Best of
Feminism

1978

And Still I Rise


Maya Angelou - 1978
    An ode to the power that resides in us all to overcome the most difficult circumstances, this poem is truly an inspiration and affirmation of the faith that restores and nourishes the soul. Entwined with the vivid paintings of Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican artist, Angelou's words paint a portrait of the amazing human spirit, its quiet dignity, and pools of strength and courage. An ideal gift for a friend, lover, or family member, this special edition will be treasured by all who receive it.

Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power


Audre Lorde - 1978
    The false dichotomies that Lorde debunks persist in our cultural imagination: the separation of the erotuc from the spiritual and political. Now, Kore Press brings this essay into stand-alone focus, reprinting it in a fine, handbound pamphlet illustrated with photographs by Tucson photographer Camille Bonzani. Designed by book artist Nancy Solomon, the essay is offset and letterpress printed in an edition of 1000.

The Dream of a Common Language


Adrienne Rich - 1978
    . . . No one is writing better or more needed verse than this."--Boston Evening Globe

The Black Unicorn: Poems


Audre Lorde - 1978
    Her rhythms and accents have the timelessness of a poetry which extends beyond white Western politics, beyond the anger and wisdom of Black America, beyond the North American earth, to Abomey and the Dahomeyan Amazons. These are poems nourished in an oral tradition, which also blaze and pulse on the page, beneath the reader's eye."

Tatterhood and Other Tales


Ethel Johnston Phelps - 1978
    All the central characters are spirited females—decisive heroes of extraordinary courage, wit, and achievement who set out to determine their own fate. Some of their stories are comic, some adventurous, some eerie, and some magical. The Chicago Sun-Times writes: "A sparkling gathering of traditional, yet little-known, tales from all parts of the globe. The female characters. . . manage to outsmart, outdo, and over-power the villains with nerves of steel, cunning minds, and disarming senses of humor."

The Work of a Common Woman: The Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn, 1964-1977


Judy Grahn - 1978
    Introduction by Adrienne Rich

Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her


Susan Griffin - 1978
    Starting from Plato’s fateful division of the world into spirit and matter, her analysis of how patriarchal Western philosophy and religion have used language and science to bolster their power over both women and nature is brilliant and persuasive, coming alive in poetic prose.Griffin draws on an astonishing range of sources—from timbering manuals to medical texts to Scripture and classical literature—in showing how destructive has been the impulse to disembody the human soul, and how the long separated might once more be rejoined. Poet Adrienne Rich calls Woman and Nature “perhaps the most extraordinary nonfiction work to have merged from the matrix of contemporary female consciousness—a fusion of patriarchal science, ecology, female history and feminism, written by a poet who has created a new form for her vision. ...The book has the impact of a great film or a fresco; yet it is intimately personal, touching to the quick of woman’s experience.”

Girl


Jamaica Kincaid - 1978
    Girl was originally published in the June 26, 1978 issue of The New Yorker and subsequently included in the short story collection At the Bottom of the River in 1983.

Silences


Tillie Olsen - 1978
    In this classic work, now back in print, Olsen broke open the study of literature and discovered a lost continent—the writing of women and working-class people. From the excavated testimony of authors’ letters and diaries we learn the many ways the creative spirit, especially in those disadvantaged by gender, class and race, can be silenced. Olsen recounts the torments of Melville, the crushing weight of criticism on Thomas Hardy, the shame that brought Willa Cather to a dead halt, and struggles of Virginia Woolf, Olsen’s heroine and greatest exemplar of a writer who confronted the forces that would silence her. This 25th-anniversary edition includes Olsen’s now infamous reading lists of forgotten authors and a new introduction and author preface.

