Bye, bye 2010! Recapping the reading

2010 was a crazy year what with the stress of trying nearly the whole year to sell my house.  In my attempt to "declutter" and "stage" my house for potential buyers I wound up packing up books that I was intending to read!  More stress!

According to Goodreads stats (far more accurate than my count-your-reading-journal-pages method), I read 91 books this year , 9 more than last year, but I only read 28,809 pages compared with 29,709 pages last year.  This probably reflects my attempts to infuse a little young adult into my reading repertoire.  I had intended to try and break the 100 book barrier but the craziness of December put the kibosh on that.  If I had to choose my favorite book from the year it would be a tie between Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron (an author I have an obvious favorable bias towards) and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak; I read both at the beginning of the year and they are still with me.  Least favorite book was Vixen; it wasn't so bad I wanted to light it on fire, but it really got under my skin with the cliches and seemingly poor research.

I participated in a few challenges this year.  The Women Unbound Challenge was the one I completed, even reading one book beyond what I'd planned.  Sadly, I didn't get the Complete Booker Challenge 2010 finished; I got three of six Booker-winning novels read but just never got to the other three (I did read one Booker short-list, so not a complete bust).  I'm going to have to think on the future of challenges in 2011.

My Nostalgia Project stalled out with its initial subject - Flowers in the Attic.  Too intense.  The Booker Project and Newbery Project are coming along swimmingly, the Newbery especially, but the Best American Project had to go on hold when I had to pack all my Best American books in order to how the house.  I didn't make much reading progress on the Nobel Project but I did acquire more books to help me in the endeavor (and I can't quite decide with Vargas Llosa to read...too many good choices there).

In honor of the International Year of Chemistry in 2011, I started a blog specifically for reading chemistry-related books (readingchemistry.blogspot.com).  I cross-posted a few science/chemistry posts from this blog and will probably continue to cross-post in the future.

This year I also made my first foray into requesting review copies...which added a whole new level of stress because now I feel obligated to read and finish the book I've requested.  Thank goodness I didn't go nuts and ask for many more review copies - packing and moving has gotten me far, far behind on the ones I have right now!

That's it for 2010 - bye, bye and so long!

Girls to the Front

The women of Riot Grrrl profiled in Sara Marcus's Girls to the Front are, on average, four to six years older than me.  They were starting college when I was finishing junior high; they were impossibly cool and avant garde compared to my middle-class Iowa background; they were fierce, and completely unafraid.  I knew about Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail (members of the band Bikini Kill) and other bands like Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile, and Huggy Bear.  I don't think I realized that the movement was Riot Grrrl until much later since I wasn't really part of that scene being on the younger side (hey, cut me some slack - at that point in time my favorite CDs were Janet Jackson and Mozart's Don Giovanni; I was a snobby tweener/teen).

Riot Grrrl was a different kind of movement, coalescing out of the underground grunge scene and built on the backs of the girls and women who really wanted to make a difference in women's lives.  To be respected for playing really great guitar, not just "good for a girl." To have control over their own bodies.  To be loved for themselves, not for their ability to fit the commercially acceptable beauty mold.  Many of the women were politically active and Riot Grrrl worked to put women's rights back into public discussion at a time of a conservative feminist backlash (Supreme Court review of Roe v. Wade, the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, the first Gulf War, etc.).

What Sara Marcus does in Girls to the Front is to return the Riot Grrrls to their place in musical and political history.  Having once been involved in the movement herself, Marcus interviewed many of the original Riot Grrrls to give an accurate perspective of the movement from someone who understood it from the inside.  Mainstream press coverage of Riot Grrrl during the movement's heyday was patronizing and often glossed over the women's messages and abilities to focus instead on what the women looked like; the press objectified Riot Grrrl when Riot Grrrls didn't want to be objectified.  Marcus has created a compelling history that really fills in the gaps between the news and the reality much like the 'zines that helped spread the word about Riot Grrrl.

And I thank her for it.

