Today is International Women’s Day, a day where we celebrate the achievements of women in all areas. Inspired by Loganberry Books in Ohio, we are highlighting our female authors and the subject of women in scholarly publishing by hiding the spines of our male-authored books. There was a time, not so long ago, when it was almost exclusively men who told us about the female experience. So today, we feature excerpts about women written by women.
On women leaders
The women, strong-hearted ladies,
show us the way to take
steps small enough to meet
the hurtin’-hearted drums,
show us the way
to follow the moon
from January to February
from dusk toward dawn.
ê-kî-pîcicîyâhk
kâh-kîhtwâm
tâpiskôc pîsim kâ-isi-waskawît
kâh-kîhtwâm
—kiyâm by Naomi McIlwraith
On the complexities of motherhood
In addition to its universal nature, motherhood also provides a lens through which to view the complex world that women inhabit in contemporary Western societies. Women who enter into motherhood do so from complicated spaces, spaces further complicated by pregnancy, childbirth, and the caring of infants and children. Not only are these spaces defined by cultural, social, political, and economic contexts, they also involve women’s mental and physical health, their sexual orientations, and their employment situations, as well as the quality of their intimate and close personal relationships. Women who mother must negotiate the challenges of pregnancy, childbirth (or adoption), and child care from within those same spaces. In short, women’s lives are complicated, not simplified, by the prospect and reality of motherhood. Though the wonders of birth and the joys of motherhood are ideals celebrated in contemporary Western societies, not all women are able to approach and experience motherhood with such positive feelings. Thus the critical study of motherhood involves an understanding of the complex realities defining contemporary women’s lives and the consequences of those realities for women’s, children’s, and society’s well-being. —Interrogating Motherhood by Lynda Ross
On learning
Like all women, I am Sky Woman’s great-granddaughter. I come from a matrilineal culture, the Kanien’kehá:ka, or “people of the flint,” to whom Europeans gave the name Mohawk. In our oral history, we tell the story of Sky Woman; it is through the telling of her story that we learn about our roles and responsibilities as women. As we embody her life, and learn from our mothers, we are also passing on her knowledge. –“Distortion and Healing: Finding Balance and a ‘Good Mind’ Through the Rearticulation of Sky Woman’s Journey” by Kahente Horn-Miller in Living on the Land
On telling the truth
The voices in this collection are transformative, and they will be made more powerful as they are supplemented by additional voices. Muriel Rukeyser, a poet, once asked, “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?” and offered an answer: “The world would split open.” Now is the time for us to tell the truth about our abortions—without apology. –“The Unfinished Revolution” by Shannon Stettner in Without Apology
On publishing our legacy
Over the past thirty years, the impact of feminist organizing, thinking, and writing on scholarship has been significant; women are no longer ‘nonentities’ on the historical stage, and gender relations are seen as an important social category to integrate into our understanding of history. Innovative research that addresses new questions we never even thought about before, and that also revisits old problems we never solved, is appearing all the time. The more such work is published, the more debates about women’s history see the light of day, the richer our praxis is, the richer our legacy for the next generation of feminist historians. —Through Feminist Eyes by Joan Sangster
To read one perspective on the current state of gender parity in scholarly publishing, see this March 2016 article from Quill and Quire.
