I’ve just gotten around to updating my recently read books list and I can proudly say that several people on the Dean campaign got me interested in feminism. Previously I did self-identify as a “feminist” without truly knowing what that meant. One chapter of Simone De Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (as excerpted by Second Wave–see below) got me hooked into the movement.
Seneca Falls, the site of the first Women’s Rights convention, lies conviently between Niagra Falls and New Hampshire, so Rachel, Other Aaron, and I stopped by the museums there on our road trip. We saw the remnants of the church over 300 convention delegates met in, the statue depicting Elizabeth Cady Stanton meeting Susan B Anthony, and lots of videos that were clearly produced in the 1980s. As Hillary would say, it was “very first wave.”
One of the exhibits in the Seneca Falls Museum was a video debate between two college students over whether there should be classes such as “Women’s Literature.” Although I am 100% in favor of classes on the history of the feminism movement, sexism in different cultures, and the theory of feminism, I’m not sold on the fact that Women’s Literature classes actually help the cause of equality. Don’t separatist lit classes just encourage the “normal” literature classes focus soley on dead white men?