I remember reading about it being "trendy" to be a Riot Grrrl in one of the teen/tween mags - it was a "look" like Nirvana was "grunge" (unfortunately, I had no idea where to acquire anything like a 'zine) - and there was no mention of political issues.  Maybe I would have been more interested in Riot Grrrl when I was younger if I had known more about the politics and less about what a "Riot Grrrl" looked like or sounded like.  Because there was no iconic Riot Grrrl - Riot Grrrl was created by women who didn't want to fit into the "conventional" mold and they came in all shapes and sizes.  I think I would have liked that.

Dear FTC: I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher.

Women #Unbound Challenge: Wrap-up!

Huzzah!  I did it!

I finished the Women Unbound Reading Challenge.  For this challenge I had to read at least eight books (at least three of those non-fiction) and I did - I read eight books and six of them were non-fiction:
The Help
Little Women, read by Barbara Caruso
The Life of Elizabeth I
Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters
A Jury of Her Peers
A Bookshelf of Our Own
Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

Holla!  Now I just need to read five Booker winning books to make the end of the Booker Challenge by December 31!

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

As my last selection for the Women Unbound Challenge, I decided to read a book I had parked on my bookshelves for quite some time: Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.  I thought it would be a nice complement to the other history/biography books I already read for the challenge.  Thatcher is a historian and the author of the quote (oft mis-quoted) that gives the book its title.

I thought this was a very good overview of women in history who refused to roll over and take it. Beginning with the Amazons and a chapter on Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Virginia Woolf, there are many (MANY) of anecdotes and the sheer number adds many more women to Ulrich's history than if she just focused on de Pizan, Cady Stanton, Woolf, de Beauvior, Friedan, etc. However, it felt like we were just skimming the surface of history to create a "readable" book - to avoid creating a very thick, weighty tome.  Even with a perceived lack of depth it was still an interesting book and adds many more individual women to the list of famous names we already recognize.

Click: Young Women on the Moments That Made Them Feminists

When I read Rebecca's review of Click and her personal "click" moment when she realized she was a feminist I knew I had to read Click, too.  I read Manifesta when it was first published in 2000; I was wandering the University bookstore and it caught my attention.  I liked it but I wasn't caring too much about anything at the time; I had just turned twenty-one, my engagement had broken down, and I had failed to get into medical school like I planned so I didn't feel the pull of a feminist call-to-arms.  I felt like I had failed to beat the boys in the game of admissions, I hadn't studied enough, wasn't serious enough.  So I picked up the pieces and moved on; I gave my copy of Manifesta to a friend and lost track of who had it after several changes-of-address.

Ten years later, I am also ten years wiser.  I still didn't get into medical school but I did acquire a graduate degree which led to a job which allows me to live comfortably on my own.  Whew, I wouldn't be doing that if I'd gone to medical school.  I started reading books again after finishing my thesis which led to this little blog and then a little Twitter which led me to Rebecca and then to Click.  I wanted to read those personal stories from women, really wanted to see if there was anyone like me within the pages.  "Me" being quite heteronormative and boring in her life of books, yarn, and cats, but every once-in-a-while I'd get accused of being a wolf (man-hating, flannel-wearing, butch, status-quo busting, liberal lesbian) in sheep's clothing (man-tolerating, stiletto-wearing, long-haired, status-quo shattering, liberal woman).  Usually by some red-neck, hick male who had been told to stop looking down my shirt. 

I found a lot in Click to identify with, from editors J. Courtney Sullivan and Courtney Martin to Amy Baumgartner and Amy Richards (authors of Manifesta) and from Olessa Pindak (almost exactly my age)to the seventeen-year-old Nellie Beckett who has my favorite line in the book:

Feminists come in all shapes, colors, and genders, and it's about time that our diversity is recognized in the mainstream.  If there's a movement whose image shouldn't be the top priority, it's feminism (p 32).

Li Sydney Cornfeld writes eloquently of her experiences as a LD/ADHD feminist; Anitra Cottledge writes of creating her own feminist curriculum when none would fit her identity as both a black woman and a feminist.  Rachel Shukert wrote what is my favorite essay - her "click" moment comes in the aftermath of Kurt Cobain's death, a realization that comes in a confrontation with her "group".  The contributors were so diverse in background and experience they really did mirror Nellie's thoughts on diversity.  Some moments of revelation were earth-shattering, some came from a gradual change in perception.  All are amazing essays from intelligent and articulate women (and one man, Jordan Berg Powers, who has a pretty cool mom).

