Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

feminism

“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit

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Recommended to me by: Patricia Anderson

Rebecca Solnit’s title essay is available here. While she didn’t invent the word “mansplaining”, she inspired it with this essay about the trend of men (not all men, she is quick to point out) explaining things to women that women already know. Men treating women as “empty vessels waiting to be filled with their wisdom.” Men deciding whether a woman’s speech is credible or not, even, or perhaps especially, when she says, “He’s trying to kill me.”

The other essays in this book are also about sexism, feminism, and gendered violence. Violence gendered because women are targets in a concerted, ongoing effort to control us and keep us small. Violence also gendered because men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators.

The book is depressing, illuminating, and, in the end, hopeful.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Long Hidden” edited by Rose Fox and Daniel Jose Older

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Subtitle: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

I expected this book to contain speculative stories about marginalized people, creating worlds where they/we are not marginalized. I did not expect it to be about the experience of marginalization, and thus dripping with violence. Maybe I should have expected that, but I didn’t.

There was a single story that didn’t contain at least one violent death. That story was about Nordic (white) people.

Loved the diversity in this collection. However, reading stories imbued with that much violence feels intense, overwhelming, invasive. Not a good fit for me.

“The Dance of the Dissident Daughter” by Sue Monk Kidd

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Subtitle: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine

Recommended to me by: Donna Smith

Sue Monk Kidd describes her awakening to the patriarchal values of the Baptist Church and Christianity in general. She describes her transformation in parallel with the myth of Ariadne as she claims the Sacred Feminine instead of an exclusively male spirituality. The writing is clear, evocative, and rich with references to other works, mostly written by women.

As Donna reminded me, the author isn’t required to get everything right at once. She sees her submissive, secondary position, names it, finds a spirituality grounded in the feminine, and dares to speak truth to power. At the same time, she does not name the privilege that allows her to risk marriage and career (but ultimately lose nothing), and travel to Greece for inspiration.

By the end of the book, she notices a solidity and inner authority born out of her search. I believe this is the goal for each of us, to listen inside for the Sacred.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Blindspot” by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald

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Subtitle: Hidden Biases of Good People

Recommended to me by: Patricia Nan Anderson

In clear, accessible language, this book debunks the notion that good people are free of biases. Starting with optical illusions and moving on to creating categories, the authors show that our brains automatically make assumptions about what we perceive based on past input.

We have hidden biases, also called mindbugs, that function like the blind spot in our retinas. We don’t perceive that we are not perceiving accurately.

Implicit associations can reveal some of our biases. You may be surprised, disappointed, or relieved by your results.

The first one, insects and flowers, usually demonstrates a powerful negative association with insects and positive association with flowers. Try the Insects and Flowers Implicit Association Test. I was surprised how much more difficult it was to sort the flowers with the negative words.

I was pleased to get a neutral result for the Race Implicit Association Test but much less happy to see a moderate association between Black people and weapons in the Race and Weapons Implicit Association Test.

I wasn’t happy with my result for the Gender and Career Implicit Association Test either. Relatedly, a 1% difference in the rate of promoting women and men can explain the steep attrition rates of women in technical fields.

More Implicit Association Tests.

Present-day discrimination often takes the form of not helping, rather than actively harming. A woman’s hand was badly cut up in an accident. In the ER, her husband said, “You have to help her, she’s an avid quilter!” The doctor was talking about “quickly stitching her up” until someone greeted her as a Yale professor, whereupon she was whisked off to receive complex hand surgery from an expert in the field. It’s hard to call people out on not helping enough.

There is some discussion of how to circumvent mindbugs and blindspots. Awareness helps. So does exposure to images and ideas that contradict the mindbugs. I think the long-term fix is to change the media, literary, and educational portrayals that continually reinforce discriminatory biases. Without explicitly saying so, the book makes a strong case for affirmative action.

In the appendices, the authors show careful scientific evidence for the effect of present-day racial discrimination, despite the fact that it is less accepted to be overtly prejudiced.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in a readable, in-depth look at social justice and how your brain works.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Saber es Poder” by Maxine Harris, Fabiana Wallis, Hortensia Amaro

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Subtitle: Modelo de Trauma y Recuperación para Mujeres Latinas

Translation: Knowledge is Power: Model of Trauma and Recovery for Latina Women

Recommended to me by: Fabiana Wallis’ bio at Conexiones

This book is a curriculum for a 25-session trauma recovery support group for Latina women. Since I hope to work with Conexiones Center for Trauma Recovery as a practitioner, my goal was to refresh my Spanish language skills and learn the vocabulary associated with trauma and recovery. It served that goal well.

The book also included specific information about Latino/a culture and issues for immigrants.

I read this book as both a practitioner helping people recover from trauma, and as a daughter of immigrants from Latin America who experienced trauma. I fit the target reader in some ways and not in others, especially since the book assumes a sharp separation between facilitators and group members.

The information was very basic, aimed at group participants who had never thought about trauma and its connection to present behaviors. There was recurring emphasis on the issues of drug use, prostitution, and unprotected sex. There was no discussion of the mechanisms of PTSD in the body.

In the various units, I saw identification of the damage wrought by trauma, but less help in building new skills than I expected. I imagine a woman reaching the end of the support group and thinking, “Now what?!” At the same time, I imagine that the opportunity to speak about past trauma and receive support would be healing in itself.

When used by knowledgeable and compassionate group facilitators, I think this book would form the basis for a useful, culturally aware support group for Latina survivors of abuse.

“The Mother’s Voice” by Kathy Weingarten

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Subtitle: Strengthening Intimacy in Families

I read this by coincidence, and it fits perfectly with themes I’ve been thinking about lately. Kathy Weingarten, a family therapist, addresses double binds that society creates for women around acceptable roles and definitions of success. She talks about dominating behaviors in men and how to address them. She weaves her personal story of motherhood, illness, and family together with societal trends. Throughout, she maintains awareness of intersectional issues of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she realized that her need to focus on her health conflicted directly with her need to be a “good mother” by focusing wholly on her pre-adolescent children. This contrast brought to light the invisible constraints society placed on her thoughts about mothering. She includes thoughts about the roles of wives and fathers as well.

At age 7, her son bullied her daughter, then 3 years old. She withdrew from his dominating behavior, and had to consciously reconnect with him. As she connects with him as “like her” rather than disconnecting as “alien, unlike her,” she has leverage to change the roles society prescribes for boys, sons, and men, as well as for mothers.

When she shares her true feelings and thoughts with her children in age-appropriate ways rather than maintaining a perfectly serene front, she builds real connections with them and allows them to see her as a separate person.

I appreciate how much consciousness and intention Weingarten brings to her mothering.

Some passages become repetitive, perhaps in an attempt to convince the reader, but that is a minor flaw. Overall, this is a beautifully written, carefully thought out, intimate gift of a book. Highly recommended.

Available at biblio.com