Gender Troubles

In the late 1800s, both First-wave feminism and the women-lead Temperance Movement were gaining steam in North America. But why did so many more women join the temperance movement than the suffrage cause? Eva tells Emma about the different strategies both movements used to recruit members, focusing in on the ways christian morality and fears over family safety helped (white, Protestant) women conceive of themselves as political participants. 

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Reading List:

Sophie Lewis, Shebeen Queens

Elizabeth K. Churchill, article in The Women’s Journal

Mother Stewart, Memories of the crusade; a thrilling account of the great uprising of the women of Ohio in 1873, against the liquor crime

Criminal, ep 73 Carry A. Nation

Suzanne M. Marilley, Frances Willard and the Feminism of Fear

The Canadian Encyclopedia, Temperance Movement in Canada

Frances Willard, Hints and Helps in our Temperance Work

Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Separate Paths: Suffragists and the Women's Temperance Crusade

OSU, Woman's Crusade of 1873-74

Cover Image: "A woman's liquor raid - how the ladies of Fredericktown, O. abolished the traffic of ardent spirits in their town" from The National Police Gazette, Nov. 8 1879

In this week's episode, Emma tells Eva about the history of domestic work, and the patterns of colonialism and racism that still permeate this area of employment. Plus, a rundown of some major successes in domestic worker collective organizing that have resulted in better wages, better working conditions, and more rights for these workers. 

Cover image: Colonial Dining by William Henry Jackson, 1895

Show notes:

Modigliani, Kathy. “BUT WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF THE CHILDREN? CHILDCARE, WOMEN, AND DEVALUED LABOR.” The Journal of Education, vol. 168, no. 3, Trustees of Boston University, 1986, pp. 46–69, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42741755.

MATHER, CELIA. “Domestic Workers: Their Time Now.” International Union Rights, vol. 17, no. 4, International Centre for Trade Union Rights, 2010, pp. 17–19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41937560.

Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar. “The Indenture of Migrant Domestic Workers.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1/2, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2017, pp. 113–27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44474112.

Nanny Knows Best: The History of the British Nanny, Katherine Holden, History Press, 2013

https://www.domesticworkers.org/about-domestic-work/domestic-worker-history/

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/hellraiser-juana-nicolas/

https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-call-for-recognition-of-the-importance-of-domestic-workers/

https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C189

https://www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice/social-justice-week/2020/10/united-for-domestic-workers-rights/

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/daycare-during-wartime

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-09-06-0909050150-story.html

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/legal-scholar-fights-to-protect-domestic-workers-from-exploitative-conditions-1.5893958

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/advocates-call-for-changes-to-ottawa-s-nanny-program-1.527167

https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/foreign-worker-rights.html

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/26/17275708/housekeepers-nannies-sexual-harassment-laws

https://fee.org/articles/unionizing-nanny/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/obituaries/dorothy-bolden-overlooked.html

https://ca.talent.com/salary?job=nanny

This week: a celebration of the life and work of bell hooks, who died last week at the age of 69. bell was an unparalleled writer, poet, and theorist, and was incredibly influential in the feminist movement. In this episode, Eva & Emma discuss some of their favourite pieces by bell.

Please read the following pieces of writing about bell, written by Black folks and people of colour. 

Hua Hsu: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks

Arabelle Sicardi: https://arabellesicardi.substack.com/p/bell-hooks-will-live-forever

Maiysha Kai: https://www.theroot.com/bell-hooks-author-educator-and-feminist-icon-dead-at-1848220902

Tao Leigh Goffe: https://www.vulture.com/2021/12/bell-hooks-books-essays-to-read.html

Lynnée Denise:https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-12-19/appreciation-bell-hooks

Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés: https://twitter.com/CeciliaMilanes/status/1471238070653657096

A compilation of people:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/16/bell-hooks-remembered-she-reminded-us-of-the-better-world-we-were-working-towards

Read full books and articles by bell hooks online. Please consider donating to Bilphena’s library! https://www.bilphenaslibrary.com/books

Show notes:

https://blackrosefed.org/intersectionalism-bell-hooks-interview/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMVqnyTo_0

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/gustafson/FILM%20165A.W11/film%20165A%5BW11%5D%20readings%20/hooksparis.pdf

https://www.uwyo.edu/aded5050/5050unit12/theory%20as%20liberatory%20prac.pdf

https://savedbythe-bellhooks.tumblr.com

Cover image by. James Keyser, 1992

In this episode, Eva tells Emma about the 1970's "Wages for Housework" movement, an international campaign calling for housework and care work to be compensated. They discuss the movement's radical grassroots origins, different feminist perspectives on the gendered division of labour, and the legacy of the movement in today's working and home life. Digressions include conversations about training squirrels and cleaning up roommate's beard hair. 

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Reading List:

Wendy Edmond, All Work and No Pay : women, housework, and the wages due

Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework

Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work For Mother 

Louise Toupin, The History of Wages for Housework

Gender difference in housework stats 

Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Women and the Subversion of the Community

image: poster from the See Red Women's Workshop

This week, Eva and Emma get into an introduction to Postcolonial Feminism. They discuss the origins of postcolonial theory, examine how Western feminists frame so-called "third world" women and highlight the ways in which feminist rhetoric gets weaponized to perpetuate colonialism. 

