Author Topic: Essential Books for Women  (Read 14859 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Essential Books for Women
« on: December 09, 2008, 01:08:15 pm »
Let us gather a shelf full of essential books for today's woman! In my humble estimation, there are two books which every enlightened woman should own: Women Who Run With the Wolves, and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. The first book, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, retells some folk and fairy tales and uncovers the ancient truths and archtypes within them.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Ellemeno

  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • ********
  • Posts: 15,367
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2008, 01:52:38 am »
Anything and everything by Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Amy Tan.

Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2008, 01:50:26 pm »
Woman by Natalie Angier

Wonderful book that challenges the dubious conclusions about women being "naturally monogamous" and other tales of "women's nature".  It also makes you smile while reading it, glad to be a woman.

The Descent of Women by Elaine Morgan

Lovely book.  It's the Aquatic Ape theory.  The author builds on an earlier theory, long ignored, that the reason human women are shaped the way they are isn't because attracting male lust was the most important thing women's bodies needed to evolve for.  Note, it's an old theory, it challenges the beliefs of most of the - male - paleoanthropologists/zoologists (the title is a play on Bronowski's The Ascent of Man and in the book she also parallels Desmond Morris' theories but comes to a completely different conclusion), but to date, no one in the scientific community has been able to invalidate this theory.  ;D

When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone

The scholarship is somewhat wonky, but the author gets her point across.  The Divine wasn't always seen as a man, and indeed there is strong evidence that the Ultimate Divine was once considered female.

Bitch by Elizabeth Wurtzel

A collection of essays by the author, praising and dissecting the characters of women - some biblical, the rest real -  the author believes society would consider "difficult" or "bitches".  An excellent read.   
« Last Edit: December 10, 2008, 04:19:58 pm by delalluvia »

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2008, 06:13:01 pm »
Excellent choices, della and elle! I was going to recommend When God Was a Woman myself. It is essential reading and entertaining as well. More scholarly, but even more essential and insightful, is Leonard Schlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. I simply can not say enuff about this book and its incredible insights. It's on my list of Top Five Books I've ever read in my life.

Check out this link for more info:

http://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com/
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Lumière

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,283
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2008, 06:51:12 pm »

Amanda & I have started a collection of very interesting reads..
Check out the Lesbian and/or Feminist Literature and Writing thread in The Culture Tent.





Offline Lynne

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,291
  • "The world's always ending." --Ianto Jones
    • Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2008, 08:28:36 pm »
When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone

The scholarship is somewhat wonky, but the author gets her point across.  The Divine wasn't always seen as a man, and indeed there is strong evidence that the Ultimate Divine was once considered female.

When I first saw the title of this thread, this is the book I thought about!


I found the first part of this book fascinating, as a female raised in the the Southeast US...no exposure to any ideas except a patriarchal God.  It caught my eye when I was in my early twenties and at the time I felt like it lifted the lid off the box I'd been living in.  Exposure to religions that pre-dated the Judeo-Christian tradition was really intriguing.

The second part seemed to include more arcane archaeology than I could appreciate - I got a bit lost in the history and geography and didn't enjoy that as much.

http://www.amazon.com/When-God-Woman-Merlin-Stone/dp/015696158X
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2008, 11:12:47 pm »
Tell us more about your experience reading it, Lynne!

Here is a quote from The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, Chapter 19, Yin/Yang (!)

Quote
Due to the reductionism inherent in their written form, alphabet cultures have lacked unity. Fractured lands, fractious governments, and schismatic religions have mirrored their written languages, which have splintered into hundreds of different vernaculars and written forms. War and strife associated with intransigent political and religious ideologies have been their lot. Rarely would a single government be able to rule them all.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2008, 11:36:28 pm »
'Nother important book, though dated, is Moon, Moon by Anne Kent Rush. A compendium of all things about the moon, feminism, rituals, and the goddess. Published in 1976. I bought a copy for myself, and one for my sister. We both still have our copies!


"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2008, 03:18:12 pm »
Moving right along, I also recommend The Once and Future Goddess: A Sweeping Visual Chronicle of the Sacred Female by Elinor Gadon.

