In her essay, “Owning Up to Abortion,” Barbara Ehrenreich warns “the freedoms that we exercise but do not defend, or even acknowledge, are easily taken away.”
“Owning Up to Abortion” from Barbara Ehrenreich’s This Land is Their Land
The Vagina Monologues and Violence
Marina DelVecchio discusses the political and social relevance of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” In her review, she points out that women “need to reclaim [their] power — [their] bodies — in the same way, because with each growing day, the numbers of rapes, genital mutilations, domestic violence, murders, honor killings, sex slavery, and rage towards women continue to increase.”
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story
Kate looks at plastic and its place in our lives after reading Susan Freinkel’s Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.
Empowerment in The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Marina DelVecchio defends a condescending review of Téa Obreht’s “The Tiger’s Wife,” saying that “This is a beautiful novel—full of exemplary writing and story-telling and sex has nothing to do with it. It’s an intimate portrayal of family, loss, and love that transcends time and cultures.”
Enchanted by The Night Circus
Kate was enchanted by “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern. From the book, she shares her thoughts about the significance of story in our lives. She says, “we need to be acutely aware of the stories we allow to become a part of ourselves. We need to be cognizant of the stories we put out into the world, and of those we tell about ourselves.”
Gender and Power in “Bitten by Twilight”
Marina DelVecchio discusses “Bitten by Twilight,” wherein female scholars analyze the success and influence Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series has had on girls, women, and our culture. Marina writes, “This is a most unique book that brings scholarship and mainstream fiction to the same table in an attempt to analyze the overwhelming influence that this vampire series has had on girls and women of varying ages.”
Local: A Young Woman’s Search for Home
inContext looks at a graphic novel, Local, about one woman’s search for home, for an identity and a path in life after being raised by a mother who suffers that infamous “problem with no name.”
Mistresses of the Dark
Marina DelVecchio introduces “Mistresses of the Dark,” a collection of short stories that combine the mundane quality of women’s experiences with mystery and darkness. The authors include 25 of the most popular and leading female writers that we all know and love, “presenting their readers with stories that focus on murder, suicide, and mystery even better than the male writers that dominate this market.”
Books inContext Coordinators Will Read in 2012
Kate and Marina give a sneak preview of books inContext will cover in 2012 and share their personal reading lists to let readers know what these feminists read!
Gender Trouble and Judith Butler
Marina DelVecchio introduces the work of Judith Butler, one of the most difficult gender theorists to grapple. In discussing her book "Gender Trouble," Marina agrees with Butler’s ideas that "men and women play the roles of their socially assigned gender, but none of it is real since the identities have been established by patriarchal powers that be”. They are also, according to Butler, “exaggerated."
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