Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire

On one end of the spectrum of stereotypes Asian American women must deal with, there’s Exotic. Subservient. Quiet. Model Minority. On the other, Manipulative. Overbearing. Dragon Lady (a reference to Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi of China). Missing from these common images are the voices of actual Asian women, who came to bear the brunt of these stereotypes through centuries of colonialism and racism.

Published in 1997, Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire is a collection of essays and interviews from Asian American activists. Many express their frustrations with white feminism (the mainstream feminism most people are familiar with), and some reject the feminist label altogether. Several of the authors also express frustration at people’s reactions to the Asian American feminist movement: within their own cultures, claiming oneself as “feminist” can be seen as unfeminine and offensive. In society in general, some have trouble even wrapping their heads around the concept of “Asian American feminism;” the term just seems so incompatible with stereotypes of Asian women. However, as all of the authors prove, feminist activism has been around a long time in the Asian community, and the Asian American feminist movement continues to grow.

The book is split into four parts: Strategies and Visions; An Agenda for Change; Global Perspectives; and Awakening to Power. Regardless of the theme of each section, there is definite overlap in the essays. The Asian American feminism that all of these activists speak of has a global aspect; yes, these women are based in the U.S., but because so much of their work focuses on issues related to immigration and labor rights, an awareness of different cultures and issues is necessary.

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

“I stand in the sunny noon of life…what concerns me now is, that my life be a beautiful, powerful, in a word, a complete life.”

To say that Margaret Fuller was a woman ahead of her time would be an understatement. A born intellectual, she was educated in accordance with her father’s exacting standards; in a time when Harvard didn’t admit women, her father saw to it that she received the equivalent of a Harvard education anyway. Fuller grew up to be a quick-witted and worldly woman desperate to leave her mark. She was a talented conversationalist and considered herself an equal to — and in some cases, even smarter than — the well-educated men she encountered in her circles, encouraged women to speak their minds, was friends with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited some of Henry David Thoreau’s early works, and wrote a book about women’s rights that far exceeded the reach of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication on the Rights of Women.

Fuller would later work as a newspaper columnist under Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune. At a time when few women worked, Fuller was demanding pay equity, insisting she should be payed the same as her male counterparts. She advocated on behalf of prostitutes and the poor and eschewed the conventions of marriage. When she died in a shipwreck at the age of forty, the revelation that she had had a child with her Italian lover (both of whom also died in the shipwreck) caused a scandal.

In her introduction to Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, Megan Marshall writes about how Nathaniel Hawthorne preferred to call his works “Romances,” quoting him saying that romances allowed the writer to, “bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture.” (Imagine the Nathaniel Hawthorne of today — whoever that is — saying such a thing!) In that vein, Marshall explains that she also chose to write this biography as a “romance,” explaining that doing so allowed her to focus on parts of Fuller’s life more than others, all while incorporating Fuller’s words into the narrative, in order to better convey the complexities of Fuller’s life.

Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders

What does it mean to be a father? A mother? As a transgender woman who was a father for ten years and has been a mother for eight years and counting, Jennifer Finney Boylan is in a unique position to examine these roles from both angles, as well as a “third gender,” a reference to the in-between period during her transition.

Stuck in the Middle with You is not the author’s first memoir about her experiences as a transgender woman; though this book does discuss some of the details of her transition, it mostly focuses on how her gender shaped her experiences as a parent and spouse. Split into three parts, one for each gender-related phase of her life, the book also breaks with traditional memoir format by including interviews about parenting and gender with the likes of Edward Albee, Richard Russo, Ann Beattie, and Augusten Burroughs.

This was the first time I’d ever read any of Boylan’s work, and I was quickly entranced by her lyrical prose and thoughtful reflections. As a white, middle class woman with stable employment and a supportive environment, she’ll be the first to admit that, though far from smooth, her transition was a best-case scenario:

We’d waited and waited for some terrible doom, but the days had passed and we all continued to thrive. It had seemed incomprehensible to us, that the world could be as forgiving as we had found it, especially since I’d heard stories firsthand from other trans people who, in nearly identical circumstances, had found only cruelty and rejection. Some had found violence. On the whole, it was hard to deny that our family has been very, very lucky.

