Roxane Gay: An Insightful Feminist

Roxane Gay is a Haitian-American writer, bisexual feminist, arts and culture critic, and a professor of English at Purdue University. I haven't been this moved by a writer since I discovered Alice Walker in the 1980's. Roxane Gay first appeared on my radar with her book Bad Feminist: Essays. Since then, I have enjoyed Difficult Women, An Untamed State, and her latest book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.

Feminism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
1.: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2.:  organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

Feminism is more complex than this definition and continues to evolve with every generation through diversity, ideology, and sociological issues. Roxane Gay's life experiences infuse her writing with a fiercely brilliant prose and elegant clarity. Gay is someone I would want to spend time watching reality television with to benefit from her analysis of what these shows say about our surreal society in between catch phrases such as "I didn't come here to make friends".  

Bad Feminist: Essays covers Gay's experiences in academia, women's friendships, gender, sexuality, politics, and racism in America. Her essays about misogyny in popular culture, music, and 50 Shades of Grey had me alternately laughing and wincing inside. Bad Feminist covers racism, rape culture, and envisions an underground reproductive railroad that women may need to resort to in these times that seem to want to force us into a pre-Margaret Sanger time warp. Her humor isn't laugh out loud, but sharp and insightful, making it possible to absorb her points without dissolving into tears of rage and frustration otherwise. This book is the perfect blend of essays that showcase Gay's skills as a cultural critic and intellectual. You can also get a daily dose of her thoughts on her Twitter feed.

I had the pleasure of reading Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body before reading Difficult Women or An Untamed State. Once I moved on to her fiction after reading Hunger, I was even more impressed with how Roxane Gay has woven her life experiences through fictional characters. An Untamed State was Roxane Gay's first novel about an affluent, privileged Haitian-American woman who is kidnapped for ransom by a band of rapacious criminals. The novel covers the thirteen days of Mireille Duval Jameson's captivity and her father's refusal to pay her ransom. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander and his accomplices, Mirelle is raped and tortured in retaliation until she is finally released. Chapters of the book follow her husband's impotent anguish and her father's rationalizations for not saving his daughter. Mirelle's ensuing post-traumatic disorder and recovery speak to a victim's sense of betrayal, devastation, and feeling contaminated by the evil of her perpetrators.

Roxane Gay's fiction, essays, and memoirs area a gift to women who are struggling with compulsive overeating, self-loathing, and our undeniable human needs in a dysfunctional society that expects women to be passive, quiet, decorative, and non-threatening to every insecure, cat-calling misogynist or Internet troll we encounter in daily life. Gay, who survived a gang-rape at age twelve, turned to food in order to emotionally survive her ordeal. She has described this memoir as her most personal and difficult book to write and it is difficult to read, but impossible to put down. Hunger pinpoints the inextricable link between trauma, addiction, and compulsions designed to block out what can't be survived otherwise. While seeking invisibility through excess food and weight, Gay strove for a protection and invisibility from men, but created what she describes as a prison of being physically immobilized and treated as less than human by our vain, superficial culture that coats its cruelty in hypocritical concern, dietary fads, and dangerous weight loss surgery.

Hunger is not a book about triumphant weight loss after a diet or being fifty or even 100 pounds overweight, but what physicians refer to as the range of extreme morbid obesity. Gay discusses the daily indignities she has to confront with airlines, at the gym, and in the grocery store. Her chapter about considering weight loss surgery highlights the dangers of this procedure which makes life in the aftermath sound like an even worse torture than the health hazards of obesity. As a cultural critic, Gay takes on the media's complicity in exploiting people through reality television shows such as The Biggest Loser and analysis of Oprah's public trials and tribulation with weight. Roxane Gay affirms that she "is stronger than I am broken", which gives readers hope that it is possible to live with our bodies in whatever state they may presently weigh, post-traumatic stress disorder, and to transcend cruelty and prejudice through awareness and courageous expression.

For more books on feminism, The Public Library offers the following books: 

All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of An Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister

Colonize This!: Young Women of Color On Today's Feminism edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman
Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates

Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World by Katherine Zoepf.

