<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Shockingly pediatric
Review: Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner is nationally regarded as a leading figure in women's history. During my undergraduate education, I was honored to attend her lecture on women's history struggles. Thus, imagine my suprise upon seeing this book would be used for a graduate Women's Studies clas, much less, in conjuction with an academic's name. I simply could not believe this was the same person from whom I had heard an authoritative, professionally delievered lecture. Both in length, layout, and depth, the work easily resembles junior high school offerings. That a Phd could produce such harried work in 2001, and pass it off as excellent scholarship is a sad testament to remaining difficulties 'enlightened' white feminists have attempting to study 'other' women. Claiming to "celebrate diversity", her heavily edited history just happens to present sanitized multicultural interactions as the idealized norm. No where in the book does it mention the complicity the afforementioned women (or other white feminists--including those who admired the power structures) exhibited in the eventual destruction of tribal culture and people. However inspired early feminists may have been by Haudenosaunee society, this inspiration clearly had limits, as the American women's movement demonstrated susceptibility to racist and ethnocetric ideologies. Roesch Wagner's failure providing critical examination of 'first wave' feminists ulterior motives undercuts what could have been a very interesting read. No, Stanton's later comments (ommitted from this book for whatever reason) disparaging men of color for receving suffrage while white women lacked the ballot are not 'nice', 'progressive', or 'enlightened' but they do show history as it actually happened, and would paradoxically provide a 'road map' for today's feminists so we can self-identify and stop making the same old mistakes. Just because it is a project involving 'women of color' does not excuse Roesch Wagner from meticulous research. Ironically, it demands far more because of exclusionary traditions that made histories about women of color the least known. Failing to show history in it's full complexity is grossly irresponsible. As a professional whose work has built on publicizing the lives of traditionally subordinated (and silenced) groups, Roesch Wagner owes society an enormous appology. While she claims the book was produced with full tribal cooperation, I highly doubt it.
Rating: 
Summary: A useful corrective to official versions of feminism
Review: I strongly disagree with the reviewer who gives Wagner's book only 1 star. While the book is by no means flawless, it also has important strengths. Wagner offers an accessible history of one small portion of feminism and corrects the mistaken assumption that feminism is a "white women's" idea and movement.
<< 1 >>
| 
