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SDD15 would like me to design a women's study, with feminism being a focus.  Her goal is to understand the roots and meaning of feminism and to explore her own reflections on the subject.  She is becoming a young woman and wants to know what that means to her. :)

 

She would like to use articles, short stories, novels.  This would technically be an English Class.

 

The material can be overwhelming.  I am not sure how to narrow the choices down.  

 

What would you consider "Don't Miss" material?

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Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own

 

Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex

 

Any writings by Audre Lorde 

 

Any writings by bell hooks

 

Primary historical documents - Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, suffragette movement both in the US and Great Britain

 

I am sure there are some great anthologies out there, but I can't remember the titles at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

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I found the Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lapore fascinating. It may not be a "must read" compared to some of the classics of feminism, but it weaves a bunch of historical and cultural threads together in a story that defies easy categorization.

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Hmmm. JMO, but much of the background information and readings for this topic would really fall under a Sociology (Social Science) credit, rather than an English credit… (And, BTW, a very early non-fition work to look at might be A Vindication of Women's Rights by Mary Wollstonencraft.) Perhaps create an integrated course, with 0.5 credit each for Social Studies and English, for something along the lines of "Women's Studies: Feminist Thought and Literature" -- the many great essays and non-fiction ideas in Ethel Mertz' post would be used for the Soc. Studies portion, while the fiction works (below, in my post) would work for the English portion.

Feminism is a very broad umbrella, much of which is about issues of politics, economics, social rights, and gender issues -- here's an overview from the Wikipedia article on Feminism -- perhaps use that as a starting point and narrow down what exactly DD would like to explore. 🙂

Since you mention DD's particular interest is that DD is becoming a young woman and she wants to explore what that means to her, coming of age literature written by women with female protagonists might be of special interest.

This brief article on Feminist Criticism from OWL at Purdue would give you some idea of the kinds of questions that feminism uses in discussing literature. And here are some works of Literature by women, with female protagonists who explore who they are as women, some successfully, some not:

- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
- something by Edith Wharton
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neele Hurston)
- A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hainsberry) -- play
- The Female Man (Joanna Russ) -- PREVIEW
- The Color Purple (Alice Walker) -- PREVIEW
- something by Toni Morrison -- PREVIEW
- The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
- The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
- Housekeeping (Marilynn Robinson)

short stories
- Story of an Hour (Kate Chopin) -- or other work(s)
- Why I Live at the P.O. (Eudora Welty)
- Revelation (Flannery O'Connor)
- something by Sarah Orne Jewett
- something by Katherine Anne Porter

poetry by Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou and others...

possible female coming of age works:
- Story of a Girl (Zarr) -- PREVIEW
- House on Mango Street (Sisneros) -- PREVIEW
- Persepolis (Satrapi) -- PREVIEW
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
- I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)

Edited by Lori D.
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Thank you all.

 

Many of these are on my list to narrow down.  Glad I was on the right path!

 

Lori - this would only be part of this year's English Course.  You are spot-on with regards to coming-of-age novels.  Thank you for your suggestions!  In fact, I just read I Capture the Castle for the first time recently.  Loved, loved, loved.

 

Off to investigate your suggestions more thoroughly.

 

Thanks again!

 

 

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On 10/24/2015 at 9:18 AM, lisabees said:

 coming-of-age novels. 


In that case, I'd esp. look at these classics from above, which would work well with exploring that theme:

 Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) -- read this past thread "Jane Eyre and boys", esp. posts #14 , #16, #21, #33, #38 by cajun.classical

- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neele Hurston)

- The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan) -- terrific multi-generational perspectives, as you get the stories of the 20-30yo adult women struggling to figure out who they are, but you also get the first person stories of their mothers, and their grandmothers, of how they made choices that led to who they became -- lovely! 🙂

- The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) -- another great multi-generational work, plus it crosses the race boundaries and allows women to nurture one another

- Housekeeping (Marilynn Robinson)

Whatever you go with, hope you and DD have a wonderful study together! 🙂 Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited by Lori D.
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Must reads (nonfiction):

"Click:  The Housewife's Moment of Truth"  (an article)  http://nymag.com/news/features/46167/

"The Feminine Mystique" Betty Friedan (lays out the case for and basically kicked off the second wave feminist movement in the US)

"The Hearts of Men" by Barbara Ehrenreich (makes the case that men's changing views of the value of women were part of the impetus for the second wave feminist movement)

"Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" by Gloria Steinem.  (essays on feminism.  Good stuff.)

"In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" by Alice Walker (excellent essays)

 

 

Fiction to include:

"The Yellow Wall Paper"  (short story)

"An Old Fashioned Girl" by Louisa May Alcott (a novel in two parts written in the late 1800s.  It's interesting as original source material for how people were thinking about feminism then.  Do not be put off by the somewhat childish first few chapters.  This was originally written as a pair of books and gets increasingly mature in theme and content in the second book.)

"The Women's Room" by Marilyn French (published in the late 1970's, this novel illustrates sort of typicalish life paths of middle class women in the time of the feminist movement.  Very evocative of the times.)

 

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A current novel that might be of interest is The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.  It is a fictionalized story of the Grimke sisters, abolitionists and early feminists, and one of the slaves their family owned.  It is mostly about living in the antebellum South, but also about the restrictions that white women were under at the time.  In the later part of the book, there is a specific discussion of the relation between suffrage for women and the abolition movement.

 

 

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A current novel that might be of interest is The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.  It is a fictionalized story of the Grimke sisters, abolitionists and early feminists, and one of the slaves their family owned.  It is mostly about living in the antebellum South, but also about the restrictions that white women were under at the time.  In the later part of the book, there is a specific discussion of the relation between suffrage for women and the abolition movement.

 

LOVED that book! :) I suggested Kidd's earlier work of Secret Life of Bees because it is contemporary setting, and it is focused on a teen female protagonist. :)

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This might be interesting..you could read parts of it if not all of it. It's a more modern remaking of the whole idea of women's roles. (despite the title this isn't some weird patriarchal women should be subservient helpmeets thing)

 

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Homemakers-Reclaiming-Domesticity-Consumer-ebook/dp/B005GLMAUG/ref=pd_sim_351_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=51Mcgy73-7L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=06R1MNC3HYM460RJ7JMA

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