Feminism Is For Everybody: Passionate Politics

 by bell hooks

Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women's Movements

by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry 

Dead Feminists: Historic Heroines In Living Color by Chandler O'Leary and Jessica Spring
Fight Like a Girl: 50 Feminists Who Changed the World  by Laura Barcella 

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism

Matters by Jessica Valenti 

The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness by Jill Filipovic  

The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

My Life On the Road by Gloria Steinem

Sex Object: A Memoir by Jessica Valenti

The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines

 by Mike Madrid 

Why I March: Images From the Women's March Around the World with photographs by Getty Images; editors: Samantha Weiner and Emma Jacobs 

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

New and Novel: Women in Science

Last year saw the publication of The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club. Author Eileen Pollack wanted to be an astrophysicist in the 1970s, but gave up her dream, despite being one of the first two women to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at Yale, because she was unable to overcome the isolation, stereotyping, and gender discrimination the still faces women today who seek academic success in science and math. We hope this climate will change for women, with the White House espousing STEM for female students and events such as Sweden's Tekla Festival, where "girls between 11 and 18 years will get a chance to spend a full day discovering and experimenting with different kinds of technology...[offering] girls firsthand experience of the ways they can use technology, and a chance to meet female role models in a variety of fields."

If you are someone whose knowledge of women's contributions to science and math begins and ends with Marie Curie (we were!), why not check out one of these new titles and find out more about female achievements in these fields?

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which shes studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book is a revelatory treatise on plant lifebut it is also so much more. Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahrens remarkable stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classrooms labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands”; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by Nathalia Holt
The riveting true story of the women who launched America into space. In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates. Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible. For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women--known as "human computers"--who broke the boundaries of both gender and science.


Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First Female Rocket Scientist by George D. Morgan
Blending a fascinating personal history with dramatic historical events, this book brings long-overdue attention to a brilliant woman whose work proved essential for America's early space program. This is the extraordinary true story of America's first female rocket scientist. Told by her son, it describes Mary Sherman Morgan's crucial contribution to launching America's first satellite and the author's labyrinthine journey to uncover his mother's lost legacy--one buried deep under a lifetime of secrets political, technological, and personal. 

The Debs of Bletchley Park And Other Stories by Michael Smith 
At the peak of Bletchley's success, a total of twelve thousand people worked there of whom nine thousand were women. Their roles ranged from some of the leading codebreakers, cracking German messages that others could not break, through the debutantes who chauffeured the codebreakers to and from work, to women like Baroness Trumpington who were employed as filing clerks, to the mass of girls from ordinary working families who operated machines or listed endless streams of figures, largely unaware of the major impact their work was having on the war. The Debs of Bletchley Park and Other Stories tells the stories of these women, how they came to be there, the lives they gave up to do 'their bit' for the war effort, and the part they played in the vital work of 'Station X'.  

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan
In this book the author traces the story of the unsung World War II workers in Oak Ridge, Tennessee through interviews with dozens of surviving women and other Oak Ridge residents. This is the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history.

Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science--And the World by Rachel Swaby
Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, Rachel Swaby's ... profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each one's ideas developed, from their first moment of scientific engagement through the research and discovery for which they're best known.

Links

Association for Women in Mathematics

Association for Women in Science

Why Are There Still So Few Women In Science? [New York Times]

Women Were Key to WWII Code-Breaking at Bletchley Park [Smithsonian]
 

Pink Boots and Bold Spirits: Celebrating Women Who Dared

At the library, we are always getting requests from schoolkids who are researching explorers - usually men like Vasco da Gama, Leif Erikson, Hernando de Soto, Marco Polo, or Ernest Shackleton.   Here at abcreads, we are choosing to take a little time to celebrate their counterparts, female explorers past and present. The following are some titles of derring-do that you won't want to miss!


Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer by Mireya Mayor

The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal by Vicki Constantine Croke

To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa by Pat Shipman

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley

Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven

Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman

They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades by Barbara Holland

No Horizon is So Far: Two Women and Their Extraordinary Journey Across Antarctica by Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft, with Cheryl Dahle

Women in WWII

The folks here at abcreads just devoured Elizabeth Wein's extraordinary Code Name Verity, a young adult novel about female spies and pilots during WWII. What a great read! This wonderfully written story of friendship and great courage made us curious about the different occupations of women during the war. For those who, like us, are wishing to learn more about the role of women during that pivotal era, here are some related titles you might enjoy:

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

A Life in Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII by Sarah Helm

Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue by Kathryn J. Atwood

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter: The Story of Three Million Working Women During World War II by Miriam Frank, Marilyn Ziebarth, and Connie Field

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos by Jennet Conant

Good-bye to the Mermaids: A Childhood Lost in Hitler's Berlin by Karin Finell


On DVD:

Land Girls

Sophie Scholl

Girls to the Front!

