November 2022 CatWoman: Women's Issues

This month we will be reading books that deal with important issues, issues that are often referred to as “women’s issues” as they seem to reflect concerns that face women in today’s world, or perhaps faced women in the past.

Some issues that women the world over are dealing with are:

: sexism and gender bias – breaking the “glass ceiling”, dealing with sexism in the workplace, gay rights, LGBTQ History
: women’s voting rights – not all women in the world have this right but what is encouraging is that when measuring voter turn out – more women come out to vote than men.
: women in powerful positions – Britain currently has a female Prime Minister but many countries, including the USA haven’t had a female leader yet, but women are making strides in both the political and business worlds.
: the debate over reproductive rights – this is one of the most controversial topics today, both in America and around the world.
: teen pregnancy is a concern and connected to reproductive rights. Historically, young women would often be shunned or placed in hiding and forced to give up their babies.
: Body, appearance and race issues – Too fat? Too thin? Skin tone too dark? Skin tone too light? Perfection is impossible, learning to love ourselves is important as is acceptance of others
: the cycle of domestic abuse – abuse can happen to anyone and can take various forms of either physical or mental abuse
: children’s rights – from bullying to abuse issues, education, health, freedom etc.
: Global issues – access to education, female genital mutilation, employment opportunities, sexual trafficking, child marriage, child soldiers

The above list are just some of the issues that today’s women need to educate themselves upon. I will list some books that deal with some of these issues but there are many books, both fictional and non-fictional that could be read for this challenge. Please let us know what you are going to be reading and also, don’t forget to add your titles to the Wiki which can be found here:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/CATWoman_2022

Some examples of books that would fit this theme:

- The Boundaries of Her Body by Debran Rowland
- Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America by Charisse Jones
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- I Am Malala: the Story of a Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
- Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Impossible Saints by Clarissa Harwood
- Women: The Purpose, Position and Power by Mary Jean Pidgeon
- Girl Code by Cara Alwill Leyba

I am hoping to read Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson, which is about mental illness and teen pregnancy. Also Gun Love by Jennifer Clement about gun violence, poverty and homelessness.

I might read Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. She discusses how women's contributions have been ignored throughout history and then explores the lives of famous women in history, including Christine de Pizan, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Virginia Woolf.

Maybe I will finally get around to reading Seneca Falls Inheritance, a historical mystery about the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Come to think of it, I'd be reading for AuthorCAT (set against a background of real events) and RandomKIT (city in the title) as well!

My book club is reading The Handmaid's Tale in October and its sequel The Testaments in November. I also have Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings by Nellie Bly, a pioneering woman journalist.

I will be reading Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft about women's rights.

I'm planning on reading Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates.

At the moment, I'm going to plan on this:
Mediocre: The Dangerous Male Legacy of White Male America / Ijeoma Oluo

I am going to read Fix the system not the women - I watched Laura Bates' book talk and have been waiting for the right monent to read this.

>8 LibraryCin: I've started mine already. Listening to the audio and there were two available when I was looking for my next one, both for CATs/KITs, so I'm starting with this one already.

I'm having to be realistic about my reading and how much I'm over-committing, so I'm going to not read Everyday Sexism, but continue my October CATWoman read (Women and Crime), Know My Name which is about the Stanford rape case. Sadly it works for both themes.

>1 DeltaQueen50: It's ironic that the female prime minister you mention didn't survive beyond the introduction!

>12 VivienneR: I know! But at least she wasn't the first female prime minister that the UK has had.

Oops! And I'm already finished my planned read for November!

Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America / Ijeoma Oluo
3.5 stars

I’m having trouble finding the words to describe the book. It made sense while I was listening (to the audio), but hard to sum up in a short couple of sentences. The author is looking at how US society came to be so focused on white male power. How it’s a sort of benchmark, and even mediocre white men tend to have more power than many others (people of colour, women, lgbtq+, etc.).

As for the audio book, it was read by the author herself and she did a great job; it held my interest. As with many anti-racist books, there are some things that are hard to hear and (as a white woman), it’s sometimes hard to wrap my head around some of the horrible experiences of people of colour. I think I’m also lucky that I work in a female-dominated profession.

I have just completed Gun Love by Jennifer Clement. This is a coming-of-age story about Pearl, a 14 year old girl who has been homeless her whole life. She and her mother live in a car parked at the edge of a run-down trailer park. The book also touches on poverty and gun violence.

I read Seneca Falls Inheritance by Miriam Grace Monfredo, which looks at the nascent woman's rights movement in 1848.

I finished Dame Traveler by Nastasia Yakoub, a book that encourages women to defy expectations and travel solo. It features many pictures and texts by women who travel the world on their own.

