fourth meeting – In the Company of Women – Minnesota feminists

for our meeting on 7/27, 5:30-7pm @ True Colors, we are reading three short interviews with Minnesota feminists from a book called In the Company of Women (download here).

Here is some info on the chapters selected…

Carol M. Robertshaw – coming to feminism in early 70′s, learning to change her negative opinion of women. Discusses power in women’s unity, consciousness-raising and radical feminism, media, divisions between men and women, positive and negative opinions of motherhood etc.

Mary Ziegenhagen – gaining awareness in white middle-class suburbia in the 1960′s. Making small strides and motivating one another by empathy/forming groups. Learning that “feminism” is not a dirty word.

Laura Waterman Wittstock – feminism clashing with race. Reluctancy of women of color to jump on feminism for fear of being further marginalized. Speaks of conservative patterns in the American Indian community. Touches on class/age discrimination/access etc.

This is just 11 pages of reading, so if you’d like more for the week, I’d recommend reading a great article on consciousness-raising groups —  Building Coalitional Consciousness by Cricket Keating – or more of bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody.

bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody

for our second meeting, we read the first six chapters of bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.  feel free to use the comments here to continue our rich discussions…

readings for 7/20

Here are the readings for our next meeting (Tuesday, 7/20, 5:30-7:00pm at True Colors bookstore):

1) The Introduction to Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction by Rosemarie Tong (9 pages)

[to read more of the chapters of this book, you can download the full book here. for more info on the author, see here.]

2) “The_Gender_Knot: What Drives Patriarchy?” by Allan G. Johnson (11 pages)

[if you're interested, check out more of his writings here, including a full book called The Gender Knot.]