I am a woman of color. If you are too, you probably understand my frustration when I say it was nearly impossible to find role models in the mainstream media as a child. I don’t know about you but, that doesn’t sit well with me. As a young Chicana/Xicana, I probably read fewer than a handful […]
Gloria Anzaldua
Gloria Anzaldúa was a writer, activist and scholar of Chicana feminism and queer theory. Her book, Borderlands/La Frontera, and the anthology she coedited, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, are considered groundbreaking writings for modern feminist theory.
Calafia: Re-appropriating the Amazon Queen
Well-known Latin American folklore/saints have been presented through the eyes of the colonizer for centuries now. Stories of La Llorona (the bad mother), La Malinche (the traitor) and Santa Maria de Guadalupe (the good mother) have been labeled this way since the time of colonization. However, many Chicana/Xicana academics have reclaimed these images by revealing the complexities […]
Black Herstory: The Founders of the Feminist Party
It never ceases to amaze me how many students in my women’s studies classes have never heard the names Flo Kennedy, Pauli Murray and Shirley Chisholm (left), all Black women. Yet they “might have heard” of Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and a white woman, thus suggesting that Black feminist founders of the movement have been written out of feminist history.
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 30-21
Many of books 21 to 30 were famous for challenging the status quo–whether that be male supremacy in general or privilege within the feminist movement. In this section you’ll find the defining works of Chicana, women-of-color and third-wave feminism (as well as one landmark anthology at the intersection of all three). Last, two 21st-century historians […]
Queer History Month: Remembering Gloria Anzaldúa
No discussion of Queer History Month would be complete without paying homage to the woman whose multi-disciplinary approach to queer theory, Chicano/a studies, gender, cultural theory, spirituality and aesthetics transformed the feminist movement’s understanding of what it means to navigate oppression and privilege. Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas on September 26, […]
Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 80-71
Two paeans to superheroines add whimsy to choices 80 to 71, which also include a classic ’70s anthology from a notable Ms. editor and our list’s first crack at dissecting the anti-choice movement. We also have a look at Native America traditions, an incisive takedown of reality TV and interviews with a famous sex writer. […]
Where Do We Go From bell?
Is it true that feminisms are everywhere? Are they really, as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards suggest, “in the water”? Yes and yes. From music, film and literature to the online world of social networking and blogging, women are (and have been) creating kick-ass political analyses and social commentary on the intersection of oppressive social […]
A Month into Summer of Feminista
In June I launched Summer of Feminista, a blogging experiment where I am asking Latinas to write about their relationship with feminism, and after a month of posts I am in awe of how similar our stories are, yet how unique as well. Elizabeth, at 8, was teaching feminism to other third-graders. A grammar school […]