Alix Kates Shulman

When Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, the book exploded into women’s consciousness. Before the decade was out, what had begun as a campaign for women’s civil rights transformed into a diverse and revolutionary movement for freedom and social justice that challenged many aspects of everyday life long accepted as fixed: work, birth control and abortion, childcare and housework, gender, class, and race, art and literature, sexuality and identity, rape and domestic violence, sexual harassment, pornography, and more. This was the women’s liberation movement, and writing—powerful, personal, and prophetic—was its beating heart.

Fifty years on, in the age of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, this visionary and radical writing is as relevant and urgently needed as ever, ready to inspire a new generation of feminists. Activists and writers Alix Kates Shulman and Honor Moore have gathered an unprecedented collection of works—many long out-of-print and hard to find—that catalyzed and propelled the women’s liberation movement. Ranging from Friedan’s Feminine Mystique to Backlash, Susan Faludi’s Reagan-era requiem, and framed by Shulman and Moore with an introduction and headnotes that provide historical and personal context, the anthology reveals the crucial role of Black feminists and other women of color in a decades long mass movement that not only brought about fundamental changes in American life—changes too often taken for granted today—but envisioned a thoroughgoing revolution in society and consciousness still to be achieved. - from publishers… (más)

I didn't particularly enjoy this memoir because of her style of writing, a bit fluffy and pompous, but I can appreciate her spiritual trip in life to find herself, to find answers and solidity in what she actually believes and truly wants out of her life. She's very lucky to have been supported by her now ex-husband to go off on her own, and leaving the kids behind, to different remote places over the years for the self-feeding of her inner soul, and especially for going off alone summers at a time to their little shack on a small remote island off the coast of Maine.

Here she tested herself in living naturally and in oneness with nature by doing her very best to eat only what the earth provided in the way of weeds and berries for salads, and herbs growing around the cabin for seasoning, and mussels, crabs and clams for her food source. I love that she had great books on identifying wild weeds for her specific area on food sources that she could read and learn more about as the days passed.

But, she ended up divorced and mentally wondered about her sanity. Admitting to being a feminist activist, I believe she had her priorities all wrong in life. She was fighting for all the wrong things. But, I don't think she put the two together.

Only time alone on this island where she could think and live freely, was she finally able to separate the GARBAGE she had been indocrinated into from the real, God-given life she was meant to live. Now, this is only my opinion because I don't believe she actually saw how much happier she was to clear her mind of such self-absorbing thoughts while alone on the island.

Her attentions turned from self-centered and impowering herself as a woman to protecting nature and the foods we eat. She sets the best example that she can, never perfect. She sees how we humans are destroying this earth. So do I. But, since you can't control the whole world, you adapt to the changing times and you just do your best to leave a smaller footprint.… (más)