This is a fairly comprehensive look at prepatriarchial spirituality.

http://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-Goddess-Chronicle-Reemergence/dp/0062503545/ref=pd_sim_b_4
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2008, 03:21:53 pm »
When I first saw the title of this thread, this is the book I thought about!

http://www.amazon.com/When-God-Woman-Merlin-Stone/dp/015696158X

Here's that lovely snakegoddess!!

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Mikaela

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 3,229
  • Unsaid... and now unsayable
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2008, 03:36:36 pm »
One book I would very, very  warmly recommend is "Misogynies" by Joan Smith. It's a collection of extremely perceptive and insightful essays on the gender inequality and repression of women in pop culture, politics, history, religious and societal institutions - some of which may perhaps slip under our radar, some of which we may have become numb to - most of which I am sure we can all nod to in exasperated agreement.

There's essays on a number of issues, among them on the attitude women encounter in rape cases, the male fight against women clergy, the repression of *real* womens' history from (as an example) works on Roman History, an extremely lucid take on why "Page 2 topless girls" demean themselves and all women, and the best treatise on a serial murderer of women that I have ever read - dealing with UK's Yorksihre Ripper and the police's horridly condescending attitude towards his victims, which ultimately led to them haring off in the wrong directions in their investigations and him thereby getting off the hook for far too long, - murdering again and again while the police stumbled in a fog partly of their own making.


I also completely support the recommendation of Morgan's "Descent of Woman". I think the aquatic Ape theory makes so much immediate sense, and demonstrates an ability to go beyond old accepted theories that I both applaud and find mesmerizing.


Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #11 on: December 11, 2008, 04:07:38 pm »

The chapters are all just two or three pages, each presenting some double standard with a catchy name, describing the problem and suggesting a remedy. Some examples (in addition to the title one):

He's a man, she's a mom.

He's chill, she's on the pill.

He's tough, she's a tomboy.

He's gay, she's a fantasy.

He's the boss, she's a bitch.

He's manly, she's Sasquatch [regarding hair removal].

He's lucky, she's Lolita.

He's distinguished, she's driving Miss Daisy.

He can be a beast, she must be a beauty.

And so on. I don't think I agree that all of them predominate all the time, but they are thought-provoking. (If any need further explanation, let me know). At Amazon, as you can see, you can look inside the book. I saw it in a bookstore and could not resist.



Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #12 on: December 11, 2008, 05:10:56 pm »

Who cooked the Last Supper? by Rosalind Miles

Great book on a woman's POV of history.  Witty and sardonic.  I love it.

When women were priests by Karen Torjesen
A book on early Christianity which shows women were very active and had roles in leadership - according to Jesus' supposed teachings -  until they were subordinated into meekness and silence.


Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2008, 05:35:45 pm »
Here's that lovely snakegoddess!!



And her wardrobe!!


Thank you Mikeala, that one definitely goes on my Wish List. I heard that a new book has just been published called Her Story, which recounts history adding the feminine back in. One woman that is profiled is Catherine Greene, wife of the revolutionary general Nathaniel Greene, who, they say, actually invented the cotton gin, although the credit went to Eli Whitney. Another woman who should get more credit is Madame Messier, who identified quite a few of the objects in the sky that her husband took credit for.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #14 on: December 11, 2008, 05:40:59 pm »
And her wardrobe!!


Thank you Mikeala, that one definitely goes on my Wish List. I heard that a new book has just been published called Her Story, which recounts history adding the feminine back in. One woman that is profiled is Catherine Greene, wife of the revolutionary general Nathaniel Greene, who, they say, actually invented the cotton gin, although the credit went to Eli Whitney. Another woman who should get more credit is Madame Messier, who identified quite a few of the objects in the sky that her husband took credit for.

Probably quite a few inventions by women went unnoticed because - at least in the States - women couldn't hold patents, so their fathers/brothers/husbands got credit for them.

Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #15 on: December 11, 2008, 06:30:48 pm »
Who cooked the Last Supper? by Rosalind Miles

Great book on a woman's POV of history.  Witty and sardonic.  I love it.

I'm tempted to get it for the title alone.


Offline opinionista

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,939
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #16 on: December 11, 2008, 06:47:05 pm »

The chapters are all just two or three pages, each presenting some double standard with a catchy name, describing the problem and suggesting a remedy. Some examples (in addition to the title one):

He's a man, she's a mom.

He's chill, she's on the pill.

He's tough, she's a tomboy.

He's gay, she's a fantasy.