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Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Routledge’s The post-colonial studies reader

Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes” 

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak”

Sara Ahmed, excerpt from Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality

Lila Abu‐Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"

Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle 

Rich, Janine, “"Saving" Muslim Women: Feminism, U.S Policy and the War on Terror”

image: Leyly Matine-Daftary, PORTRAIT OF FARIDEH GOUHARI 

In this episode, Emma tells Eva about the early roots of Ecofeminism and its strange, essentialist solutions to fighting patriarchy and capitalism. Side-tangents include Aristotle, The Giving Tree, and mind-body dualism. 

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Eva gets into Adrienne Rich's 1976 book "Of Woman Born" and talks about radical feminist approaches to motherhood. We discuss the narrow definition of Rich's "mother" figure, Black feminist responses to her concepts, and the Texas abortion ban. Plus, a rundown on the censored Judith Butler interview in the Guardian.

*Content warning*: This episode contains discussion of abortion, infanticide, and mental health struggle.

Cover image painting by Chantal Joffe, 2004

Reading List:

Judith Butler Interview with Jules Gleeson https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender; The portion of the Interview that was deleted by The Guardian https://www.patreon.com/posts/55912898

Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, Adrienne Rich, 1976 https://archive.org/details/ofwomanbornmothe00rich/page/n7/mode/2up

From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born, edited by Andrea O'Reilly, 2004 https://www.scribd.com/document/336903061/Andrea-O-Reilly-From-Motherhood-to-Mothering-Th-BookZZ-org

The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships, Patricia Hill Collins, 1987 https://www.proquest.com/docview/1300131753?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true

Motherhood Reconceived: Feminism and the Legacies of the Sixties, Lauri Umansky, 1996 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Motherhood_Reconceived/_7IUCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

This week, Eva talks to Emma about the origins of the term “intersectionality”, how the definition has changed, and the importance of crediting and centring Black feminists. Plus-- a rant about the upcoming OnlyFans pornography ban.

Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color”:

http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2020/02/1229039.pdf

Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”

http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/critique1313/files/2020/02/1229039.pdf

Alex Kirshner, for Slate:

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://slate.com/technology/2021/08/onlyfans-porn-ban-cruel.html&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1629763228495000&usg=AOvVaw0d-owS6fv4uSJO_8kHcAHm

Tilly Lawless’s instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/tilly_lawless/?hl=en

Intersectionality Venn diagram/Wheel:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sylviaduckworth/50245846893

Jane Coaston, for Vox:

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination

Crenshaw interview with Columbia Law School:

https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later

Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

Photograph used in cover image by Miranda Barnes, https://www.mirandabarnes.com

In this episode, Emma provides an overview of second wave, radical feminism. What does it mean to be a radical feminist, and is this term still useful today? Listen to find out!

Nachescu, Voichita. “Radical Feminism and the Nation: History and Space in the Political Imagination of Second-Wave Feminism.” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 3, no. 1, 2009, pp. 29–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41887617

Leigh Miller, A History of Radical Feminism https://www.sutori.com/story/a-history-of-radical-feminism–Pf5HsUfrBG26boQJdwtLbWUS

Kathie Sarachild, Conciousness Raising Groups: A Radical Weapon, https://vrrws.seriousotters.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Feminist-Revolution-Consciousness-Raising-A-Radical-Weapon-Kathie-Sarachild.pdf

Carol Hanisch, The Personal is Political,  https://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~mserra/AttachedFiles/PersonalPolitical.pdf

Gillette, Meg. “Modern American Abortion Narratives and the Century of Silence.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 58, no. 4, 2012, pp. 663–687. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24247022

***Trigger Warning: This article is explicit, and speaks about sexual violence***  

Erica West, The Pitfalls of Radical Feminism, https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/radical-feminism-second-wave-class

Roz Kaveney, Woman Enough, https://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2014/07/16/woman-enough

Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, from the book Sister Outsider, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32951.Sister_Outsider

Barry, Kathleen. “The Underground Economic System Of Pimping.” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 35, no. 1, 1981, pp. 117–127. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24357006

Barry, Kathleen. “Female Sexual Slavery: Understanding the International Dimensions of Women’s Oppression.” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 2, 1981, pp. 44–52. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/761856

Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, pp. 1241–1299. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1229039. Accessed 20 Aug. 2021.

In this episode, Eva talks about the first birth control clinic in the US and the different tactics feminists of this time used to spread their message.

Reading List:

Ellen Chesler, Woman of valor: Margaret Sanger and the birth control movement in America.

https://archive.org/details/womanofvalormar000ches/page/n11/mode/2up

Margaret Sanger, An Autobiography.

https://archive.org/details/margaretsangerau1938sang/page/n1/mode/2up

Jill Lepore, The secret history of Wonder Woman.

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780804173407

Peter C Engelman, A history of the birth control movement in America.

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780313365096

Emma Goldman. Marriage and love.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1914/marriage-love.htm