Review: 'Women's Liberation! Feminist Writings that Inspired a Revolution & Still Can', ed. by Alix Kates Shulman and Honor Moore

 I have been a Feminist for as long as I can remember, which means my parents raised me as such. Despite this, however, certain doubts, thoughts and fears still creep in, especially in a world that is slowly creeping ever more to the right. Revisiting the writing of (American) Feminists from the past sixty-odd years has been immensely inspiring and I can't help but thank Shulman and Moore for putting this writing together into such an inspiring primer. Thanks to Library of American and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 2/16/2021
Publisher: Library of America

Two pioneering feminists present a groundbreaking collection recovering a generation's revolutionary insights for today

When Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, the book exploded into women’s consciousness. Before the decade was out, what had begun as a campaign for women’s civil rights transformed into a diverse and revolutionary movement for freedom and social justice that challenged many aspects of everyday life long accepted as fixed: work, birth control and abortion, childcare and housework, gender, class, and race, art and literature, sexuality and identity, rape and domestic violence, sexual harassment, pornography, and more. This was the women’s liberation movement, and writing—powerful, personal, and prophetic—was its beating heart. 

Fifty years on, in the age of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, this visionary and radical writing is as relevant and urgently needed as ever, ready to inspire a new generation of feminists. Activists and writers Alix Kates Shulman and Honor Moore have gathered an unprecedented collection of works—many long out-of-print and hard to find—that catalyzed and propelled the women’s liberation movement. Ranging from Friedan’s Feminine Mystique to Backlash, Susan Faludi’s Reagan-era requiem, and framed by Shulman and Moore with an introduction and headnotes that provide historical and personal context, the anthology reveals the crucial role of Black feminists and other women of color in a decades long mass movement that not only brought about fundamental changes in American life—changes too often taken for granted today—but envisioned a thoroughgoing revolution in society and consciousness still to be achieved.

A shameful confession is in order here. Despite being a feminist for all these years, I have not read as many of the foundation text as I would have liked. Although being a Feminist shouldn't really come with entry requirements, I do think it requires consistent education. As a white, middle-class, cis, heterosexual woman, I need to make sure I continue to broaden my understanding of what women go through. I also need to take a close look at how I benefit and how I suffer from the way society  currently functions and what I role I play in that. That was a lot of 'I's, but getting to know yourself and understanding your own position is important. The writings in Women's Liberation! have given me a new vocabulary to express myself, they have opened my eyes even further towards the racism that underlies some feminist writings, and they have been conversation starters for me and my friends.

Women's Liberation! starts with the first chapter of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique as a kind of foundational text for American feminism. From there, this collection is divided roughly into decades, covering 1863 to 1991, with each writing prefaced by Shulman and Moore with biographical information. Much of this writing is from the seventies, but each decade has its absolute standouts and heavy hitters. Solanas' SCUM Manifesto makes a thrilling appearance, while the 'Statement on Birth Control' by the Black Women's Liberation Group of Mt. Vernon, NY was eye-opening. I was very much affected by Dana Densmore's 'On Celibacy', especially her naked admission that once you take access to your body off the table the behaviour of men who were friends before will change. The excerpt from Doris Wright's 1970 essay 'Angry Notes from a Black Feminist' highlights the importance of intersectional Feminism, of discussing the similarities but also the differences in gendered issues women of different races face. Mitsue Yamada's 'Invisibility Is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian American Woman' was especially important for me to read in the past months. 

It's impossible to really summarize the writings of Women's Liberation! because there is such a variety of it. But there are a few things these writings have in common. They are indeed rallying cries, written from anger, or sadness, or conviction, or even a joyful cynicism. You can't help but read these women's writing and learn from them, whether it is learning a new vocabulary for your own experiences or learning how to pick apart and understand the elements in society that lead to oppression. There is also a sadness to reading this collection now, when some of the changes these women wrought is being overturned, and when so much hasn't changed yet. But that is where the subtitle of Women's Liberation! comes in. These writings can indeed "still" be inspiring and I realized that by actually engaging with these texts I can be much more effective. Knowing what has come before, understanding where way may have gone wrong and where we forged crucial bridges, all of that helps in taking one step after the other on the journey to a more equal society. 

I give this book...

5 Universes!

Women's Liberation! is a necessary and timely collection of brilliant writing by Feminists of the last few decades of the 20th century.  Let yourself be inspired to keep fighting!