Review: The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement

The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement by Winifred Breines
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a collection of essays by Winifred Breines and the role of women in the feminist movement of the 1960s through the 1980s. Breines follows a chronological history of feminists beginning with white women and African-American women's roles in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and how these two groups of women forged their own campaign for equal rights. Breines also details the role of African-American women in the Black Power movement, specifically detailing specific leaders with the Black Panthers. Two other groups are noted, the Bread and Roses group and Combahee River Collective. These groups were socialist feminist group, the former a white oriented group and the latter an African-American group. The Bread and Roses organization was anti-capitalist and anti-racial, hoping to be inclusive of all women of race. The divide between the two races continued into these organizations that began in the days of SNCC. The author then wraps up her discussion as she details the issues in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s when many African-American women were being killed. Women of all colors began to come together to fight capitalism, racism, and sexism.

Well written, scholarly work discussing the oppression of women during the anti-war and New Left movement era. The overriding theme is that solidarity is power and should cross race and class lines.

View all my reviews

Review: Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights

Redeeming La Raza: Transborder Modernity, Race, Respectability, and Rights by Gabriela Gonzalez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent look at the lives and work of transborder activists from 1900 to 1950. While the United States and Mexico modernized in areas like industrialization, urbanization, and technology, Euro-Americans prospered as racial and ethnic groups were marginalized. Mexican-Americans suffered abuse and discrimination across racial, gender, and class lines. Many activists in the borderlands of Texas and Mexico fought for equal rights through many avenues such as print media, non-profit organizations, and community services. Gonzalez spotlights many Mexican-American activists and organizations in detail including the Idar family, the Magonista movement, Emily Tenayuca, Latin American PTA organizations, and LULAC. Drawing on oral histories, diaries, letters, and newspapers of the time, Gonzalez paints a picture of the rebuilding of La Raza and gente decente, the people of the Mexican-American community and the oppressed middle-class of south Texas.

I thought this was a fascinating look at the history of Hispanic and Chicano/a people of the Texas borderlands.

View all my reviews

Review: Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism

Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism by Devon Abbott Mihesuah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Devon Abbott Mihesuah passionately discusses the role of Indigenous American Women in tribal and American life. Three themes are covered in her book: Research and Writing, Colonization and Native Women, and Activists and Feminism. In Research and Writing, Mihesuah explains that writings on Native women and tribal culture should be expertly researched and include the voices of Native women. Broad generalizations should be avoided. Each tribe has their own culture and caution should be used to generalize culture across all tribes. Specific examples are used. In Colonization and Native Women, Mishesuah discusses how Native women have lost their gendered roles after colonization. Where women were once revered within their tribes, many have suffered from abuse and relegated to subservient roles. Boarding houses and seminary life is examined showing how colonization has contributed to abuse and violence toward women and how they have been taught to be "civilized" at the expense of losing a part of their culture. Finally, Mihesuah covered today's activist and feminists who work hard to raise awareness of the female gender role in Native American life.

This is an excellent book. I do think that overall, Mihesuah discusses tribal life in general and does not always discuss just the female role. A lot of time is devoted to the American Indian Movement and the long-unsolved mystery around the death of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a Mikmaq indigenes woman who went to the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s to help with their grassroots civil rights movement.

View all my reviews

Review: Woman's Consciousness, Man's World

Woman's Consciousness, Man's World by Sheila Rowbotham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a short discussion by Sheila Rowbotham on the state of socialist feminism in the mid-1970s. Rowbotham is a British social feminist who offers the argument that sexist attitudes pre-date a capitalist society. Although more women leave the home to work a job in a capitalist society, they are still expected to manage the home which is a job in and of itself. Women do not receive equal pay or equal treatment and are relegated to female-oriented jobs, such as secretarial positions. Life at home resembles a feudal institution as women are provided a home and needful things in exchange for managing the home. Rowbotham believes that the feminist movement needs to make societal changes to eradicate the patriarchal life that women are bound to.

Although this was written in the mid-1970s, many of the concerns highlighted by Rowbotham continue today. This is a good foundational discussion on the modern feminist movement.

View all my reviews