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Lavrin argues that from 1890 to 1940, the environment created for social and economic reform, coupled with the passing of the old oligarchy and rise of urban labor and the middle class, validated feminists and feminism. Feminism in Latin America was distinctive then, and probably remains so. Unlike their North American and European counterparts, Latin American feminists sought to be "as good as men" while still insisting that they were not the same: motherhood set them apart and they wanted to maintain the traditional, Latin reverence for it. This sense of protecting and revering motherhood found expression in protectionist labor legislation in the early twentieth century. It also made them reformers, not revolutionaries. Even when feminists sought female equality before the law, they and their male supporters did so to gain economic rights that would help support their role as caregiver, not to disengage themselves from the duties of motherhood.
As social crusaders, women alerted society about the problems that accompanied urbanization and industrialization--infant mortality, disease, poor working conditions. Male support for such female activism came easily because it did not diverge from acceptable female concerns expressed in their traditional role as mothers, nurturers, and caregivers. There were insurmountable obstacles, however. By 1940 women involved in labor politics became disillusioned because the legislation often went unenforced and they continued to be underpaid. More serious attempts to realign gender roles, such as divorce or the suffrage usually met stiff opposition and were seen as being harbingers of social disaster.
Lavrin's study is solid history. Yet it is limited by the focus on the urban middle class from which most of the female feminists were drawn and which accounts for their bourgeois complacency. Understandably, that can be attributed to the paucity of documents. That does not take way from the fact that we know little about real working class women who were perhaps not so complacent, nor so uninvolved as they appeared to be in this study. -- P. Charney
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Net talk
Does Dale Spender look intensely at computer technology and its potential? No! Not explaining how to use computers, but how women fit into the technological genre of the computer world, Spender uses a historical and innovative approach to explore the earliest print from the Middle Ages, examining areas such as gendered language and "women's words." Spender gives accounts of typical literature written predominantly by and about white males. Education, authors, and libraries are also inspected in great detail. Just as men have historically dominated our culture in other ways, Spender acknowledges the gender barriers present in cyberspace without being discouraged. Despite the fact that sexual harassment, male dominance, pornware, and content often limit women, women are indeed getting involved, gaining momentum, and taking territory. Spender brings great insight and understanding to women's pursuit of power in cyberspace. -- M. Gregory
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Sojourner originated as a Boston-area newspaper in 1975 and branched out from there into national and international coverage of feminist news. In addition, it publishes fiction, poetry, and The Issues; that is, "women's issues," which means, as Robin Morgan writes in her foreword, "simply everything (since women are the majority of the human species, how can all issues not be women's issues?)"
This collection of newspaper articles cover the most significant issues of the feminist movement in the last twenty years. It is an ideal addition to the patriarchal textbooks endorsed by school systems which often lose "herstory" in favor of "history." This book demonstrates the strides that have been made in the feminist movement, the ground lost, and the footsteps that are traced over and over again.
Each segment of the book is food for thought, particularly in this presidential election year. In the section on economic injustice, we find women fighting many of the same battles for equal pay despite perceived gains. Homelessness and welfare reform are also probed. The politics of the family, particularly the role of motherhood, is seen through the glass of lesbian parenthood, and the look at the politics of adoption emphasizes adopting children from third world countries. Another important issue, that of choosing to be childless, is addressed in the context of the current push toward "family values."
The never-ending abortion debate is highlighted in the section dealing with reproductive freedom. In vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and economics are examined in Rita Arditti's article, "Wombs for Rent, Babies for Sale." She points out "commercial surrogacy can thrive because of class differences and exploitation of poor women. . . Surrogate companies see women in poor economic conditions as more likely to behave." She makes the point that rich women are unlikely to become surrogate mothers.
Health care issues are addressed not only in terms of the availability and affordability, but also in terms of race. Why is it, Linda Wong, of the Women of Color Coalition for Health, asks, "nearly 42% of AIDS cases among women and children in Massachusetts afflict black residents, even though African-Americans account for only 5% of the state's population?" HIV risk factors for lesbians are also addressed. Susan Shapiro in "Cancer as a Feminist Issue" reminds us that, while it is estimated that 1/3 of all Americans will get cancer, "as women, we are all affected by cancer. For it is females, in our many roles, that most often assume caretaking responsibilities when someone is ill."
Violence against women is chronicled, including new realizations of "Sexual Harassment isn the School Yard" in which Lynn Goods writes, "Girls are more profoundly affected by harassment than boys, precisely because men have more power in this society than women." Power is always the underlying issue of violence, from incest to rape to pornography to death.