He's the boss, she's a bitch.

He's manly, she's Sasquatch [regarding hair removal].

He's lucky, she's Lolita.

He's distinguished, she's driving Miss Daisy.

He can be a beast, she must be a beauty.

And so on. I don't think I agree that all of them predominate all the time, but they are thought-provoking. (If any need further explanation, let me know). At Amazon, as you can see, you can look inside the book. I saw it in a bookstore and could not resist.

I liked She's a Stalker and He's a Romeo. That's so true. Women who go after men are either desperate, sluts or stalkers. Men however, are in love, cute, or passionate, etc.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Mark Twain.

Marge_Innavera

  • Guest
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #17 on: December 12, 2008, 11:06:42 am »
Let us gather a shelf full of essential books for today's woman! In my humble estimation, there are two books which every enlightened woman should own: Women Who Run With the Wolves, and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. The first book, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, retells some folk and fairy tales and uncovers the ancient truths and archtypes within them.


For people unfamiliar with Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Wikipedia has a very good summary at Wikipedia  Some highlights, including a background sketch making it clear that Estes isn't a sheltered academic:

Quote
As post-trauma specialist, she began her work in the 1960s at hospitals caring for severely injured children, 'shell-shocked' war veterans, and their families. Her teaching of writing in prisons began in the early 1970s at the Men's Penitentiary in Colorado; the Federal Women's Prison at Dublin, CA, and in prisons throughout the Southwest. She ministers in the fields of childbearing loss, surviving families of murder victims, as well as critical incident work. She served at natural disaster sites, developing post-trauma recovery protocol for earthquake survivors in Armenia, and teaching citizens deputized to do post-trauma work on site. She recently served Columbine High School and community after the massacre, 1999-2003. She works with 9-11 survivor families on both east and west coasts.

Quote
She is controversial for proposing that both assimilation and holding to ethnic traditions are the ways to contribute to creative culture and to a soul-based civility. She successfully helped to petition the Library of Congress, as well as worldwide psychoanalytic institutes, to rename their studies and categorizations formerly called, among other things, "psychology of the primitives," to respectful and descriptive names, according to ethnic group, religion, culture, etc.

And a few memorable quotes:

"Nature and human beings are not separate. You can be sure that when the land and creatures are wounded by humans, that those humans are copying their own psychic wounds into the earth and animals as well; what is wounded and without thought, wounds others..." (from essay "Massacre of the Dreamers")

"When, after a conflict, the best balanced leaders who have a stake in the future of all persons, are bypassed, and instead power is seized by the angriest and most grudge-holding, whose greatest stake is in the past… without new consciousness, and without strong reconciling actions, thus erupts a horrible recycling of living out the least of what is human in this world." (from Letter To The Prince on the Anniversary of Kristallnacht" )

"All strong souls first go to hell before they do the healing of the world they came here for. If we are lucky, we return to help those still trapped below." (from the poem Abre La Puerta in 'Theatre of the Imagination' )


Marge_Innavera

  • Guest
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #18 on: December 12, 2008, 11:11:10 am »
Oh, forgot to add ---


Estes is now a contributor at the Moderate Voice blog.   Her current entry is titled Which Political Mixture Are You?

Offline Brown Eyes

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,377
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #19 on: December 12, 2008, 11:21:52 am »
Who cooked the Last Supper? by Rosalind Miles

Great book on a woman's POV of history.  Witty and sardonic.  I love it.


I'm tempted to get it for the title alone.




The topic of cooking made me think of this book...

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances
by Laura Schenone

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/6067888-ff4.jpg" border="0" />

This is the "synopsis" from the Barnes and Noble website:
Quote
A stunningly illustrated book that celebrates the power of food throughout American history and in women's lives.

Filled with classic recipes and inspirational stories, A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove will make you think twice about the food on your plate. Here is the first book to recount how American women have gathered, cooked, and prepared food for lovers, strangers, and family throughout the ages. We find native women who pried nourishment from the wilderness, mothers who sold biscuits to buy their children's freedom, immigrant wives who cooked old foods in new homes to provide comfort. From church bake sales to microwaving moms, this book is a celebration of women's lives, homes, and communities. Over fifty recipes, from Federal Pancakes to Sweet Potato Pie, are beautifully presented along with over one hundred images from artists, photographers, and rare sources. A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove is the shared history of all American women...


the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #20 on: December 12, 2008, 06:12:58 pm »

The topic of cooking made me think of this book...