Movement in Black


Pat Parker - 1978
    To honor her work and call attention to the significance of her contributions, Firebrand Books is publishing a new, expanded edition of her classic, Movement In Black.With an incisive introduction by Cheryl Clarke, celebrations/ remembrances/tributes from ten outstanding African American women writers, and a dozen previously unpublished pieces, Movement In Black is a must read/ must have on your book shelf.Whether she was presenting her poetry on street corners, performing with other women -- writers, musicians, activists -- in bars and auditoriums, rallying the crowd at political events, preaching to the converted, or converting the ill-informed, Pat Parker was a presence.She wrote about gut issues: the lives of ordinary Black people, violence, loving women, the legacy of her African American heritage, being queer. She was a woman who engaged life fully, both personally and as a political activist, linking the struggles for racial, gender, sexual, and class equality long before it was "PC" to do so. She died as she lived -- fighting forces larger than herself.The publication of Movement In Black is an opportunity, both for those who were around the first time and those who are new to her work, to experience and enjoy Pat Parker's power.

Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman


Michele Wallace - 1978
    She described how women remained marginalized by the patriarchal culture of Black Power and the ways in which a genuine female subjectivity was blocked by the traditional myths of black womanhood. In 1990 the author added a new introduction examining the debate the book had sparked between intellectuals and political leaders; an extensive bibliography of contemporary black feminist studies was also added. Black Macho raised issues and arguments that framed the terms of current feminist and black theory and continues to be relevant today.

The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography


Angela Carter - 1978
    So says the Marquis de Sade, philosopher and pornographer. His virtuous Justine, who keeps to the rules, is rewarded with rape and humiliation; his Juliette, Justine's triumphantly monstrous antithesis, viciously exploits her sexuality.With brilliance and wit, Angela Carter takes on these outrageous figments of de Sade's extreme imagination and transforms them into symbols of our time: The Hollywood sex goddesses, mothers and daughters, pornography, even the sacred shrines of sex and marriage lie devastatingly exposed before our eyes.Author Bio: Angela Carter (1940-1992) was best known for her subversive short stories, including her most famous collection, The Bloody Chamber. Carter translated the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, and wrote the screenplay for Neil Jordan's 1984 film, The Company of Wolves, based on her short story.

An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre


Paul Avrich - 1978
    

Dry Hustle


Sarah Kernochan - 1978
    Author Kernochan followed around a real duo before writing this riotous, raunchy novel. The story: a conniving (and big-breasted) scam queen named Kristal schools a young (small-breasted) naif in the art of the "dry hustle." Starting in a Times Square dance hall, the two women travel across bicentennial America, targeting hapless males in a string of Hilton hotels - until they run into Cody, a con man who is a master seducer in his own right. First published in 1977, Dry Hustle is now considered a classic."Serves up some of the raunchiest, explicit sex scenes yet...ferociously funny..." - Barbara Bannon, Publishers Weekly"Entertaining, ingenious scams. It's raunchy...fast-paced and funny!" - San Francisco Examiner"What's a nice girl from Sarah Lawrence doing writing a dirty book like this?" - US Magazine

A Death of One's Own


Gerda Lerner - 1978
    This is a story out of ordinary life, about love and endurance and loyalty."-Elizabeth Janeway, author"This is a deeply moving and exquisitely sensitive account."-Daniel Schorr, journalist and author"A great book.unflinchingly revelatory of its writer, a man, a marriage-reflective of the passionate richness the last passage of life can have."-Honor Moore, author and poet"In her deeply moving document, Lerner copes with the moral questions of the patient's right to know, his right to choose, his right to die. Though intensely personal, Lerner's story speaks with a universal quality."-Wilma Salisbury, "Cleveland Plain Dealer""This book gives one hope-that marriage, in the very real sense of the word, is still possible."-Eleanor Perry, screenwriter

The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860-1930


Richard Stites - 1978
    The central personalities, their vigorous exchange of ideas, the social and political events that marked the emerging ideal of emancipation--all come to life in this absorbing and dramatic account. The author's history begins with the feminist, nihilist, and populist impulses of the 1860s and 1870s, and leads to the social mobilization campaigns of the early Soviet period.