Which brings me to my "click" moment....and I have to confess that I don't have a single moment where the lightbulb just popped on.  I have thousands of tiny ones, like Christmas lights.  My father, who taught me to play baseball and expected me to go to college, and my mother, who taught me to balance a checkbook and do the laundry properly, contributed most of them.  My grandmother, who taught me that you have to put on a brave face even when you feel like an old shoe and your hair is falling out from chemo, added some.  I was never told that some things are "only" for boys or girls; I had Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids, went to dance and piano lessons, and wished for curly hair but I also read the family medical book cover to cover and was allowed to purchase a weighty (adult) book on dinosaurs after a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago (I was suddenly taken with the idea of being a paleontologist at the age of eight - then I learned you have to dig the dinosaur bones out of the rocks yourself if you're a paleontologist; I sunburn easily).  On the flip side, my brothers had Cabbage Patch Kids and piano lessons, too, and I dressed them up in my old dance costumes for playtime; Mom has pictures of Christopher wearing my lion costume complete with tutu, ruff, and tail (snicker, snicker).  I watched as boys harassed other girls who developed early and was quite thankful that by the time I filled out the boys had tired of this past-time (my father did teach me self-defense about this time; dancers have strong legs).  I passed on the expense and overly feminized atmosphere of sororities in college and was instead invited to join a co-ed professional fraternity, Alpha Chi Sigma, where I held all sorts of chapter offices and which I still serve as a District Counselor (AXS, founded in 1902, went co-ed in 1971).  I learned that life does not end when you mutually agree with your fiancee that getting married is probably not going to turn out well and you will not die of embarrassment when you have to tell your relatives.  Life also gets much better when offered a job with a salary which will allow you to buy a home as a single woman without a co-signer.  Now that I'm "Aunt Missy" I find myself buying my favorite books for my three nieces and being pleased that not only do they like Angelina Ballerina but they also play with our old Playskool barn and garage ("uh, oh! car crash!").

I have no way of knowing whether Click would have impressed me as much ten years ago as it does today, if I had read it instead of Manifesta.  Click is a very personal book, one that encourages each of us to tell our story, but I don't remember Manifesta feeling so personal.  I guess I need a new copy of Manifesta so Click has company on the bookshelf.

A Bookshelf of Our Own

I picked up A Bookshelf of Our Own by Deborah Felder from the Women's History Month display at my store. 

I read it.

And I'm not terribly impressed by it - I've been working on this review for two weeks and that's all I find I have to say about it.  While I did like the inclusion of books like The Shawl, The Beauty Myth, The Woman Warrior, and Women, Race, and Class the rest of the book was fairly predictable as to selection.  The biographical sketches also left a bit to be desired.  In the chapter on My Antonia Felder writes of Willa Cather:

Completely absorbed in her work, Cather remained single despite opportunities for marriage (p 91).

Huh?  I've read enough Cather biography to know that Cather would have never, ever married because she was most likely asexual or a lesbian, the jury's still out on the exact orientation, so the line about having opportunities for marriage is just bizarre (the Felder bioketch also fails to mention Cather's long-time partner, Edith Lewis).  In the chapter on Beloved, the award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 is noted but not Morrison's Nobel Prize, awarded in 1993; considering all the biosketches cover events occuring after publication of the work under consideration it is a huge oversight.

I'm pretty "meh" about this one.

A Jury of Her Peers

I really (really) got excited about Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers when it was published last year.  We had a (somewhat) heated discussion about the necessity of creating a canon or history of American women's literature, how inclusive should that be, do you make a value judgement about quality, etc., when making a book like A Jury of Her Peers.  Showalter had already done the same for British women's literature in A Literature of Their Own (which I haven't read) so I wanted to see how one could trace a thread through history from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx.

For the most part, Showalter succeeds in showing how women in American history have built upon their experiences and those of the previous generation to persevere and produce great writing.  One thing I really liked was as women's experience and influence became more diverse (different races, immigration, politics, feminism, lesbianism, etc) the groupings became more diverse.  The twentieth century chapters were more interesting to me because I knew who all the authors were (regardless of whether I had read any of their work) as opposed to pre-twentieth century authors where I only recognized authors whose work I read previously, i.e. Alcott, Gilman, Stowe, etc.  It is also interesting (also quite irritating) to read the responses of male editors and authors to women's writing; it is very demeaning at times and I really have to take my hat off to the many women who wouldn't take "no" for an answer when it would have been fashionable to do so.