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances
by Laura Schenone

That sounds like a good one, too. I like it when women's traditional occupations are honored rather than trivialized or scorned. I understand the impulse to disdain household drudgery (and from the looks of my household I probably disdain drudgery a bit too much  ::)). On the other hand, we should appreciate what women traditionally have contributed to human society (albeit largely unpaid).




Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #21 on: December 13, 2008, 03:02:25 pm »
A quote from the book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess:

Quote
Shlain contrasts the feminine right-brained oral teachings of Socrates, Buddha, and Jesus with the masculine creeds that evolved when their spoken words were committed to writing. The first book written in an alphabet was the Old Testament and its most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first two reject of any goddess influence and ban any form of representative art.


I was rereading the book last nite about the story of Joseph (he of the technicolor dreamcoat). Joseph was ambushed by his brothers and left for dead, but he was sold into slavery in Egypt. His talents were recognized by the ruling class in Egypt so instead of being a slave he became one of the most trusted and powerful assistants to the Pharoah. When a famine came to the land, he welcomed his brothers and other Hebrews into Egypt and they became powerful and influential, but were not trusted and began to be persecuted. Eventually they were led out of Egypt by Moses and went back to the Promised Land. However, in later periods of history, similar things happened to the Jews again.

What was the talent that Jews were simultaneously admired and reviled for? Literacy. . . the alphabet.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #22 on: December 13, 2008, 03:40:33 pm »
A quote from the book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess:
 

I was rereading the book last nite about the story of Joseph (he of the technicolor dreamcoat). Joseph was ambushed by his brothers and left for dead, but he was sold into slavery in Egypt. His talents were recognized by the ruling class in Egypt so instead of being a slave he became one of the most trusted and powerful assistants to the Pharoah. When a famine came to the land, he welcomed his brothers and other Hebrews into Egypt and they became powerful and influential, but were not trusted and began to be persecuted. Eventually they were led out of Egypt by Moses and went back to the Promised Land. However, in later periods of history, similar things happened to the Jews again.

What was the talent that Jews were simultaneously admired and reviled for? Literacy. . . the alphabet.

Interesting, but the Egyptians were already literate.  Had invented paper - from papyrus.  Being an Egyptian scribe was a standard and desired and in demand job.  Egypt was a superpower, breadbasket of the ancient world, complete with monarchy and bureaucracy and were in command of most of the middle east during early biblical times - why do you think blbilcal Jews were said to migrate there and back?  I guess I'm not going to agree with some of the theories in the Goddess versus the Alphabet.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #23 on: December 13, 2008, 09:00:57 pm »
Good points, della, and I shouldn't have begun in the middle of Chapter 8! Also, instead of literacy...the alphabet, I should have said, alphabet literacy. Going back to Chapter 6, "Cuneiform/Marduk," it is recounted how two centers of civilization developed about 3000 BC in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The rest of this chapter discusses the development of cuneiform in Mesopotamia, leading to the code of Hammerabi, and its implications.

Chapter 7, Hieroglyphs/Isis, talks about the development of Egyptian pictographic writing and how it dovetailed with Egyptian culture. If you study the pantheon of Egyptian gods and goddesses, their rulers, and their patterns of daily life, you will see that the Egyptians had what could be considered a matriarchial culture, honoring the goddess Isis and her son Horus above all, though the god Atum or Amon gradually grew in importance over the centuries.

Between 1700 and 1550 BC the balance of power changed and infiltrators called Hyskos gradually came to rule over the Egyptians. After these interlopers were driven out, the New Kingdom of the pharoahs began with sweeping changes. This was the period when the great monuments were built and the pharoahs, such as Ramses II, dictated great military conquests. The system of writing was also revolutionized, representing phonetic sounds rather than aesthetic pictures. The god Amon was elevated to the highest status and took on human form rather than being animalistic.

Stay tuned for more about the mysterious Hyskos people.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Sophia

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,574
  • Your elbows, try to lick them
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #24 on: December 27, 2008, 12:42:11 pm »

   Bell Hooks, is my suggestion. It is an african-american women who writes about thinking about how it is to be a women, and what is love. In her books she gives you new perspectives about life, marriage, love and being a women.   My favorite book by her is All about love.

Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #25 on: December 27, 2008, 05:34:00 pm »
   Bell Hooks, is my suggestion. It is an african-american women who writes about thinking about how it is to be a women, and what is love. In her books she gives you new perspectives about life, marriage, love and being a women.   My favorite book by her is All about love.

Interestingly enough, a poster on another board I went to (he was male) wondered if there were any movies or books written about women that were not about men or love relationships with men or family or children.  He said you could find many books/movies about men that are about men (war/action/political) where such issues - if they were present at all - were a side item but not the overall focus of the book.  I have to say I agree.  I am a woman, but not really interested in marriage or family or children, so I am always thrilled to find a book/movie about a strong woman who is engaged in other situations.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2008, 03:43:13 pm by delalluvia »

Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #26 on: December 27, 2008, 05:42:48 pm »
Interestingly enough, a poster on another thread I went to (he was male) wondered if there were any movies or books written about women that were not about men or love relationships with men or family or children.  He said you could find many books/movies about men that are about men (war/action/political) where such issues - if they were present at all - were a side item but not the overall focus of the book.  I have to say I agree.  I am a woman, but not really interested in marriage or family or children, so I am always thrilled to find a story/movie about a strong woman who is in other situations.

Interesting point, Del. Of course there is plenty of nonfiction by women authors that deal with subjects outside the domestic sphere. And there is lots of juvenile fiction featuring girl protagonists who are involved in other things (Nancy Drew, for example!). But not as much adult women's fiction, and women writers (as a group) have been criticized for this.

Here's a famous essay about this issue that Francine Prose wrote for Harper's 10 years ago. It's a pdf, and fairly big to download, so I'd advise opening it only if you're interested. She's defending women writers against criticism by Norman Mailer.

http://f02.middlebury.edu/AL260A/Readings/_notes/Scent%20of%20a%20Woman%27s%20Ink.pdf

I'm going to try to think of some exceptions to this women's fiction rule, and will post them as they come to me.





Offline delalluvia

  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *******
  • Posts: 8,289
  • "Truth is an iron bride"
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #27 on: December 27, 2008, 05:52:11 pm »
Interesting point, Del. Of course there is plenty of nonfiction by women authors that deal with subjects outside the domestic sphere. And there is lots of juvenile fiction featuring girl protagonists who are involved in other things (Nancy Drew, for example!). But not as much adult women's fiction, and women writers (as a group) have been criticized for this.

Here's a famous essay about this issue that Francine Prose wrote for Harper's 10 years ago. It's a pdf, and fairly big to download, so I'd advise opening it only if you're interested. She's defending women writers against criticism by Norman Mailer.

http://f02.middlebury.edu/AL260A/Readings/_notes/Scent%20of%20a%20Woman%27s%20Ink.pdf

I'm going to try to think of some exceptions to this women's fiction rule, and will post them as they come to me.

The only two that instantly spring to mind and even they are not free of relationships with men or family are Sue Grafton's series of Kinsey Milhone mystery novels and the novel (written by a man) Smilla's Sense of Snow.  In these books, the female characters do deal with family and relationships with men, but they are a side item and not the real focus of the storyline.  The only movies that fit similarly are action movies "Lara Croft" and "Alien" (the first one).

Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #28 on: December 27, 2008, 09:10:30 pm »
I read Smilla a long time ago and liked it. But if it was written by a man (I'd forgotten who the author was) and just has a woman protagonist, I don't think we can count it in this question.

But Sue Grafton is a good example. And aren't there other female mystery authors?



Offline Lynne

  • BetterMost Supporter
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 5000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,291
  • "The world's always ending." --Ianto Jones
    • Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #29 on: December 27, 2008, 10:04:30 pm »
   Bell Hooks, is my suggestion. It is an african-american women who writes about thinking about how it is to be a women, and what is love. In her books she gives you new perspectives about life, marriage, love and being a women.   My favorite book by her is All about love.