One Hand Tied Behind Us: The Rise of the Women's Suffrage Movement


Jill Liddington - 1978
    Their strength lay in their democratic approach: opposed to violence, they felt that the vote was the key to wider rights for women.One Hand Tied Behind Us draws from a wealth of unpublished material, local newspaper accounts. diaries, handwritten minute books, forgotten biographies, and interviews. It creates a vivid and moving portrait of the women who, almost 100 years ago, envisaged freedoms that are not secure even today. Widely acclaimed, it has become a suffrage classic, and to mark its twenty-first anniversary, Rivers Oram presents this revised edition with a new introduction by Jill Liddington.

Conversations in Maine: Exploring Our Nation's Future


James Boggs - 1978
    This volume touches on matters of philosophy, art, class analysis, and social strategy, in every instance seeking a new vision of social organization and an effective means of realizing that vision.

Women And The Word Of God: A Response To Biblical Feminism


Susan T. Foh - 1978
    Women and the Word of God: A Response to Biblical Feminism

Katherine Mansfield: A Darker View


Jeffrey Meyers - 1978
    A friend to Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, and Bertrand Russell, Mansfield left a literary legacy collected in The Garden Party, In a German Pension, and numerous anthologies. Biographies appearing after her death idealized her, but Meyers sets the record straight in his assessment of the author's life and career, revealing a woman with a self-destructive disdain for convention and respectability. Born and raised in New Zealand, Mansfield threw herself into several love affairs with men and women before living with literary critic John Middleton Murray. Meyers chronicles their tempestuous relationship (one that mixed abuse with devotion) and the years she fought a losing battle with tuberculosis.

The Underside Of History: A View Of Women Through Time


Elise Boulding - 1978
    This classic in feminist literature provides an account of women's creativity in every age from pre-history to the present, and attempts to view women's roles in the context of the total time span of human experience. In clear and elegant prose, the author takes us on a breathtaking tour through time: we move through the hundred-thousand-year wanderings of the Paleolithic into the great transition from hunting and gathering to herding and planting; from life inside city walls to the great primary civilizations of the Middle East and Asia, as well as the feudal civilizations on its fringes; and from the sweep of culture generated by the Greco-Romanic-Islamic empires to "European Enlightenment" and, finally, to the last two centuries and the gradual industrialization-urbanization of the planet. New to this volume is a look at the 20th century women's movement--including a chapter on Third World women--as well as a provocative epilogue entitled "Creating Futures for the 21st Century." When we look at the imbalances regarding women in the social record, we are not simply gleaning information about the status of women: we are getting clues about general imbalances within society at large. For this reason, students, professionals, and practitioners alike will find The Underside of History to be an invigorating intellectual exercise and an essential addition to their libraries. "It is a classic, in all meaningsof the word. This book contains a lot of important information and shows us how to re-vision history and historical data. It won't 'scare' men or newcomers to women's studies." --Elizabeth Moen, University of Colorado, Boulder "Its presentation of this 'forgotten' history is irreplaceable. This book is a treasure house of detail and stories which should not be lost. In addition, it is extremely well written." --Joanna Macy "For anyone teaching gender courses at college or in other education centers, this book is most useful since each chapter gives a complete overview of the question and is followed by a very thorough bibliography which proves very useful." --Andree Michel, Ministere de l'Education Nationale, Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique, Paris "No other book that I know of covers so much. This book ranges from prehistory right up to the present. . . .It therefore becomes not only a text, but a useful reference work as well." --Carol Farley Kessler, Pennsylvania State University, Delaware

Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900


James C. Mohr - 1978
    'The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost--for the century between approximately 1870 and 1970--rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.

The Ethiopian Revolution and the Struggle Against US Imperialism


Deirdre Griswold - 1978
    Some history, accounts, and developments of the ongoing Ethiopian Revolution that lasted from 1974 to 1991, from Workers World Party.