feminism

“The Calculating Stars” by Mary Robinette Kowal

August 14, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Recommended to me by: Marissa Lingen

Elma York is a math whiz with a Ph.D. in math and physics now working as a computer (as in, one who computes) for the space program in the US in the 1950’s. She deals with run-of-the-mill, life-is-just-like-that sexism, and also I’m-out-to-get-you intentional harassment. By the way she’s also a crack pilot who can land a plane after the motor goes out.

She’s also married to the lead engineer of the program, and they have a lovely supportive passionate relationship. She has a supportive relationship with her brother, too. I find myself reading for supportive relationships these days.

Also they are both Jewish, and the book addresses both the positive details and the negative anti-semitism that arises from that. Also they stay with an African-American couple, and they learn to recognize their racist biases and notice when a group “just happens” to be all white.

This book is both old-time spaceflight science fiction, and modern inclusive science fiction, which means it grapples with all the ways that women and people of color are kept out, and still manage to succeed despite that. It addresses global warming and the lack of political will to do something about it. It addresses anxiety as an illness that deserves compassion and treatment. The world-building details are satisfyingly solid.

I was also a Jewish younger female student who was really good at math. (Not as good as Elma!) It feels good to see myself reflected in a book like this, even if I responded differently to the stresses of the situation and took a different turning in my life.

Recommended as a quick, exciting read that’s both heart-warming and heart-rending in the ways it reflects minority and marginalized experiences.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Deepest Well” by Nadine Burke Harris, MD

July 10, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity

Recommended to me by: listening to Nadine Burke Harris’s TED talk

This is a skillful blend of memoir and scientific information about the effects of trauma, presented for the layperson. Nadine Burke Harris shares how as a newly licensed doctor she founded a pediatric clinic in Bayview, the poorest section of San Francisco with the most at-risk patients, and how that clinic came to focus on trauma as the underlying cause of a lot of medical issues, especially for children. Later she founded the Center for Youth Wellness, also in San Francisco.

She does not dwell on the effects of being a Black woman, but she does not skip over them either. She notes the benefits of networking with other women and offering each other support. While marginalization and racism contribute to people’s load of trauma, trauma is not only a “poor, Black issue.” Privilege does not exempt people from trauma or its long-term effects.

There is a strong correlation between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and health issues caused by the body’s ongoing stress response. The stress response can be buffered by strong relationships with caring adults.

Nadine Burke Harris developed a screening tool that asks a parent about the number of a child’s ACEs, but does not ask them to disclose the stories involved. She advocates for this screening tool to be used everywhere, just as infants are now universally screened for hypothyroid and jaundice.

The treatments for a body dysregulated by trauma are sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, nutrition, and meditation. Schools that help children regulate their nervous systems rather than punishing them for “acting out” enjoy both a more peaceful atmosphere and higher success rates by every measure.

(While screening is catching on in medical offices, I hear from nurses that treatment is catching on less quickly, leaving them in the frustrating position of knowing that people’s issues are caused by trauma, but not having the time and resources to help them.)

Highly recommended both for the information about the effects on trauma, and the memoir of a groundbreaking scientist and doctor who is radically improving how we care for both children and adults affected by trauma.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Not the Price of Admission” by Laura S. Brown PhD

May 8, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Healthy relationships after childhood trauma

Recommended to me by: a client

Relationships are hard for everyone. For people with less-than-adequate caregivers early in life, the difficulty feels personal, a cause for shame as well as sadness. Laura Brown, a feminist psychologist, kindly lays out the likely consequences of early attachment wounds and repeatedly advocates for self-compassion.

Feminist therapy looks at people’s experiences in the context of marginalized identities that often lead to disempowerment and maltreatment, rather than saying that all the problems are inside the individual. The first example in the book is about a same-sex couple. And they’re not the only ones. The book fairly bursts with same-sex couples, as well as emotionally important friendships and work relationships, not just heterosexual romantic partnerships, in a matter-of-fact, “you are all welcome here” way.

I also felt welcomed by seeing quotes from Jewish scholars and traditions. She translates Yom Kippur as “Day of Return,” day of mending connections. And, even though I never watched it, quotes from “Deep Space Nine,” a science-fiction TV show felt welcoming as well.

There is a lot of great material densely packed into this book. It does not skip disorganized attachment like many relationship books do. It shifts the focus to disorganizing caregivers, since the disorganization is not inherent to the child.

Frozen-in-time child states are called EPs, short for Emotional Parts. The book also emphasizes that emotions are positive and useful, so that didn’t seem like the most helpful terminology. EPs are in contrast to ANPs, Apparently Normal Parts that handle day-to-day adult tasks like going to work.