I do wish Showalter had included excerpts from authors' work much like a Norton Anthology does.  This would have been very helpful when reading about authors whose work has been "lost" so to speak.  There are a number of nineteenth century authors profiled - women like Rose Terry Cook or Mary Wilkins Freeman - whose books just aren't readily available anymore whether out of print or available only in academic press.  Without the excerpts to compare and contrast those chapters of less well-known names just morph into a litany of female authors whose work is no longer read because they are either less talented, less stubborn, or less lucky than a Louisa May Alcott or Harriet Beecher Stowe.

While I'm talking about Showalter's book I have to put in a plug for the title source: Susan Glaspell's short story A Jury of Her Peers which takes its inspiration from the 1900 Hossack murder trial (Glaspell used the same inspiration for her play Trifles).  Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa, - just down the road from me (holla!) - and covered the Hossack trial for the Des Moines paper.  In the story, Mrs. Wright is arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband with a noose; the men and women of the town look at the Wright's home and come to very different conclusions about what the Wright's home life was like.  It's very well-written story and ought to be taught with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.

Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters

Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters fell off the shelves of the Mythology/Folklore section and into my hands - literally.  I was straightening the shelves and voila!  A collection of fairy tales and folk tales from nearly every culture on Earth only this collection focuses exclusively on female protagonists who take an active role in the outcome of the story.

These are all great stories, from "The Stolen Bairn and the Sidh" (Scotland) to "The Innkeeper's Wise Daughter" (Jewish-American), "Hiiaka and the Seacoast Kupuas" (Hawaii) to "The Sign of the Tassel" (Iraq), showing women and girls who use their intelligence and courage to resolve impossible situations.  It is quite a change from a passive heroine like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White where the princess is saved by a twist of fate (and a handome prince).  I really enjoyed reading these stories, particularly those of African orgin because at times the written story seemed transcribed from an oral recitation and implied a rhythm to the words of the story.  I only wish I had read the beginning of the collection more slowly - I initially started reading the book like I would a novel, moving from story to story, and that turned out to be a problem because the stories quickly became repetitive; all deal with very similar subjects and reading 25 or so in a row is pretty boring.  This book worked much better reading two or three stories a night.  I enjoyed the stories more and was able to focus more on each one rather than think about how similar it was to the last four or five tales.

The Life of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I remains one of the iconic figures of British history - the clothes, the china-white skin, the refusal/inability to marry, the events of her reign that shaped the future of her country.  Even during her lifetime the persona of Elizabeth, gloriana regina, overshadowed the woman Elizabeth.  I always thought she was austere, regal, scary....turns out she was capricious and hot-tempered in her private life.

Like all the other Weir biographies I've devoured over the past year this one is well-written and easy to read.  Alison Weir's The Life of Elizabeth I brings the private life of "the Virgin Queen" to the forefront.  Yes, Britain's navy prospered during her reign.  Yes, she avoided open war with Spain.  Yes, she exhibited a tolerance of religion as long as subjects outwardly conformed to the Anglican faith; she also manged to gain the admiration and respect of Catholic rulers, a true feat when the Pope had declared her excommunicate.  But she really was an awful flirt and prone to jealous fits; her male courtiers didn't usually bring their wives to court and she exacted revenge on those who dared marry without her consent (the wives usually suffered the most).  She also prolonged any marriage negotiations, most past the point of practicability, using myriad stall tactics and diversions to avoid committing herself to actually answering the nagging question: who and when would she marry?

Although Elizabeth is depicted as a strong ruler, one who tried to keep her spending down and rule with Parliament and her Council, she does seem to ascribe to the contemporary belief that a woman was incapable of ruling without a husband (sixteenth-century medical theory also opined that a woman required a husband to remain sexually normal and avoid mental intability).  I said "seems" because, as Weir points out, Elizabeth was known for keeping her own counsel.  Unlike her half-brother, Edward VI, she did not keep a diary and vascillated for quite some time before making major decisions.  She never seemed to express her personal opinions, only those of "the monarch".  Weir brings up the idea that marriage in general may have been distasteful to Elizabeth (not surprising given the marital history of her parents, step-parents, and half-sister); it's not unimaginable to think that Elizabeth never meant to marry but, knowing the decision to remain unmarried would be universally unpopular, invented her stall tactics to hide her true intention.  We'll never know.