The Perfect Meal: In Search of the Lost Tastes of France

I first encountered John Baxter’s writing a few years ago when I came across Immoveable Feast, about the planning and creation of a French Christmas feast. Baxter had me — a longtime vegetarian — craving all of the amazing meat-based and/or fat-enhanced courses he so elegantly described. Baxter, an Australian expat now married to a French woman, has written many books about France. When I found out that his latest book again returns to the subject French culinary treasures, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

The Perfect Meal tackles a subject close to Baxter’s heart: with the industrialization of food and the desire to find something quick and easy to eat, even France, with its legacy as the bastion of culinary arts, is rapidly ceding its culinary traditions to history. Go to a French restaurant, and you’re likely to find that at least some of your meal came from frozen or pre-packaged ingredients. Even the expensive French restaurants located in beautiful old buildings have lost their traditional French roots. The last straw for Baxter was going to a restaurant located in a magnificent Belle Epoque-era building; hoping against all odds that he’d be served an impressive, unmistakably French meal, he was instead served food that was “precious:” his soup, which was brought out as separate components and mixed before his eyes, was then topped with a pansy.

Where has all the traditional French food gone? A feast you’d have found even a hundred years ago must be impossible to create by today’s standards: the preparation would take ages, and the cost would be astronomical. But even if money was no object, are there even people still making the traditional food of yore? Does anyone really still roast an entire ox? Would it be possible today to compose a menu for a traditional French feast? Unfortunately, money was very much an issue, but Baxter was still intrigued. His actual feast would have to be a fantasy, but the menu planning could be real. With his fantasy feast in mind, he sets off to all parts of France to find the answers to his questions.

Quickies: I Want to Show You More & The Guy’s Guide to Feminism

I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro

Publisher/Year: Grove Press, 2013
Format: Ebook
Pages: 224
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

What it is: A collection short stories, many of which have elements of fantasy or center on the subject of infidelity.

Why I read it: In this case, my awesomely scientific method behind choosing this book amounted to,”I feel like reading short stories. What does Grove Press have? Ooooh, I like this cover! Oh, and I need a Q author for my A-Z reading challenge. Done!” For real. I don’t even remember reading the book’s description! (Why Grove Press? I trust them enough to go on these random reading journeys of mine because I have yet to read a book I hate that they’ve published.)

What I thought: This is a quirky little collection. I wasn’t expecting Amy Bender-ish weirdness, so running into that in this book was an interesting surprise. As a whole the collection was hit-or-miss for me, but Quatro really is an amazing writer. A lot of the stories are more atmospheric rather than plot-driven, and are instead propelled by the characters’ rich internal lives. Some of my favorites were “Decomposition: A Primer for Promiscuous Housewives,” about a woman whose infidelity manifests itself by the the sudden presence of her dead lover in her bed; “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pavement,” quite possibly the most disturbing story about running a marathon you will ever read; and “1.7 to Tennessee,” about an 89-year-old woman who decides to take an uncharacteristically long walk.

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The Guy’s Guide to Feminism by Michael S. Kimmel and Michael Kaufman

Publisher/Year: Seal Press, 2011
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Source: Publisher

What it is: An A-Z primer on feminism for guys.

Why I read it: I like reading Intro to Feminism-type books.

What I thought: Kimmel and Kaufman give a lot of presentations at schools, and I can see this book being useful in that context. The “chapters” are short and touch on dozens of feminist buzz words (H is for Honor Killings, M is for Macho/Machismo, N is for No, V is for Vaginas/Vulvas, etc.; many letters have multiple entries). I could see this book coming in handy in a classroom or in a small group setting; it only takes a minute or two to read most of the chapters, and that would serve as a good starting point for discussion. That said, the book is very, very basic. It’s good for people who have little to no knowledge of feminism, but people with a basic understanding of feminism might not get as much out of it. And personally, I found the style a little grating. Guy jokes are sprinkled in liberally, and I know the whole point is to cater to guys? But sometimes it felt like the equivalent of feminist primers that gear themselves toward teen girls by assuring them that they can still be feminist and wear pink, etc. There’s a market for that, and people do sometimes need those assurances, but it gets annoying after a while.