The book finishes on an emphasis of a global feminist movement, demonstrating that it is truly a small world and, through new technologies of media, shrinking further every day. -- P. Crossland
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Fantasy and romance in one
The summer solstice brings magical events to Halfmoon, New York in this enchanting lesbian fantasy. These events transform the life of Alex, a free-spirited lesbian who witnesses a mysterious hit-and-run accldent. The accident leaves Alex in possession of a bell, and when she rings it, a womanly apparation appears.
Thus Alex meets Orielle, a beautiful fairy who is bound to a life of servitude by the evil sorceress Lilah. Long ago, Lilah had tricked her mortal lovers, Benjamin and Batilda, into using their skills to craft a bell wherein Orielle would stay until summoned for her healing powers. Now Alex finds that she must play a role in a frightening ceremony planned by Benjamin and Batilda, as they seek to destroy Lilah and free Orielle on the night of the coming solstice fairy dance in Halfmoon.
As Alex prepares for the final climactic event, a deep, undeniable passion is growing between her and Orielle, and she finds herself confronting her fears of falling in love and her pain from childhood losses.
Romantic, suspenseful, and often comical, this novel is a delight to read with its cast of memorable characters: Alex, whose womanizing and wry sense of humor serve to bury her pain; Orielle, the fairy with very human passions; Batilda, the old lesbian chemist cursed with bird's wings; Benjamin, the kindly physics expert; Boogawoog, the lovable terrier who talks up a storm after eating her Mumble Munchies; and more. While the author's blend of the mortal with the magical is occasionally awkward, it is sure to please both lovers of fantasy and of lesbian romance. And for those not partial to fantasy, the novel imparts some very human wisdom about the need to face what haunts us inside before we can ward off outside evil, and before we can accept the gift of love. -- P. White
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If strong women, with equally strong desires, are your cup of tea, this new episode in the life of Delta Stevens, police officer and lesbian, will please you. The other women in this novel are all well drawn. Megan, on her personal fulfillment quest in the rain forests of Costa Rica, is Delta's lover. She challenges Delta in many ways, including her perceptions that "lesbians often get so immersed in their relationships, they forget who they are." As one of her self-awareness measures, Megan has preferred to keep her own apartment, leaving Delta none too pleased.
In this new mystery, Delta engages with a jewel thief and a threat to the District Attorney's life and career, all with these relationship issues as a backdrop. Consuela (Connie) Rivera, Delta's best friend and the police station's Research and Data Specialist par excellence, offers relationship advice and participates fully in Delta's covert operations. "After seven years on the force together, and countless hours of off time, Connie and Delta worked together like a well-oiled machine." The dual mystery plots run side by side as Delta's primary cases. Her skill is matched by the international jewel thief, Taylor, who has a special interest in Delta. In their struggle, the reader gets some interesting slants on the grey area between good and evil. And in Delta's pursuit of a would-be assassin, she is confronted with temptation again in the form of the beautiful District Attorney, Alexandria Pendelton. The book ends full of promise for Delta's career, her love life and another lesbian mystery in the Storm series. -- R. McAndrews
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As recorded by interviewer Judith Rosenberg, award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin says, "It's like we have nine million books about fathers and sons, and we're just beginning to get the novels about mothers and daughters, about motherhood and daughterhood, which is endlessly fascinating and a very difficult subject."
Rosenberg has taken this "endlessly fascinating" subject and viewed it through the lens of twenty-five practicing artists and writers. Each of the featured women answers the question about balancing her art with motherhood. Some share children's-book author Jane Yolen's claim: "I tended . . . to be more creative when I was pregnant" and that "any time your life is full, you have more to write about." Others agree with watercolorist Karen Horn, who quotes a friend, "Have a kid, lose ten years." What makes this book such interesting reading is that each of these twenty-five women have sought balance in different ways. Some have had the assistance of husbands and other family members. Others have coped as single mothers on welfare. But the theme that runs through each of the interviews is that motherhood is worth it. As Rosenberg says in the introduction, "becoming a mother is a process that permanently changes the self. It is a kind of metamorphosis." The struggles and triumphs of these women, as chronicled by Rosenberg, make fascinating reading. -- T. L. Hanson
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From the start, Becca Neal resists the idea of the Olivia Cruise, so we are not surprised when she misses the boat at one of the first port-of-calls in a tiny town on the Venezuelan coast. In an effort to elude a particularly persistent admirer, she hops a cab and heads for Caracas. There, in a used book store, she finds a notebook about another woman's journey, more than two decades earlier. The notebook takes Becca back in time to the gay and lesbian subculture of a foreign land in a time of bar raids and police pay-offs and the spiritual growth of the journal writer, Lindsay West. Lindsay was a graduate student from Bloomington and oboist for the Filarmonica de Caracas. The journey lives on several levels: Lindsay's spiritual life as well as her physical one (she falls in love with a woman she thought was involved with another); the group's growing realization that they are losing one of their own to a then mysterious disease (AIDS before it has a name); and the adventure to a land named for the AmazonsÑ folkhera to lesbians and straight women everywhere. It involves a Miss Universe and a magical crone who has lived in the rain forest for forty years. The story weaves from Becca in the present to Lindsay in the past and the fabric that forms feels "ever-present." -- R. McAndrew
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Two new books, both first novels, Lady God and Windswept, with a focus on child abuse, memories, and healing are new from New Victoria Press.