There is one thing about Elizabeth I think people forget - she was a scholar.  Her father and guardians had the good sense (and foresight) to have her educated very well, as befitted a "prince" (a word that comes up frequently since female monarchs ruling in their own right are so very rare).  Her education began very early and she was known to be a precocious child (I mentioned the Tudor precocity in my review of The Children of Henry VIII).  I am in awe of her education; rhetoric, theology, Latin, Greek, Italian, Spanish, music and all started at an age where children of the twenty-first century are learning ABCs.  I wouldn't have wanted to match wits with her in any circumstance but I would have loved to discuss with her the books she read.

Next up in the Weir obsession (almost over): Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley

Current book-in-progress: The Mathematics of Sex (needs to be returned soon)
Current knitted item: baby sweater
Current movie obsession: Peter Pan
Current iTunes loop: Filmspotting

Little Women, read by Barbara Caruso

I picked up Little Women in an unabridged audio recording because I really wanted to read it again for the Women Unbound Challenge (the audio recording was pretty good, although I couldn't decide if the narrator (Barbara Caruso) was going for a subdued English accent or subdued New England accent; her German accent for Professor Bhaer was pretty good).  It's a good place to start because everyone gets their knickers in a twist over Jo's choice to give up writing and become a mommy with her Professor.

There are five major female characters in Mrs. March and her four daughters and each of them demonstrates some aspect of feminism, in a way (I've been reading Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers and American suffragism wasn't quite in full swing when Alcott wrote her most-famous novel).  Mrs. March always tries to be a good, upstanding citizen, helping with veteran's organizations and providing food and clothing to those in far more dire straights than the Marches; she is never "idle" in the lazy sense.  Meg realizes she doesn't need a huge house and piles of money to have a happy home (compared to the rich and priviledged Sally Moffat/Gardiner whose house is not filled with the sounds of family or husband; Sally's mercenary marriage did not bring her happiness or comfort); Meg is kind of devoid of personality and seems quite conventional as a character who is pretty much made to be wife and mother from the start with no other aspirations.  Over the years, and many times I've read Little Women, Beth has come to symbolize the idea that dying with dignity and acceptance is important; I had to skip the two tracks where Beth dies - it always makes me sob, sentimental writing or not, and sobbing while driving isn't the best idea.  Amy has never been my favorite March sister, too prissy, too willing to play the society game, but she does come round in the end and marries for love (although I've always wondered if she would've married Laurie if he were less rich).

Which brings me to Jo.  Jo is always my favorite March sister, impetuous, hot-tempered (totally guilty of the same on my part), passionate, and creative.  Jo does change quite a bit over the course of the novel, learns to bite her tongue and mind her temper (she doesn't morph into a compete doormat but at least learns to think before she speaks, which is a hard lesson for any of us), writes "rubbish" and then learns to write better things (which can be seen as having her creative juices squelched but since I like well-written stuff better than sensationalistic crap I tend to see that as a growth of the artist within Jo, rather than pumping out schlock for the money), and ends up with an appropriate companion in Professor Bhaer.  I'm pretty partial to Professor Bhaer (must be those German genes that make up 80% of my DNA) and he is pretty progressive in that he does tutor women (Jo included) so he gets a plus in my book; I suppose Alcott could have had Jo running Plumfield school by herself, as a dignified spinster-writer-headmistress, but then there would be no Professorin (as someone who is on the verge of despairing of finding any sort of companionship I identify with Jo's despair after losing Beth).  I always read about how people complain that Jo quits writing but I think she actually does continue writing (after Aunt March leaves her Plumfield and Jo decides to turn it into a school there is mention that Jo keeps publishing; maybe - I don't have a copy of the book at hand - plus she writes the lyrics for the song sung during the last chapter).