Manology: Secrets of Your Man’s Mind Revealed

Originally published at PostBourgie.

Once upon a time, Tyrese Gibson was a master MAN-ipulator who would sneak around behind his girlfriends’ backs in order to whet his ravenous appetite for T&A. If his girlfriends started to suspect anything, he’d turn into a MAN-gician, pulling out all the stops to dazzle himself back into their good graces and convince them of his MAN-ogamy. It didn’t matter if the woman was hot, smart, successful, and great in bed. Once he got what he wanted from them, he’d move on. Tyrese cites the Tyler Perry classic, Why Did I Get Married?, to explain his logic: “men are going to get 80 percent of what they need in a relationship, yet when a new woman comes around offering that other 20 percent, most men will be ready to leave the good thing they have.”

But Tyrese is no longer the man he used to be. He’s found himself a good MAN-tor in Reverend Run and now sees the error of his ways. In fact, Tyrese and Rev want to help women so that they don’t choose the wrong guy off the MANu, and they’re willing to break the MAN code to do it. Presented in two different fonts so there’s no confusion as to who is giving the advice, Manology will probably hit close to home for some of you. There will be some hard truths you ladies need to face.

I’ve culled the four most important lessons from Manology for your consideration even though they might upset you. Because it’s like Tyrese says, “If I’m not striking that nerve, then I’m not being a good friend.” And ladies, I am your friend. So if you want to know more about how to find and keep a MAN, take a deep breath and keep reading. These insights are deep.

Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

Women’s History Month giveaway: Win a copy of this book!

You might have noticed all the Sylvia Plath talk going around the internet as of late. That’s because this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Bell Jar, a novel about a young woman named Esther Greenwood who earns an internship position at a magazine in New York City; when she returns home, she suffers a breakdown and is subjected to various treatments for her depression.

But ten years before Esther was introduced to the world, twenty-one-year-old Sylvia Plath was excited about her upcoming summer internship at Mademoiselle. As one of twenty young women chosen for this highly competitive internship, Plath and her peers would spend one month in New York City working as guest editors on the magazine’s annual college issue. All of the young women would stay at the Barbizon Hotel, working hard during the day and soaking in as many experiences as they could in their spare time. It was a life-changing experience, but by the end she was exhausted and questioning the direction of life. Like Esther Greenwood, Plath would also suffer a breakdown soon after returning home.

Refuting the usual image of Plath as a depressed and troubled young woman, however, Elizabeth Winder  sets about proving the opposite. In her introduction, Winder writes that her book is, “a story of an electrically alive young woman on the brink of her adult life. An artist equally attuned to the light as the shadows, with a limitless hunger for experience and knowledge, completely unafraid of life’s more frightening opportunities.”

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

It’s impossible to think of Rachel Carson without thinking about Silent Spring, the book that helped launch the environmental movement. Published nearly fifty-one years ago, the book captured the nation’s attention at a time when nuclear fallout was a very real concern and pesticides were being used as in alarming amounts. Of particular concern was DDT, an insecticide that was initially heralded as the chemical savior from everything from crops to would-be malaria victims (in fact, its inventor won a Nobel). When the notoriously private Carson published Silent Spring — its title a reference to all of the birds killed by DDT — the tiny and soft-spoken woman became an instant celebrity.

But before Silent Spring, Carson was already a beloved author of three books about the ocean. She had grown up poor in Pennsylvania, always a bit of a loner and happiest when she was exploring nature. She attended Pennsylvania College for Women became enamored with science and marine biology because of one of her teachers, Mary Scott Skinker, one of the few women working in that field. Carson was later accepted to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, though she had to stay at Pennsylvania College for Women longer than she had hoped because of financial difficulties. Finances would always play a big role in her choices; she did end up going to Johns Hopkins to study the new field of of zoology, but wouldn’t be able to go on to a PhD because she had to help support her family.

