feminism

“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.

The Recompiler, issue 1, edited by Audrey Eschright

September 5, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Like many experienced women in tech, Audrey had enough of her latest job, and doubted that a better environment was available. So she quit and started a feminist hacker magazine!

Our goal is to help people learn about technology in a fun, playful way, and highlight a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. We’re especially interested in infrastructure: the technical and social systems we depend on. We want to share what it’s like to learn and work with technology, and teach each other to build better systems and tools.

This is the first issue, available in print and online. There are technical articles on the vulnerabilities of DNS and SSL (building blocks of the Internet), a personal article about growing up female in a tech-loving household, a how-to on setting up activist websites, and a bonus article on how to teach git (an unintuitive but popular version-control program).

Recommended!

The Recompiler – featured articles

“Through the Gates” by Susan Windle

May 24, 2015 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: A Practice for Counting the Omer

Recommended to me by: Kol Aleph – Jewish Renewal Omer Offerings Online

I tried Counting the Omer this year, moving through the sephirot of the Kabbalah in all their pairings over 49 days. I quickly found that I needed a woman’s voice to guide me through this historically men-only practice. Susan Windle’s book gave me warm, personal, inclusive guidance.

The book has a sense of movement through the days as she writes poems and letters to a group of people counting with her. She includes her struggles as well as insights. Her interpretations are clear, and resonate with what I sense in my body. At the end, she says counting the omer is about becoming more ourselves, which also makes sense to me.

Recommended to learn about Kabbalah and Counting the Omer from a woman’s perspective.

Available at bookshop.org.

“She Who Dwells Within” by Lynn Gottlieb

May 24, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism

Recommended to me by: Orasimcha Batdina

I loved this book. Lynn Gottlieb talks about exactly what I needed to hear, that other women find Judaism to be hostile ground. I cheered on her battle to make that hostile world hers in a new way, and winced at the ways men fought to suppress her.

“Women need a new situation. In a Jewish context, we need to transform the way we talk Torah, the way we practice ceremony and ritual, the way we tell and pass on stories, the way we codify laws, the way we organize our communities, and the way we envision sacred mysteries.” Yes!

Also it doesn’t hurt that she chooses a dragon (longtime favorite symbol of mine) to represent Shekhinah.

I appreciated the links between Judaism and the pre-existing Goddesses in the Middle East. I’ve worked with the Descent of Innana without realizing the story might be part of my heritage. Yes, we need stories about women that resolve in powerful, healing ways, not just, “And then she got married and had a son.”

I appreciated re-imagining keeping kosher as caring for the environment. I hadn’t viewed that as a directly spiritual act before, although it makes sense now that I think about it.

I also appreciated the section on recovering from violence and abuse, although there was a bit of “help them recover” about it.

Perhaps someday I’ll come back to the book for some of the re-imagined rituals it offers. For now, it’s the company I enjoy.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“On the Wings of Shekhinah” by Rabbi Leah Novick

May 20, 2015 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Rediscovering Judaism’s Divine Feminine

Recommended to me by: Orasimcha Batdina

Rabbi Leah Novick weaves the Shekhinah (divine feminine in Judaism) back in to Jewish history. Clearly, a lot of research and thought went into creating this book.

It contains a brief chapter on Kabbalah, which is what led me to read it, and further material on Jewish mysticism. If I wanted to create a feminist Jewish practice for myself, I would re-read this book. Right now, it’s not what I was looking for. I absorbed the information in a general way, but the specifics didn’t stay with me.

Available at bookshop.org.