A favorite part of Little Women is the early section on "Playing Pilgrims" - using the sections of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to comment on the Marches' burdens and solutions to their problems.  The girls all have problems we can identify with - materialism, envy, idleness, conceit, short-tempers - and try to overcome those burdens using the allegory of Christian.  It is overtly Christian in tone but there are good lessons to learn (Jo's lesson of learning to think before she speaks comes at the cost of losing her opportunity to travel Europe) and most of the girls' lessons are worth learning for both men and women.  No one likes a gossip or flirt (even now, when "flirt" translates into "player"), saying hurtful things can come with a price, money and material possessions don't buy happiness, and continual idleness leads to problems.

Little Women isn't a corset-burning feminst tract (the most recent movie adaptation tried to dial up the feminism by adding scenes: Meg doesn't wear a corset and Professor Bhaer takes Jo to a suffragist meeting) but Alcott doesn't have a novel full of doormat female characters, either (Meg starts heading to doormat status but she doesn't have that much personality to start).  Home and family are the central aspects of the novel and Alcott does emphasize loving relationships, rather than mercenary ones, so that is a step in the right direction, even if her women aren't of the career variety.

The Help

Kathryn Stockett has been tearing up the bestseller lists with her debut novel The Help so I decided I would make it my first-ever book to read on my nook.  Stockett deserves all the praise heaped on her book; I loved the way the narrators rotated the story between the three of them (Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter), I loved how there was just enough dialect to hear the voice in my head but not so much as to make it unreadable, and I loved how much I cared for Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter (and how much I really hated Miss Hilly - hag).  This was such an enjoyable book - even though it was terrifying at times because of the time period and characters - and I was sorry to see it end (although it ended on a perfect note and a little cliffhanger).

The Help shows me my niavete; dead serious, as much as I know how poorly people of color were treated (and in many places still are no matter how many laws protecting their rights) it still blows my socks off that one person would treat another as sub-human just because of skin color.  I'm from Iowa and my high school was pretty evenly split among white-kids-with-money and poor-white-trash; our minority students were nearly all Asian, all fairly well-off, so I just never saw anyone mistreated because of race.  I actually witnessed hatred based on homophobia before I witnessed hatred based on race.  Reading through The Help I just wanted to step into the book and tell "Miss" Hilly (she really is a horrible person) that all that crap about catching diseases from black people is the biggest lie I've ever heard in my life; ooh, just makes my hair stand on end.  I would like to think that, placed in the same 1960s South, I would at least take Miss Skeeter's position and not toe-the-party-line of racist ideology.

There is a feminist thread running through The Help and the burgeoning feminist wave does come to bear in the novel.  WASP-y Miss Skeeter has graduated with a college degree...but no husband or fiance (gasp, shock and horror, because you have to get married and sprog; look what it did to Miss Leefolt who is lurching around in some odd post-partum depression fog).  She is given the opportunity to get her toe in the door in the world of journalism and to come through she must do something that is monumentally unpopular and she must convince the black maids (the "help" of the title) to tell her their stories, both bad and good.  She also must confront her own passive racism, that she has taken advantage of "the help" for so many years without thought to how hard the women work, for how little take-home pay, and how tenuous their employment remains. 

I wish I read The Help earlier in the year - now I must amend my "best-of" lists!

Women Unbound Start-of-Challenge Meme

For inquiring minds:

1. What does feminism mean to you? Does it have to do with the work sphere? The social sphere? How you dress? How you act?

I think that none of us should be limited as to life choice by simple virtue of chromosome assortment.  I have two X chromosomes - meaning I am biochemically and physically capable of bearing children and displaying female sex characteristics - but that doesn't mean I can't learn complex tasks or do physically exacting tasks (being estrogen-positive I don't have the testosterone level capable of building bulk muscle so I can't quite match up to the XY assortment on sheer strength).  If I so choose I can be an aerospace engineer, a firefighter, or a stay-at-home mom.  However, on the flip side I also feel a male should have just as much choice even to the point of being the stay-at-home parent (which is still a socially discouraged role in the twenty-first century).  I have very often delighted at being the smartest person in the room particularly when that room is full of boys who think I don't have a brain because I have a heavy-duty bra size and working ovaries. 

