[Herstory] Summer 2007 CWLU Herstory E-Zine

[The CWLU Herstory Project E-Zine]

Welcome to the Summer 2007 issue of the CWLU Herstory E-Zine.

Explore the CWLU Herstory website at http://www.cwluherstory.org.

Please send us news tips about upcoming events you know about. Also, 
don't be shy. Send us news about yourself and what you are doing. 
Feminist networking is part of what we are about. Forward our E-Zine to 
colleagues and friends who may want to subscribe.

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THE CWLU HERSTORY WEBSITE VERSION 2.0 IS ONLINE----FINALLY!

After months of activity behind the scenes, we've launched the newly 
re-designed Herstory website. The technology behind all of this allows 
us to update the site and add new content much more efficiently.

We really need your feedback as we debug the new site and add new 
features. Please feel free to comment or send us an e-mail with your 
reactions. Special thanks to Dana Simpson for her work in transferring 
the old content over to the new site.

We know that a lot of women's studies classes link directly to the 
classic feminist writings in our archive. Please adjust your bookmarks 
to the new addresses. We will be setting up redirects over the next 
several weeks from the old pages.

Here is what we are planning for the future:

* An entire new section on the women's health movement based on a Power 
Point presentation produced by former CWLU health activists.

* A new online forum to discuss feminist issues past and present.

* An online version of the Chicago women's labor history slideshow 
originally produced by the CWLU in 1976.

* More photos and more articles. With money raised from poster sales, we 
were able to buy a new document scanner to digitize original paper 
documents. It even collates the digital versions!

* A new updated Herstory online store to sell posters, magnets and buttons.

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WE HAVE A BLOG SO GET THOSE OPINIONS READY

As part of our new site design, we now have a Herstory Blog. A blog is 
an online journal of news and opinion.

Stop by http://www.cwluherstory.org/herstory-blog/index.php and comment 
on the news and opinions we'll be sharing with the world. You'll need to 
register on the site to comment. We will not share your e-mail address 
with anyone.

Do you have some feminist news you'd like to share? Send it along and 
we'll try to include it.

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SPEAKING OF BLOGS-- DON'T MISS CANCER BITCH

Chicago writer Sandi Wisenberg has been blogging about her battle with 
breast cancer at http://www.cancerbitch.blogspot.com. You can also 
listen to Sandi on Chicago Public Radio at 
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Search.aspx?search=wisenberg

Sandi is a fine writer with a wry feminist sense of humor. Don't miss 
the pictures of her tattoos.

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ORDER BOOKS ONLINE FROM WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST BOOKSTORE

Our friends over at Women and Children First bookstore(WCF) reminded us 
that you can get any book in print — most often in two to five days — 
from womenandchildrenfirst.com. Search by title, author or ISBN by 
entering it in the search field near the top of the screen.

Put the books you want in your online shopping cart and choose whether 
to pick them up at the store or have them shipped.

And please remember---the bucks you spend at Women and Children First 
support an independent feminist bookstore and a vibrant community 
institution.

Women and Children First hit a financial rough patch earlier this year, 
but an outpouring of support from WCF loyalists put them back on track 
-------for now.

Are you a teacher in the Chicagoland area? Women and Children First will 
personally deliver books to your school for classroom purchases. Just 
give them a ring to work out details.

If you are a tourist in Chicago, make sure you catch the Red Line up to 
the Andersonville community and pay them a visit. You may be lucky 
enough to be there when they are hosting one of their many forums and 
book discussions.

As a bonus, you'll be in CWLU Herstory country. Several of our members 
live nearby or in adjacent neighborhoods.

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NEW BOOKS ARE HERE

'Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader in Documents and 
Essays' edited by Ellen Dubois and Richard Candida is now available. 
Ellen DuBois is a former CWLU member and is presently a history prof at 
UCLA.

More than one hundred years after her death, Elizabeth Cady Stanton 
still stands — along with her close friend Susan B. Anthony — as the 
major icon of the struggle for women's suffrage.

In spite of this celebrity, Stanton's intellectual contributions have 
been largely overshadowed by the focus on her political activities, and 
she is yet to be recognized as one of the major thinkers of the 
nineteenth century.

The book is available through New York University Press.

Deborah Siegel's 'Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls 
Gone Wild' has been getting a lot of attention because it explores the 
history of modern feminism in a concise yet multi-dimensional manner. 
Deborah Siegal grew up in Chicagoland and attended the University of 
Wisconsin.

Contrary to clichés about the end of feminism, Deborah Siegel argues 
that younger women are reliving the battles of its past, and reinventing 
it – with a vengeance.

The book is published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Deborah Siegal is planning a fall barnstorming tour with feminist 
authors Gloria Feldt, Courtney Martin and Kristal Zook. Visit 
http://www.deborahsiegel.net/ for more info on how to book this event in 
your town or on your campus.