In Lady God, Lesa Luders tells a moving and achingly real story of a young woman's recovery from an isolated rural childhood and an intense and difficult relationship with a disturbed mother whom she dearly loves. As a little girl of preschool age, she goes daily with her mother up the mother's magical mountain. Her mother commits suicide when Landy is only 5, and she and her younger brother grow up with their father who, because of his wife's death, turns away from them and to alcohol; they barely survive.
At age 22, Alexandra, whose mother calls her Landy and her father, Alex, leaves her rural mountain town in Washington state where she has always kept herself in isolation for the sake of her own survival. In her new college town, her childhood memories and nightmares become stronger as does her confusion over her sexuality. Finally, with help from her lesbian neighbor, Claire, she begins to travel the road to healing, reclaiming herself, her lesbian sexuality, and her name, Landy.
Magdalena Zschokke, in Windswept, weaves the story of Olivia, sexually abused as a child, through the stories of two other women, Mara and Zoe: all are sailing the high seas on yachts they either captain or crew. The world of these independent, strong women is full of excitement, whether from the vagaries of the weather or the foibles of the people who inhabit it. Many different people inhabit this watery world; from couples with children, surfers moving to the next wave, macho ship owners, battering husbands, and most of all other women, whether lesbian or straight, who love to sail.
Mara is one of very few females who have been trained as captains; she lives and breathes boats and sailing until she falls in love with a woman. Zoe, her good friend, once sailed with her but now is crewing half-way across the world and running into her own difficulties with aggressive men, hostile and dangerous drug-runners, and casual affairs with often straight women. Olivia, part New Zealand Maori, loves sailing but is running from her memories of childhood abuse. These three and other women they encounter on land or sea support each other with letters and comfort. The letters are deftly interwoven with the fascinating stories of their travels in the Caribbean and the South Seas. Schokke makes this colorful life real with her apt descriptions of the yachts they sail as well as the allnight watches under clear starry and dark stormy nights. The women all watch those stars and dream of sailing together as an all-female crew and captain.
Luders and Zschokke are promising new writers; watch for their new stories. -- Jacquelyn Marie
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Alison Bechdel has done it again. Unnatural dykes to watch out for, Bechdel's sixth book of cartoon strips describing the amusing trials and tribulations of a diverse group of lesbians, is timely, funny, and a good, quick read. Unnatural dykes features the usual cast of characters in this series: Mo, perpetually single but searching; Toni and Clarice, representing the lesbian baby boom with their newborn son, Rafael: Jezanna, owner of Madwimmin Books; Hariet, Mo's ex, and her new lover, Ellen; and a host of others.
Bechdel's cartoons are notable for their attention to detail and references to current political and cultural events, and Unnatural dykes continues this tradition. For example, Madwimmin Books, like many women's bookstores, is facing stiff competition from a new chain bookstore, 'Bunns & Noodle'; several scenes feature the backdrop of events like the O.J. Simpson trial, and one character mentions her plans to attend the UN women's conference in Beijing.
Unnatural dykes includes more than fifty of Bechdel's strips which follow the lives of these women in serial fashion. In fact, the last strip is a cliff-hanger. This volume concludes with "Sentimental Education," a cartoon-novella, which gives flashbacks on the women's lives. Unfortunately, this part is a bit weaker and seems to lack the energy and flow of the strips. Still, this is a small criticism, and it doesn't detract from the overall impression of this volume as delightful. -- W. Thomas
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The small town vet, Nedra Wells, is looking to fulfill her dreams. With her lover, Annie Callahan, she has moved to Lake Amelia, Minnesota to set up her practice and live her perfect life. But Annie is not at all sold on small town life, the other residents of Lake Amelia are often polite but cool (homophobia at work), and there's a health crisis at one of the local farms.
As this story unfolds. the residents come to life. These characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and, as they reveal their secrets, the reader is drawn into their lives. In the end, small town life is more complex than we had ever imagined. This, Bohan's second novel, is a very good read. -- R. McAndrews
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