Synopses & Reviews
In 1919 Charlotte Anita Whitney, a wealthy white woman, received one of the first Communist Labor Party membership cards for the charter group of the northern California Communist Labor Party. Less than a decade later in Berkeley, California, a Jewish woman named Dorothy Ray Healey became a card-carrying member of the Young Communist League. Nearly forty years later, in 1966, Kendra Claire Harris Alexander, a mixed-race woman, enlisted with the Los Angeles branch of the Communist Party, determined to promote class equality.
and#160;In Gendering Radicalism, Beth Slutsky examines how American leftist radicalism was experienced through the lives of these three women who led the California branches of the Communist Party from its founding in 1919 to its near dissolution in 1992. Separately, each woman represents a generation of the membership and activism of the party. Collectively, Slutsky argues, their individual histories tell the story of one of the most infamous organizations this country has ever known and in a broader sense represent the story of all women who have devoted their lives to radicalism in America. Slutsky considers how gender politics, Californiaand#8217;s political climate, coalitions with other activist groups and local communities, and generational dynamics created a grassroots Communist movement distinct from the Communist parties in the Soviet Union and Europe. An ambitious comparative study, Gendering Radicalism demonstrates the continuity and changes of the party both within and among three generations of its female leadersand#8217; lives.
Review
"An utterly gripping history of women and reading, brilliantly conceived and told depth and detail for the first time. Belinda Jack's remarkable book is destined to be a landmark in its field."and#8212;Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World
Review
"Engaging, lively and vigorous. The Woman Reader is a landmark work that no feministand#8212;or for that matter, general readerand#8212;should miss."and#8212;Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth
Review
"A lively and erudite history of the many and ingenious covers thrown over women's minds to keep us in the dark, Jack's absorbing story describes and deconstructs the endlessly remade cover versions that men (mostly) have told to women, and to themselves, about the reasons why books and women should be kept apart."and#8212;Jeanette Winterson,
Times of LondonReview
Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Social and Behavioral Sciences within the Reference category.
Review
and#8220;A rarefied study of womenand#8217;s reading over the centuries - a subject that is vast, but also intensely private, and that has left little trace for most of history.and#8221;and#8212;The Sunday Telegraph
Review
and#8220;Jackand#8217;s excellent history begins from a position of anxiety, which she argues is caused by womenand#8217;s access to the written word. What do women read and what happens to them, and the world, when they do?and#8221;and#8212;Lesley McDowell, Independent on Sunday
Review
and#8220;The three remarkable women in this book wrestled with some of the most compelling questions in the history of American reform movements. What was the best way to achieve social justice? Was economic inequality more important than sexism or racism? Slutskyand#8217;s original, nuanced book explains how these women discovered uniquely American answers to these questions.and#8221;and#8212;Kathy Olmsted, author of Real Enemies, Red Spy Queen, and Challenging the Secret Government
Review
andldquo;[
Gendering Radicalism] combines the study of twentieth-century women, California, and andlsquo;radicalandrsquo; politics in a way that has not been done before. Very well written and informative.andrdquo;andmdash;Kathleen Cairns, author of
Proof of Guilt: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Executing Women in AmericaSynopsis
How have women read differently from men through the ages? In all manner of ways, this book asserts.
Synopsis
How have women read differently from men through the ages? In all manner of ways, this book asserts.
This lively story has never been told before: the complete history of women's reading and the ceaseless controversies it has inspired. Belinda Jack's groundbreaking volume travels from the Cro-Magnon cave to the digital bookstores of our time, exploring what and how women of widely differing cultures have read through the ages.
Jack traces a history marked by persistent efforts to prevent women from gaining literacy or reading what they wished. She also recounts the counter-efforts of those who have battled for girls' access to books and education. The book introduces frustrated female readers of many eras--Babylonian princesses who called for women's voices to be heard, rebellious nuns who wanted to share their writings with others, confidantes who challenged Reformation theologians' writings, nineteenth-century New England mill girls who risked their jobs to smuggle novels into the workplace, and women volunteers who taught literacy to women and children on convict ships bound for Australia.
Today, new distinctions between male and female readers have emerged, and Jack explores such contemporary topics as burgeoning women's reading groups, differences in men and women's reading tastes, censorship of women's on-line reading in countries like Iran, the continuing struggle for girls' literacy in many poorer places, and the impact of women readers in their new status as significant movers in the world of reading.
Synopsis
This lively story has never been told before: the complete history of women's reading and the ceaseless controversies it has inspired. Belinda Jack's groundbreaking volume travels from the Cro-Magnon cave to the digital bookstores of our time, exploring what and how women of widely differing cultures have read through the ages.
Jack traces a history marked by persistent efforts to prevent women from gaining literacy or reading what they wished. She also recounts the counter-efforts of those who have battled for girls' access to books and education. The book introduces frustrated female readers of many erasand#8212;Babylonian princesses who called for women's voices to be heard, rebellious nuns who wanted to share their writings with others, confidantes who challenged Reformation theologians' writings, nineteenth-century New England mill girls who risked their jobs to smuggle novels into the workplace, and women volunteers who taught literacy to women and children on convict ships bound for Australia.
Today, new distinctions between male and female readers have emerged, and Jack explores such contemporary topics as burgeoning women's reading groups, differences in men and women's reading tastes, censorship of women's on-line reading in countries like Iran, the continuing struggle for girls' literacy in many poorer places, and the impact of women readers in their new status as significant movers in the world of reading.
About the Author
A Conversation with Belinda Jack
Q: How did you come to write this book?
A: I became interested in just how different men and women's reading has often been. Men have worried since ancient times about what women read but the reverse has hardly ever been the case.
Q: What were the most striking stories uncovered in the course of your research?
A: It's been fascinating tracing women's responses to misogynist writings that they then re-wroteand#8212;across the centuries and different cultures. And I was astonished by so-called medical works in the nineteenth century recommending that unstable women should be prevented from reading novels. One eminent physician recommended books on beekeeping!
Q: Is the story essentially one of slow improvement?
A: In some ways, but not altogether. I was struck by just how similar attitudes to women's reading were in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Europe and in Ancient Rome. In both contexts women were encouraged to read onlyand#160;insofar as it provided them with a moral training, or helped them to be good mother-educators. The other parallel was that literate women reflected their husband's social status.
Q: Were you ever discouraged from reading or denied access to certain books?
A: Both my parents were keen readers but my father didn't think I should read stories in which people diedand#8212;which ruled out a good deal! They used to call me either a "bookworm" or a "great reader." Even when quite young I saw how very different those descriptions were.
Praise for Belinda Jackand#8217;s George Sand:
and#8220;[Jackand#8217;s] approach is psychological but with a light touch. . . . Thorough without being pedantic. . . . A pleasure to read.and#8221;and#8212;Library Journal
and#8220;Focused and engaging.and#8221;and#8212;New York Times Book Review