I think feminism applies to all aspects of life from the boardroom to the home.  Aside from the biological imperative, there shouldn't be "boys jobs" and "girls jobs" - if neither partner wants to stay home and take care of the kids then they need a sitter rather than assume that one partner will stay home simply because one of them happens to be female (or male, for that matter).  Being a feminist means that I want to be respected for who I am.  I personally don't dress promiscuously, and I'm not ever going to burn my bras because I need them, but no one ever died because they saw a woman wearing a short skirt or sans lingerie (it might be aesthetically revolting but it is a free country).  Ditto on the social life; I do not sleep around because that's pretty much inviting either an STD or a pregnancy, neither of which I want, but if you're going to call a girl a slut for having multiple partners the guys can partake of that appellation, too.

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

Yes.  I give a lot of credit for my attitude to my father who always thought that his first-born child should be able to do anything she wants, period (which is why I know how to play baseball not softball).  He kicked my butt for not getting good grades (giving me enough rope to get a taste of failure through procrastination - thanks, Dad) but let me choose my own hobbies (I was on the dance team, band, choir, drama, show choir, jazz band, etc).  When I wanted to be a doctor my parents were behind me one hundred percent without pressure to get married and have kids rather than spend my days studying and taking care of sick people.  I didn't go to medical school (stupid admissions committee) but my parents always made it clear that nothing was "too hard" for me because I was a girl.

I'm a member of the co-ed professional chemistry fraternity Alpha Chi Sigma - right now, I serve as a district counselor - and I joined when I was in undergrad.  No one was ever valued more or less because they happened to be a girl and many of us also helped out with WISE (Women in Science and Engineering).  AXS also hosts Merit Badge days for Boy and Girl Scouts.  I had a pretty sad day at one Merit Badge program.  Another (female) member of AXS and I were taking a group of Girl Scouts through a laboratory tour, showing off all the cool lab toys, and at the end of the tour we asked who wanted to learn chemistry - all the girls in the group declined, it was "too hard" and, according to one 11-ish year old girl, for boys.  We were floored; the majority of the presenters that day were women and we had just finished off with flame-testing where the girls oohed-and-aaahhhed over the colors...too hard? For boys?  The scientist-women in the 1950s and 1960s had to endure a lot, often as the only woman in an entire lecture, to give me the opportunity to learn in an environment that's approximately 50-50 on gender and I worked my butt off to prove that I belonged in that classroom.  Now these girls are ready to just throw it away because someone told them it was too hard or for boys?  Where do these girls go to school?  I decided to throw them a curve ball and asked this group of middle-school girls who wanted to be a doctor or veterinarian (I noticed several of the girls wearing old riding boots) - and nearly every girl raised their hand.  I then pointed out that veterinarians and doctors have to take at least four semesters of college chemistry before taking entrance exams....the girls looked very thoughtful at that point and I further made the point that every "girl" they met that day posted excellent grades in chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics, that nothing was too hard.  I hope I changed a few minds that day.

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?

I think prejudice against education and choice are the two biggest problems women face (as evidenced by my above example).  A lot of barriers have been broken as far as workplace, benefits, education, etc., but there's still an attitude that persists that women just aren't worthy of education or high-level employment.  The prejudice that an inherent "femaleness" prevents one from performing serious intellectual work or working while bearing children still exists even in the United States; I've occasionally run into that myself (most noteably in the form of a cocky red-neck frat-boy in my organic chemistry class who boasted about being soooo smart, so much smarter than any girl, and four of us "chicks" pasted his butt on our final).  It takes culture change and while there are still males who feel threatened by intelligent, strong women that prejudice will still propagate.

Women Unbound Reading Challenge: Me too!!

When the Women Unbound Reading Challenge was first posted, I misread the dates and thought it was for November 2009 only.  So I wasn't going to sign up since I had a whole boatload of books to read for this month.

Silly me.

It's really for the whole year, November 2009 through November 2010.  I'm all for that. Lemme see....I think I'll have to join at the Suffragette level (at least eight books in the year, at least three of them non-fiction) since I am the moderator of "Literature by Women" and a good number of those books would probably count under the fiction heading.  I've already got one book in the works (Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers) that will take part of the year to read.

I think there's a meme or something I should fill out....