is a memoir where Kidd details her search for the divine feminine.

Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics
by Renee Bergland: Mitchell was an astronomer and intellectual in 19th century New England. This quotations of hers is fabulous: “The woman who has peculiar gifts has a definite line marked out for her, and the call from God to do his work in the field of scientific investigation may be as imperative as that which calls the missionary into the moral field or the mother into the family . . . The question whether women have the capacity for original investigation in science is simply idle until equal opportunity is given them."

The Hemingses of Monticello
by Annette Gordon-Reed: I've heard a lot about this one since it won the National Book Award in 2008. Here, Gordon-Reed resurrects Sally Hemings and her children with Thomas Jefferson who have been systematically erased from history.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: This is a brand new book written by Kristof, of the Op-Ed page from the NYT and his wife, WuDunn, also a journalist. Here, they argue for investment into the education and autonomy of women throughout the developing world. This looks to be a great read.

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
by Gail Collins: Also a brand new book, also by a Op-Ed columnist from the NYT. Collins focuses on the domestic situation of women over the past 50 years and how it has changed. I have been looking for an account of the women's movement. I am also hoping for an answer to the question: "Was there really as much sexism in the 1960's as they show on Mad Men?"

Good Girls, Bad Girls: The Enduring Lessons of Twelve Women of the Old Testament by T.J. Wray: I found this at a garage sale this summer, a pristine hardback for $1. Gotta love that! In this book, Wray writes about 12 women from the Old Testament, presenting them in historical context, providing a more nuanced view than the traditional Angel-Whore divide, and drawing lessons for the contemporary reader.

Fiction

Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf: A classic. I haven't read much Woolf and thought this would be a good place to start.

Vindication
by Frances Sherwood: A fictionalization of the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, another early feminist who wrote A Vindication on the Rights of Women in 1792 to lay out her case for female independence. And while I'm at it, how about I read Wollstonecraft herself? Maybe, maybe.

The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Gilman was a leading feminist intellectual of the early 20th century, and after she suffered a severe bout of PPD, she wrote this about a woman who feels the yellow wallpaper of her room start to close in on her.

Something by Margaret Atwood--I loved The Handmaid's Tale, so I will be searching for another of her feminist novels.

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Women Unbound

Women Unbound. A reading challenge. Sign me up!

A meme to start.

1. What does feminism mean to you?

A feminist for me is simply someone who supports equal rights and opportunities for women. There are many strains of feminism, but I think this definition is what it boils down to for me. A friend of mine believes that activism is a necessary part of feminism, and while that may be true on a movement-wide level, I don't think that those who are feminists must also be activists.

2. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?

Yes! My willingness to look at the world around me through a gendered lens is a key to why I self-identify as a feminist (And it's also, to my chagrin, often my inability! to not see gender everywhere). I also like to be a feminist in different communities where many consider feminists to be evil, ill-guided, or just plain angry and bitchy. I am non-threatening. I love my husband. And I am Mormon. I can still be an advocate for women without falling into all the old saws about what feminists are like. I think that someone like me can help others who are put off by radical feminists (either known or only imagined) to think about issues around gender that are taken for granted.

I try not to be the embittered feminist that cannot talk about anything but gender, but it feels so good to completely unload with a like minded friend who I can trust completely.

3. What do you consider the biggest obstacle women face in the world today? Has that obstacle changed over time, or does it basically remain the same?

This is a hard question, because the issues that concern me personally as a women in middle class America are so different from the issues that are important for women in developing countries and in other situations different from me. So, instead of trying to be specific, I will just say that the main obstacle that women face world wide is to simply being able to fulfill their potentials as individuals and members of the human race without being handicapped by their sex. And, yes, this is the same challenge that has existed forever for women.

This is a generic answer, vague enough that perhaps it has very little meaning, but I hope to delve more deeply into different circumstances and experiences throughout the year.

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Uninspired

My words seem to be stuck lately. I've been wanting to write about a bunch of different things, but when I sit down to try to type, my thoughts come out sounding unnatural and stiff, so I delete and try again, only to eventually give up and leave the computer to do something else.
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Calling all book suggestions...

Ok, all you readers out there. Next month, my book group is going to be picking the books we read for 2010. Give me your ideas for interesting, well written books that would make for great discussion. I have a few ideas up my sleeve, but I want to see what you suggest.
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