Relationships similar to what we experienced as babies will have limbic resonance and feel “right,” even when they hurt.

The goal is to mindfully notice when a pattern from childhood has taken over, and compassionately self-soothe and notice what is happening in the present, both positive and negative. It’s okay to be imperfect. We don’t have to be abused or used or ignored to be in relationship. We can tolerate conflict that has the goal of reaching better understanding, rather than causing more hurt.

Highly recommended. There is so much more useful material in the book than I can even begin to summarize.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Hope in the Dark” by Rebecca Solnit

February 28, 2017 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Subtitle: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

Recommended to me by: reading Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Men Explain Things to Me”, and also Haymarket Books was giving away free copies of the ebook on the occasion of the November 2016 election results

I rarely read ebooks. I prefer to hold the book in my hands and have a physical context for what I’m reading and how much is left. Ebooks feel disorientingly abstract. I put this one on my phone and have been reading it in little bits when I wait for an appointment or ride a bus. The book is a series of short chapters and essays, linked together.

Oddly (for a professional publisher) Haymarket Books used an irritating variable font so that letter size and style varies within words, and they also tagged the book repeatedly with my name and email address. I guess they wanted to make really sure I didn’t share the book with anyone, but what they did is distract me while I was reading and repeatedly remind me not to buy any ebooks from Haymarket Books.

Format issues aside, “Hope in the Dark” is an affirming, well-researched, engagingly written anodyne for the current political situation. It was written on the occasion of Bush’s contested election in 2004, and the problems and dynamics then sound remarkably like the current disasters (except Bush wasn’t, as far as we know, in league with a foreign government).

Solnit talks about how powerful entities in the limelight look immovable, but ideas and movements at the edges, on the margins, in the shadows engender change. We forget our victories because they look like they’ve always been that way, and also because those in power want us to forget and despair. Victories build slowly, happen partially, arise suddenly from years of background work.

Activist movements that practice what they want to see in the world (consensus, equity, respect for all) are already winning even if the current battle is lost. Living the way we want to live *is* activism. Distributed movements that share strategies globally but meet and act locally are finding more and more success.

I found support here for living the way I want to live. I also found urging to reach out, connect with local groups, act! The last essay is about climate change and its urgency. Hope is the determination to keep working toward the world we want to live in, non-violently, non-idealogically, peacefully, cooperatively, joyously.

Highly recommended for anyone distressed by current politics.

Available at bookshop.org.

“In the Spirit of We’Moon” narrated by Musawa

February 1, 2016 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Celebrating 30 Years, An Anthology of We’Moon Art and Writing

Recommended to me by: gift from a friend

We’Moon, now in its 35th year, is an feminist astrological datebook that centers the moon cycles rather than the sun cycles. This anthology contains the extraordinary history of this project, as well as sample art and writing from each year’s calendar.

Musawa and others created the first multi-lingual We’Moon calendar in a women’s land collective, Kvindelandet, in Denmark. The first five editions were published from different European countries as Musawa moved around and found other women volunteers willing to help. We’Moon publishing moved to women’s land in Oregon after that, and has resided here ever since.

One woman’s inspiration and dedication has inspired and nourished many others with this ongoing celebration of women’s rhythms. While she generously credits everyone who stepped forward to support and contribute to the project, it is clear that it was her leadership that made it happen.

While I’ve occasionally owned We’Moon calendars, I didn’t realize that each year’s theme is based on the Tarot Major Arcana for that year.

This anthology is fun both to read sequentially, and to open randomly to see what message appears. Recommended!

Available at biblio.com.

“Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie

October 14, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

Recommended to me by: Sam L-G

I loved this book. I saw it recommended all over the place as unusual for space opera, but it took a friend loaning me his copy, and some spare time, to sit down with it. It opens with what seems to be a dead body, so I almost put it down again, but then I found myself on page 80. I finished it the same day. I used to inhale science fiction like that when I was growing up, but I’ve gotten a lot pickier over time.

Default pronouns are female, no matter what the person’s gender. It’s not the mismatch that interests me, but the up-front declaration that this isn’t just about young white men. In fact, the protagonist and her companion have brown skin. Sensory details are described with creative care. Details of relationships, not just heterosexual pairings but working relationships, negotiations, friendships, carry this book.

Power and privilege and favoritism aren’t just taken for granted, but clearly described and taken into account. I didn’t feel erased by this book. It brought up my own feelings of being stranded, isolated, and stubbornly trying to make things better one step at a time.

Highly recommended, when you have a chunk of time to spare.

Available at bookshop.org.