AS MUCH AS WE TRIED TO PACK INTO THIS BOOK, THERE’S always more to say. So here’s a wholly incomplete, purposely nonexhaustive, and all-too-brief guide to some of our favorite writers, thinkers, organizations, and more who shed further light on topics addressed throughout the book.
Chapter 1. Hitting Puberty
Amelia Bloomer Project (
www.libr.org/FTF/bloomer.html
) Every year, the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association (say that three times fast!) puts together a list of the latest and greatest feminist books for kids and teens.
Children’s Media Project (
www.childrensmediaproject.org
) An arts and educational organization that teaches “children and youth … to interact with the media arts as both creators and critical viewers,” the CMP features summer workshops, after-school programs, and DROP TV, an entirely youth-produced magazine-style show.
Deal With It! A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl
by Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes (Pocket Books, 1999) By the creator of the cool-ass website gURL, this book tackles the perennial concerns of young womanhood—zits, sex, unexpected body hair—with frank advice that never talks down.
GirlsFilmSchool (
www.girlsfilmschool.csf.edu
) This two-week summer program held at the College of Santa Fe gives high-school girls the opportunity to learn the basics of writing, producing, documentary techniques, editing, sound, cinematography, and more. The program prioritizes low-income and at-risk students, and more than two-thirds attend on scholarship.
Scarleteen (
www.scarleteen.com
) All the more important in an age of abstinence-only “education,” Scarleteen provides info on everything from pregnancy and STDs to negotiations within relationships, all with the mission of “furnishing [teens] with the facts they need to know [in order to] develop their own systems of ethics and values.”
Teen Voices
(
www.teenvoices.com
) “Because you’re more than just a pretty face” is the tagline of this magazine by, for, and about teen girls. The contributors to
Teen Voices
cover everything from censorship to acne to birth control to same-sex marriage to girls in sports, with the help of a few adult editors.
Chapter 2. Ladies and Gentlemen: Femininity, Masculinity, and Identity
Dyke TV (
www.dyketv.org
) The first (and so far, only) cable-access program by and for the ladies who love ladies, Dyke TV offers vital documentation of lesbian culture and activism.
GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary,
edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchins (Alyson Publications, 2002) An overview of radical gender theory and politics, plus a multitude of first-person narratives. This is a valuable collection that bridges the personal and political and doesn’t presume to define what a genderqueer looks like.
Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls Will Be … ,
by Jacinta Bunnell and Irit Reinheimer (Soft Skull Press, 2004) This whimsical coloring book/zine offers sweet clip-art-inspired illustrations of, among others, crying boys and angry girls. Accompanying commentary says things like “Don’t let gender box you in.”
My Gender Workbook, by
Kate Bornstein (Routledge, 1997) A playful, accessible, and interactive exploration of what makes us “masculine,” “feminine,” both, and neither.
Chapter 3. The F Word
Angry Women,
edited by V. Vale and Andrea Juno (RE/Search, 1991) A collection of some of the most radical female voices in art circa 1991,
Angry Women’s
interviews—with the none-too-shy likes of Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, sapphire, Holly Hughes, and Susie Bright—proffer performance and provocation as a heady refutation of everything women are “supposed” to be.
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment,
by Patricia Hill Collins (Routledge, 2000) Originally published in 1990, this instant classic draws on history, literature, and cultural movements to highlight previously sidelined African-American feminist intellectual traditions and provide a much-needed corrective to exclusive white feminist movements.
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism,
edited by Daisy Hernández and Bushra Rehman (Seal Press, 2002) Feminist writers of color on how their backgrounds, cultures, and families have shaped their interest in and understanding of feminism and identity.
Feminist International Radio Endeavor (
www.radiofeminista.net
) The first ever women’s Internet radio station, FIRE is where to go for English and Spanish coverage of feminist issues and events.
hooks, bell She is one of the most insightful thinkers ever on the interlocking forces of race, class, gender, and how we can dismantle “the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” and her emphasis on coalition building, decolonization of the mind, and the power of love is always inspiring—yet she never lets anyone (including herself) evade her keen analytical eye.
Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation,
edited by Barbara Findlen (Seal Press, 2001) Now in its second edition, this vibrant collection was one of the first to give the lie to the greatly exaggerated reports of feminism’s death among the post-’70s crowd. Now it’s a third-wave classic.
Pollitt, Katha Her biweekly column for
The Nation
is always intelligent, progressive, and provocative; it’s also often hilarious. She’s a consistent voice of feminist reason, backing up her articulate analysis with carefully researched facts that would otherwise be ignored.
The Scholar and Feminist Online
(
www.barnard.edu/sfonline
) This web-based journal of Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women includes contemporary scholarship, art, audio clips, and activist resources.
Sisters of ’77
(
www.pbs.org/independentlens/sistersof77
) In November 1977, twenty thousand delegates converged on Houston for the National Women’s Conference, a federally funded gathering to hash out a platform for women’s rights that was then presented to President Jimmy Carter. Sisters, produced by Media Projects, Inc. (
www.mediaprojects.org
) and originally aired on PBS, is not just a valuable history of the event but also a vibrant reminder of the continuity of the feminist movement.
Chapter 4. Desire: Love, Sex, and Marketing
Alan Guttmacher Institute (
www.agi-usa.org
) This national nonprofit devoted to advancing reproductive choice and comprehensive sex education is a powerhouse of information on everything from public-policy analysis to social-science research.
Bisexual Resource Center (
www.biresource.org
) The online presence of this Boston-based organization features articles, online resources, a bi bookstore, and more. It’s an organizing tool, a force for change, and a source of affirmation.