Hi there, sopylicious.  Welcome to BetterMost and thanks for posting!  I don't know anything about Bell Hooks, but I went over to Amazon and here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about All About Love:

Taking on yet another popular topic in her role as cultural critic, hooks blends the personal and the psychological with the philosophical in her latest book--a thoughtful but frequently familiar examination of love American style. A distinguished professor of English at City College in New York City, she explains her sense of urgency about confronting a subject that countless writers have analyzed: "I feel our nation's turning away from love as intensely as I felt love's abandonment in my girlhood. Turning away, we risk moving in a wilderness of spirit so intense we may never find our way home again." With an engaging narrative style, hooks presents a series of possible ways to reverse what she sees as the emotional and cultural fallout caused by flawed visions of love largely defined by men who have been socialized to distrust its value and power. She proposes a transformative love based on affection, respect, recognition, commitment, trust and care, rather than the customary forms stemming from gender stereotypes, domination, control, ego and aggression. However, many of her insights about self-love, forgiveness, compassion and openness have been explored in greater depth by the legion of writers hooks quotes liberally throughout the book, such as John Bradshaw, Lucia Hodgson, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton and M. Scott Peck, among others. Still, every page offers useful nuggets of wisdom to aid the reader in overcoming the fears of total intimacy and of loss. Although the chapter on angels comes across as filler, hooks's view of amour is ultimately a pleasing, upbeat alternative to the slew of books that proclaim the demise of love in our cynical time.
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline Brown Eyes

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,377
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #30 on: January 21, 2009, 04:20:46 pm »

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/6369010-7a2.jpg" border="0" />

This is an interesting one that my Mom found really, really interesting at the time that it was published.  I remember her talking about this book quite a lot around the time it was released in 1991.

Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

"Amazon.com Review
A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Faludi lays out a two-fold thesis in this aggressive work: First, despite the opinions of pop-psychologists and the mainstream media, career-minded women are generally not husband-starved loners on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Secondly, such beliefs are nothing more than anti-feminist propaganda pumped out by conservative research organizations with clear-cut ulterior motives. This backlash against the women's movement, she writes, "stands the truth boldly on its head and proclaims that the very steps that have elevated women's positions have actually led to their downfall." Meticulously researched, Faludi's contribution to this tumultuous debate is monumental and it earned the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction.

From Publishers Weekly
Far from being "liberated," American women in the 1980s were victims of a powerful backlash against the handful of small, hard-won victories the feminist movement had achieved, says Wall Street Journal reporter Faludi, who won a Pulitzer this year. Buttressing her argument with facts and statistics, she states that the alleged "man shortage" endangering women's chances of marrying (posited by a Harvard-Yale study) and the "infertility epidemic" said to strike professional women who postpone childbearing are largely media inventions. She finds evidence of antifeminist backlash in Hollywood movies, in TV's thirtysomething , in 1980s fashion ads featuring battered models and in the New Right's attack on women's rights. She directs withering commentary at Robert Bly's all-male workshops, Allan Bloom's "prolonged rant" against women and Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer's revisionism. This eloquent, brilliantly argued book should be read by everyone concerned about gender equality. First serial to Glamour and Mother Jones.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.."

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline magicmountain

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,677
  • Fire from heaven
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #31 on: February 05, 2009, 06:37:22 pm »
I remember being mightily impressed with this book (Our Treacherous Hearts - Why women let men get their way) by Rosalind Coward) when it first came out.

Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all. - Alexander the Great

Offline serious crayons

  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,712
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #32 on: February 05, 2009, 09:00:50 pm »
Sounds interesting, Jo. What do you remember about what it said? Why do women let men get their way?




Offline magicmountain

  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • ******
  • Posts: 2,677
  • Fire from heaven
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #33 on: February 05, 2009, 11:48:17 pm »
Sounds interesting, Jo. What do you remember about what it said? Why do women let men get their way?


Too much water under the bridge for me to remember in detail. All I know is I kept re-reading it and recommending it to others at the time. The blurb at amazon summarises: "This book looks at women's collusion with what feminists call male oppression."

I dunno - maybe we're just soft hearted or just soft in the head lol.

Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all. - Alexander the Great

Offline Brown Eyes

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,377
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #34 on: February 06, 2009, 12:13:21 am »
Heya!
It's nice to see this thread revived! :)

OK, so I'm going to post one that almost goes without saying or may seem a bit obvious... All the same, it really, truly is a must read for women interested in gender issues, women's rights, feminism, etc... and even women's history.