Bands like Bikini Kill...almost always demand that the mosh boys move to the back or side to allow space in front for the girls in the audience, a controversial decision which sometimes led to booing (and sometimes violence) and once caused Melody Maker to accuse them and riot grrrl in general of misandry, a common criticism.
~Wikipedia on Riot grrl

We're not anti-boy, we're pro-girl.
~Molly Neuman

I just finished reading Sara Marcus' fascinating history of "the Riot Grrl revolution", Girls to the Front, & even though I was never a Riot Grrl myself, the book brought back a wave of nostalgia for my days as a young feminist.  In high school, my sister sent me several choice volumes to get me started on my journey:  Virginia Woolf's  gender-bending Orlando;  Herland, a feminist utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; & Angela Y. Davis' Women, Race, & Class, which discusses racism & classism within the women's movement. Later, in college, I discovered other seminal works like This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color & Ain't I a Woman? Black Women & Feminism by bell hooks. Probably everyone remembers those experimental college years with fondness.  Reading about Riot Grrl, I only wish I had had an empowering group experience when I was even younger!  With that in mind, here's a couple of books young feminists might enjoy:

For Young Adult Readers

Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music
It's Your World - If You Don't Like It, Change It : Activism for Teenagers
GirlSource: A Book by and for Young Women about Relationships, Rights, Futures, Bodies, Minds, and Souls

Pop Culture

BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine
Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists
Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work is Done
Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground
Red: The Next Generation of American Writers-Teenage Girls-On What Fires Up Their Lives Today

Talk about Body

My Little Red Book
Body Outlaws: Young Women Write about Body Image and Identity
The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls 


History

The Essential Feminist Reader
33 Things Every Girl Should Know about Women's History: From Suffragettes to Skirt Lengths to the E.R.A.

Cultural & Class Identity

Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism
Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class
Hijas Americanas: Beauty, Body Image, and Growing Up Latina
Arab Women: Between Defiance & Restraint

Fiction

Stumbling & Raging: More Politically Inspired Fiction


Check out "Riot Girl: Still Relevant 20 Years" on from the January 2011 Guardian.

Meet Some Amazing Women in March!

Sometimes you have the time to savor a novel or a juicy non-fiction title, but other times you just want something that you can devour in quick bites whenever you have a few free minutes. Collective biographies are great if you enjoy meeting a variety of fascinating people. In honor of Women’s History Month, here are some books that contain collections of short sketches about interesting women. And if any of these women pique your interest and you want to learn more about them, check to see if we have a full length biography. Some of these books may be shelved in the children’s section, but don’t let that dissuade you. You won’t want to miss out on meeting these outrageous, uppity women.

If you want to meet some of the most famous and influential women who have ever lived, check out Herstory: Women Who Changed the World or Lives of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neighbors Thought).

Perhaps you would like to meet some of the lesser known, more eccentric women of history. Then you should check out a book in the “Uppity Women” series or the “Outrageous Women” series. The “Uppity Women” books are written for adults and include Uppity Women of Ancient Times, Uppity Women of Medieval Times, Uppity Women of the Renaissance and Uppity Women of the New World. The “Outrageous Women” books are written for a younger audience (but still well worth a look for grownups) and include Outrageous Women of Ancient Times, Outrageous Women of the Middle Ages, Outrageous Women of Colonial America and Outrageous Women of Civil War Times.

If you are in the mood for tales of adventure and daring, check out these tales of explorers and trail blazers: No Place For a Lady: Tales of Adventurous Women Travelers; Women of the World: Women Travelers and Explorers; Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travelers; Women Explorers of the Mountains; Women Explorers of the Air and Women Explorers of the World.

And if you would like a tale of a brave and innovative woman to share with a child this month, check out one of these excellent picture book biographies: Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa; Alice Ramsey’s Grand Adventure; Mother to Tigers; Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman and Brave Harriet: The First Woman to Fly the English Channel.

You won’t regret taking a few minutes to meet these amazing women.


Written by Laura of the Erna Fergusson Library staff.