I'm expecting many women for our new feminist bookclub next week and I should have more choice on my list of possibilities.

Because of its literary theme, I have always loved Dale Spender's "Women of Ideas (And What Men Have Done To Them)". I remember being so shocked when I first read this book about so many women whose voices had been so silenced throughout the years/decades/centuries although they wrote books, taught, lectured etc. But they were just shut down.

When I first looked at Mary Daly's "Gyn/ecology" I simply had no idea in the world what it was about or what she was saying. It was as if I were reading a foreign language. A year or two later, I picked it up again and suddenly, I got it and it made perfect infuriating sense. What happened to me from the first time I looked at it to the second time? It had a huge effect on me.

My best Canadian feminist reference book is called (uninspiringly) "Feminist Organizing for Change" -- by Nancy Adamson, Linda Briskin and Margaret McPhail (published by Oxford University Press). It's a little academic and probably a little outdated by now but still really full of information.

And of course, I would like to mention the wonderful "Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution" by our own Judy.

I have shelves and shelves and shelves of feminist books. Keep this thread open and I'll add more from time to time.

[ 03 November 2006: Message edited by: Sharon ]

"This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Colour" ed by Gloria Anzaldua and Cheri Moraga. Sadly this book is out of print.

The follow up book, 25 years later: "This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation" ed by Gloria Anzaldua and Analouise Keating.

I also like Margaret Attwood- I've read Alias Grace and The Penelopiad among others and thought they were great.

[ 03 November 2006: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

[ 03 November 2006: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

[ 03 November 2006: Message edited by: Pride for Red Dolores ]

I assisted an English professor set set up the first women's studies course at Diablo Valley College in California in 1968 and received 3 credits for my efforts.

We read the likes of Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer, Robin Morgan (Sisterhood is Powerful) Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication on the Rights of Woman) etc. etc.

I know it was basically American feminists we studied (although Greer is Australian & Wollstonecraft British) but since then, I have read every book Margaret Atwood has written plus a few other Canadian feminists.

Also Susan Brownmiller's "Against Our Will: Men Women & Rape" is a chilling chronicle of how rape is a weapon of war and conflict, and no nationality (including Canadians) is innocent of this crime.

please keep the titles coming and any movies about women would be appreciated as well.

we are going to start with a general overview of herstory---what has gone on with women since the beginning, globally, with an emphasis on the main global societal influences that disabled gender balance.[economic structures, religion,etc]

we're then going to study books and see films about where women everywhere are now. religion, poverty[economics], health, education, family and politics will be main focus.

we'll probably do the brain studie work from the past decade to examine the latest science examining major gender differences. there is a large body of recent work that looks very encouraging for women and i'm hoping that this will be a confidence building section.

we have to study male violence, but i want to be together for several months before we go there. i have found so many women with hurts buried so deep. i'm hoping that by then we will have built a loving and trusting group dynamic which can support and comfort those hurts.

i think that spirituality and love relationships are so fundamental to all people's wellbeing and i think that feminism has had a difficult time dealing with these things as they are so tied up in the trappings of patriarchy. i'd like to find a way to spend a year or two looking at these issues from a feminist perspective as a group.

we'll see how it goes---i have high hopes!

I was so pleasantly surprized at the turnout and enthusiasm.
I'm hoping to attract more very young women and very old women so that we have the benefit of a strongly intergenerational group.
so film titles of movies by women for women are needed too.