I read Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict. I didn't begin reading it for this CAT, but as I continued, I discovered that Mrs. Churchill worked for "women's rights," welfare rights, (social issues), education for women, was instrumental in getting women into ambulances and jeeps during WWII, as well as pushing for factories to make replacement limbs. Clementine wielded a lot of power, even if it was in Winston's name. She often attended State/Cabinet meetings at the invitation of Winston and was not hesitant to speak her mind. A great work of historical fiction. I did a lot of research while reading this, although I am very familiar with WWII, just to check and make sure that Clementine could have met Stalin, etc. Everything I looked up checked out. 416 pages 5 stars

The perfect place for this book that I started late last month: Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes. It is the story of the mobile lending library during The Great Depression. This book tells this bit of US history through the lives of 4 women who ride through the mountains and mining communities of Kentucky.

There are so many ways in which this book touches this theme: the idea of handing out books to the poor, rural areas was started by Eleanor Roosevelt; all of the riders are women of different means and social classes; poverty and abuse that women suffer; oppression within a married woman's upper class household; women of color and their lives in KY mining towns. And we haven't even started much on the lives of the miners and their struggles towards unionization.

COMPLETED The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams - issues of women's suffrage and the respect given to men's vs women's language (tied in with issues of literacy and class)

I just finished Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas, which deals with themes of #MeToo and workplace sexism in Victorian England.

I have finished Death of a stranger. In the Monk series women's issues in Victorian England are one of the main ingredients.

I have also finished Passing and I'm glad I finally got round to this.

I have completed my read of Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson. This was a 5 star read that totally involved me.

I've read The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel. It takes place during WWII when Shanghai was occupied by the Japanese. The protaganist is unusual in that she is a businesswoman and consequently meets many challenges. Her family wants her to close the business and marry her cousin to whom she has been pledged since birth. Eventually she does, but not before a man she has fallen in love with, a Jewish German immigrant, is thought to be dead.

I read Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.
An evocative novella set at Christmas 1985 when Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, makes a delivery to a convent and discovers a shameful national secret. Bill, born out of wedlock, considers his own life in context with the discovery. This story is a gem that deserves all the attention it is getting. Highly recommended.

I just finished Pregnant Girl by Nicole Lynn Lewis, a memoir by a woman who as a high-achieving college-bound student got pregnant her senior year in high school, went through some truly dire and harrowing experiences in the aftermath, but was eventually able to enroll in and graduate from William & Mary as a single mother and now runs a nonprofit that helps teen parents get through college.

I read Lady Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond by Joyce Chopra. Joyce is now in her 80s and wrote this memoir as a project during covid. She tells of her experiences as a film director starting when many men did not want women directors. She was not taken seriously, and experienced men fondling her or worse. She was fired as a director of one feature film because she was a woman and the producer did not want her from the beginning. Although she made some feature films most of her films were documentaries. She helped break the ground for future women directors.

I read Happening by Annie Ernaux and because she won the Nobel Prize it can count for the December AuthorCAT as well.

I have finished The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins. A Victorian sensational novel where the stigma of illegitimacy is the driving motive for the plot.

I read Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon.
I had heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg but only as a name. It was only on her death in 2020 that I picked up a few snippets on the news about what a remarkable woman she was. When I saw this book at the library it was a good chance to find out more. Although it's an insubstantial biography, not having any real depth, I found it worthwhile.

I've read Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg which features both Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second women appointed to the Supreme Court, and Nina Totenberg, one of the women pioneers at NPR. The book emphasizes friendships, and the chapters pertain to various aspects of friendships instead of being chronological. Ginsburg and Totenberg were friends long before Ginsburg was appointed to the court; it started when Totenberg was new to journalism and wanted to find out more about a legal brief which Ginsburg had written. All through their friendship, they respected each others careers, and did not interfere with them. Totenberg also discusses friendships she had with other justices; much of the book is about Totenberg's career.

I read Salty by Alissa Wilkinson It is a worthy read about a number of women in history who were instrumental in societal change. The structure of the book was created on the idea of a dinner table with specific invitees who we learn about through their relationship with food and community. It’s a fascinating discovery of each women’s contributions whether you have previous knowledge of their work or not. https://www.librarything.com/work/27931901/reviews/229866812

I finished reading The Giver of Stars by Jojo Meyes and was just blown away by it. The conflicts between the rural/townsfolk, miners/mine owners, women/men, and the larger union busting and racial tensions were well-done and as contemporary then as they are now. Plus, the gutsiness of the women who went out alone, with only red thread to learn their routes through Eastern Kentucky hill country was well described. The ending is unexpected, and the relationships between the women librarians was heart warming.