The Girl Wants To: Women’s Representations of Sex and the Body
, edited by Lynn Crosbie (Coach House, 1993) Fiction, poetry, drama, drawings, and everything in between, brought together to explore the female sex drive from a million and one angles.
Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore
The celluloid story of suburban teen misfit Jane finding her clit for the first time would be a cult classic if only it were more widely available. Screenings and copies are hard to come by but worth seeking out if at all possible.
No Fauxxx (
www.nofauxxx.com
) This alternaporn site truly lives up to the promise of breaking the boring, narrowly constructed molds of bodies and genders that mainstream porn has made. It’s hot, it doesn’t categorize content by gender or sexuality, it features genderqueer models aplenty, and its creators openly address their own conflicts and shortcomings (check out their notes about gender and cultural appropriation).
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality,
edited by Carole S. Vance (Routledge, 1984) Taking as its starting point “the notion
that women cannot explore sexuality until danger is first eliminated is a strategic dead-end,” the questions this collection speaks to are as relevant today as they were when it was first published.
Chapter 5. Domestic Arrangements
Alternatives to Marriage Project (
www.unmarried.org
) The AtMP advocates for folks who, like Joni Mitchell, don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall keeping them tied and true. The organization believes in the diversity of unmarried relationships and is committed to fighting all forms of discrimination—from family disapproval to workplace stigma—faced by the nonhitched.
East Village Inky
(
www.ayunhalliday.com/inky
) This profoundly hilarious, 100 percent done-by-hand zine chronicling author Ayun Halliday’s life as an urban-dwelling, video-reviewing mother of two is indescribably brilliant. Get yourself some copies.
Hip Mama and its sister websites (
www.hipmama.com
) The print version of
Hip Mama
is the parenting magazine for anyone insulted by most parenting magazines: It’s fiercely political, bitingly funny, and radically inclusive, and it never tries to sell you on the latest diaper genie. Its online incarnation is a thriving community that has spawned teen-mom site
Girl-Mom.com
, artist/writer/musician mom site
Mamaphonic.com
, and politics site
YoMamaSays.org
. Whether or not you’re a parent, they are not to be missed.
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women,
by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels (Free Press, 2004) A pointed and resonant analysis of our culture’s Jekyll-and-Hyde relationship with mothers and mothering, and its effects on politics, pop product, and all women—breeders or not.
Single Mothers by Choice (
www.singlemothersbychoice.org
) A membership organization that provides support and information for women who are either tired of waiting for Mr./Ms. Right or prefer to go it solo.
Welfare Warrior’s Voice
(
http://my.execpc.com/-wmvoice
) This quarterly newspaper by, for, and about mothers in poverty provides the perspective sorely missing from all the punditry, reportage, and politicking about welfare we’ve all heard so much of. Get the real story here.
Chapter 6. Beauty Myths and Body Projects
About-Face (
www.about-face.org
) Founded by contributor Kathy Bruin (see “Please Don’t Feed the Models,” page 331), this San Francisco— based organization combats negative media images of women through media literacy workshops in schools, actions like its “I don’t need a makeover because …” letter-writing campaign in response to Fox’s
The Swan,
and a web-based gallery of offenders, complete with contact info for your complaints.
Adiosbarbie.com
This vibrantly designed and sharply written site from Ophira Edut, the editor of the excellent
Body Outlaws: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity
(Seal Press, 2000), features articles, book recommendations, rant opportunities, and resource links aplenty.
Fat!So? Because You Don’t Have to Apologize for Your Size!,
by Marilyn Wann (Ten Speed Press, 1998) A book from the long-dormant zine of the same name,
Fat!So?
is a big fleshy antidote to antifat messages, skinny-folks-only images, and dieting propaganda, all done up with personal stories, sharp analysis, and health-myth debunking.
Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture
, by Kathy Peiss (Owl Press, 1998) An engaging, enlightening history of the billion-dollar-and-growing U.S. beauty industry that will shed some light on your susceptibility to perfume ads.
Our Bodies, Ourselves,
by the Boston Women’s Health Collective (Touchstone, 2005) This überbook of women’s health information came out in 2005 with a spankin’-new, totally revised and redesigned thirtyfifth-anniversary edition and a frequently updated web companion (
www.ourbodiesourselves.org
).
Phat Camp (
www.morethanjustphat.com
) This Chicago-based organization “provides safe, non-judgemental space for youth to foster positive relationships with their bodies and debunk beauty myths” through discussion groups, trainings, activist retreats, and more. Issues like racism and trans discrimination are as much a part of their programs as fattheir mission is to “link beauty, bodies, and self-esteem through an anti-oppression lens.”
Chapter 7. Confronting the Mainstream
The Media Project (
www.themediaproject.com
) A kick-ass nonprofit that encourages TV networks to use their power for good and promote healthy, realistic attitudes about teen sexuality. The group honors two shows per month for honest depictions and accurate information about teens and sex.
Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap,
edited by Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers (Cooper Square Press, 1999) The first—and we hope not the last—collection of women-penned music criticism.
Turn Beauty Inside Out (
www.mindonthemedia.org
) A campaign to “promote healthy body image and expand the definition of what makes people beautiful,” TBIO is a girlcentric program of leadership training, media literacy, and media protest that focuses on a different media sector (e.g., advertising or the music industry) each year.
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media,
by Susan J. Douglas (Three Rivers Press, 1995) One insightful woman’s story of growing up amid contradictory pop cultural influences from
I Dream of Genie
to the Shirelles.