Simone De Beauvoir
The Second Sex (first published in France in 1949)

It's divided into the following sections/chapters:

1) Destiny
-The Data of Biology
-The Psychoanalytic Point of View
-The Point of View of Histrorical Materialism

2) History
- The Nomads
- Early Tillers of the Soil
- Patriarchal Times and Classical Antiquity
- Through the Middle Ages to 18th Century France

3) Myths
-Dreams, Fears, Idols
-The Myth of 'Woman' in Five Authors
    -Montherlant: or the Bread of Disgust
    -D.H. Lawrence or Phallic Pride
    -Claudel and the Handmaid of the Lord
    -Breton or Poetry
    -Stendhal or the Romantic or Reality
    -Summary
-Myth and Reality

4) The Formative Years
-Childhood
-The Young Girl
-Sexual Initiation
-The Lesbian

5) Situation
-The Married Woman
-The Mother
- Social Life
- Prostitutes and Hetairas
- From Maturity to Old Age
- Woman's Situation and Character

6) Justifications
- The Narcissist
- The Woman in Love
- The Mystic

7) Toward Liberation
- The Independent Woman



It's a very complex and somewhat difficult book to read... but her writing style is actually very readable in many instances.  It's just such a smart book.  It is of course also a bit "out dated" or "of its time."  But, still, it's brilliant enough to inspire awe in many parts.  She was also bold enough and forward enough to include a chapter about lesbians, which simply as a gesture (and especially given De Beauvoir's time period) is something I appreciate.

 
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Brown Eyes

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,377
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #35 on: February 06, 2009, 12:30:57 am »
While I'm at it... I'm going to post two more.  These books have already been mentioned in a thread that Milli and I started together over in Culture Tent about lesbian literature and writing.  But, I think, in many ways they could be of general interest to gay, straight and bi- women because of their interesting take on women's history and literature.  Both are by, or edited by Lillian Faderman.

One is called, Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (1994)



The title comes from a famous passage in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, 1929.  (A Room... was first written/delivered as a lecture)- " I turned the page and read... I am so sorry to break off so abruptly.  Are there no men present? Do you promise me that behind that curtain over there the figure of Sir Chartres Biron is not concealed? We are all women, you assure me?  Then I may tell you that the very next words I read were these - 'Chloe liked Olivia'... Do not start.  Do not blush.  Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen.  Sometimes women do like women."

And, this is the blurb from the back of the book:
"Chloe Plus Olivia is an anthology of four centuries of lesbian literature, with each piece set in historical and literary context.  The most complete compilation of its kind, it offers an enlightening review of the shifting concept of lesbian literature itself, followed by examples of six different genres: Romantic Friendship, Sexual Inversion, Exotic and Evil Lesbians, Lesbian Encoding, Lesbian Feminism and Post-Lesbian Feminism.  Authors included range from Katherine Philips in the seventeenth century and Emily Dickinson in the nineteenth century to Audre Lorde and Dorothy Allison in the twentieth century.  With a historical scope enhanced by Faderman's personal search for a definition of lesbian literature, Chloe Plus Olivia is certain to become the reference point from which all subsequent studies of lesbian writing will begin."


The second book is called: To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America - A History (1999)



The cover photo depicts Carrie Chapman Catt who was the president of NAWSA (the National American Woman Suffrage Association- the country's biggest and most historic suffrage association) at the time that the 19th Amendment finally passed in 1920.  The book talks about a range of suffragists.  It also talks about two major figures from my two alma maters.  Mary Woolley who was president of Mount Holyoke College in the early 20th century and M.Carey Thomas who was president of Bryn Mawr College from the late 19th c. into the early 20th c.... both of whom were pretty open lesbians.  The book also talks about well-known figures such as Jane Addams. 

Here's the blurb from the back of the book:

"This landmark work of lesbian history focuses on how certain late-nineteenth century and twentieth-century women whose lives can be described as lesbian were in the forefront of the battle to secure the rights and privileges that large numbers of Americans enjoy today.  Lillian Faderman persuasively argues that their lesbianism may in fact have facilitated their accomplishments.  A book of imeccable research and compelling reading, To Believe in Women will be a source of enlightenment for all, and for many a singular source of pride."


the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,288
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: Essential Books for Women
« Reply #36 on: May 05, 2009, 09:11:50 pm »

Goodbye to Marilyn French, author of the bestselling 1977 book The Women's Room. She died of heart failure today. 
"chewing gum and duct tape"