Instead, after graduating she went on to work as a marine biologist for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. It wasn’t her first choice, but it was rare steady employment during the Great Depression and she was grateful to have the income. She was in charge of writing up agency reports for publication, and her literary way of describing things caught her employer’s eye. Deeming it too good for some agency report, he encouraged her to shop the article around to magazines. The rest was history; it wasn’t long before she was writing for major, well-respected national publications.

Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland

Women’s History Month giveaway: Win a copy of this book!

Diana Dalziel was born in 1903 to a life of extreme privilege. With a wealthy father and a mother who had deep roots in New York society circles, Diana could have easily chosen to marry well and settle into the life of a well-kept society woman. Instead, she married well and ended up making an indelible mark on fashion as editor-in-chief at Vogue. Rather than settle down to retire, she then became the fashion consultant for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, turning the dowdy affair into something more along the lines of the star-studded fashion event it is today. Jacqueline Kennedy turned to her for fashion advice. Truman Capote and Andy Warhol were but two of a revolving cast of famous people who came and went through her doors. Designers’ careers were launched with her support. Some argue that she even created the concept of “fashion editor.” And remarkably, twenty-five years after her death, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart’s Empress of Fashion is the first full-length biography ever written about her.

I have to hand it to Stuart: I probably would have gone insane trying to write this book. If there’s one thing Diana (pronounced Dee-Ana) was known for, it was embellishing the truth. Take her childhood, for instance. She was born in Paris and lived there only briefly before moving to the United States; Diana was still an infant. They grew up here all along. To hear Diana tell it, though, she had a marvelous European childhood and had the worst time transitioning to life in the States. She and her sister couldn’t speak a word of English and were miserable at school; as such, she barely learned a thing.

It was true that Diana was probably miserable at school, but it had nothing to do with language. Diana was a bit of an outcast growing up, always out-shined by her beautiful, intelligent, talented younger sister, Alexandra. By comparison, Diana was an ugly duckling, and her image-conscious mother never let her forget it. But whatever Diana lacked in the looks she was born with, she made up for by paying attention to the smallest details. Beauty and appearance were everything to her, and the ability to come across as cultured and refined was of the utmost importance. It didn’t hurt that she had strong personality and a colorful way with words; as an adult, she would be the life of the party.

The Feminist and the Cowboy: An Unlikely Love Story

Trigger warning.

I knew I had to read The Feminist and the Cowboy as soon as I read the premise. New York Times bestselling author Alisa Valdes, of The Dirty Girls Social Club fame, did what sounded a hell of a lot like a feminist 180: exploring the world of online dating after her divorce, she meets a conservative cowboy — a real, live Manly Man™ — who makes her see the error of her ball-busting feminist ways. She doesn’t go down easy, but The Cowboy (that’s his name in the book) eventually manages to wrangle her in and teach her that traditional gender roles exist for a reason. Also? The original title of the book was Learning to Submit: How Feminism Stole My Womanhood and the Traditional Cowboy Who Helped Me Find It. So…yeah.

When I saw that premise, I laughed in disbelief (and wanted to read the book). Then the reviews started trickling in, and my amusement turned to horror when I heard about what happened behind the scenes of this “love story.” I won’t go into details because that could be a whole other post — you can read about it here (trigger warning) — but suffice it to say that this “love story” was abusive and involved at least one sexual assault. The book doesn’t mention any of this; the information came out closer to the book’s publication date, mostly via a blog post that Valdes has since taken down.

This information changed a lot for me. It changed the way I read the book: no longer could it be a purely amusing kind of read; there are red flags all over the book that are impossible to ignore. It also changes the way I review the book: “LOL WHUT?!” isn’t an appropriate response to some of the content, for obvious reasons. But the book is often frustrating and comically ridiculous. The feminism Valdes ends up so vehemently rejecting is like a bad caricature culled from all of the dumbest feminist stereotypes in an MRA playbook. I wish I were exaggerating.