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NEW BOOKS ARE ON THE WAY

Paula Kamen's 'Finding Iris Chang' is due in November 2007 and is 
already available for pre-ordering. Paula spent several years 
researching and writing this biography. Paula Kamen and Iris Chang were 
college classmates and longtime friends.

Iris Chang was a brilliant young writer whose suicide came as a terrible 
shock to her friends and admirers. Iris Chang's book 'The Rape of 
Nanking' is the definite work on that WWII atrocity. Her grandparents 
were survivors of the carnage.

Paula is a long-time supporter of the Herstory project. Her play about 
the CWLU 's underground abortion group 'Jane' is now a performed 
regularly on the college circuit.

'Finding Iris Chang' is published by Perseus Press.

Anne Enke's new book called 'Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested 
Space, and Feminist Activism' is now in final production. It is a study 
of Midwestern feminism to be published by Duke University Press in 
October 2007. Anne visited us a while back and we had a long discussion 
about the unique character of the Midwestern women's movement.

In the book, Anne Enke reveals how women’s relationship with public 
spaces shaped second-wave feminism. Focusing on women’s activism in 
Detroit, Chicago, and Minneapolis-St. Paul during the 1960s and 1970s, 
she describes how women across race and class created a massive 
groundswell of feminist activism by directly intervening in the urban 
landscape.

The cover of Anne's book includes a poster from the Chicago Women's 
Graphics Collective.

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CAN ONLINE SOAP OPERAS FIGHT HIV/AIDS?

You bet they can, thanks to the The Women's Project Against HIV/AIDS. 
Led by Dr. Rachel Jones, a nursing prof at Rutgers University, a 
talented team of creative actors and writers produced a series of online 
video clips aimed at stopping the spread of AIDS.

The main goal of the project was to create an urban soap opera video 
based on women’s real stories about their relationships with men. They 
explored reasons why women engaged in unprotected sex with male partners 
that they distrusted and even thought were having sex with other women, 
or men, or injecting drugs.

Check them out at http://www.stophiv.newark.rutgers.edu/. Make sure you 
have the latest version of the FlashPlayer so you view their videos 
right on your home computer.

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THE PERSIMMON TREE HAS BLOOMED

'Persimmon Tree' is an online magazine of fiction and poetry by older 
women. The current issue includes work by Judith Arcana, Paula Gunn 
Allen, Faith Ringgold and the late Grace Paley. Published in association 
with Mills College in California, 'Persimmon Tree' is published 
quarterly. Subscriptions are free with donations encouraged.

Visit them at http://www.persimmontree.org/

Contributor Judith Arcana is a longtime friend of the Herstory Project 
and a former "Jane".

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ANN TOMPKINS WOULD LIKE TO CONNECT WITH OLD FRIENDS FROM THE CWLU

Ann Tompkins contacted us a couple of months back and asked to 
correspond with former CWLUers. She recently collaborated with historian 
Lincoln Cushing on a book about posters from China's Great Proletarian 
Cultural Revolution which is due out toward the end of 2007. You may 
contact Ann at annt at sonic.net.

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HERSTORY GOES TO THE NATIONAL WOMEN'S STUDIES ASSOCIATION

The CWLU Herstory Project had a booth at the NWSA's 30th anniversary 
conference outside of Chicago this summer. We were able to make a lot of 
contacts with feminist academics as well as sell a bunch of posters and 
buttons to finance our project.

Special thanks to former NWSA president Colette Morrow and all of the 
local Chicagoland feminists who helped make this possible for us.

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FEMINISTS WANTED FOR WIFE SWAPPING

No, this is not a headline from 'The Onion', we really did get an 
inquiry from ABC-TV to participate in their primetime show "Wife Swap." 
They were looking for a feminist moms "who are proud to be wearing the 
pants and ruling their roost."

According to ABC,"Each week from across the country, two families with 
very different values are chosen to take part in a two-week long 
challenge. The wives from these two families exchange husbands, children 
and lives (but not bedrooms) to discover just what it's like to live 
another woman's life."

For the morbidly curious, you can read their invitation on
our blog at http://www.cwluherstory.org/herstory-blog/9.html.

We had just spent a wonderful evening with feminist media critic 
Jennifer Pozner the night before. We forwarded the ABC-TV email to her 
the next day...not surprisingly, she was not surprised.

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DO YOU COLLECT POLITICAL BUTTONS?

Herstory visitors are probably familiar with Jo Freeman's scholarly work 
in women's history. But did you know that Jo is also an inveterate 
political button collector? Right now she is looking for a "Carole 
Mosely Braun for President" button.

She'll trade you a "Braun for Senate" or a "Chisholm for President" 
button. Contact Jo at joreen at jofreeman.com if you are ready to deal.

Check out JoFreeman.com for new photos and essays including one covering 
the women who have run for president---which includes some vintage 
campaign buttons.

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TEEN VOICES JOINS UP WITH OUR BODIES OURSELVES

'Teen Voices' magazine is joining forces with Our Bodies Ourselves(OBOS) 
this summer and fall to create new mental health resources for teenagers.

Although adolescent girls need the empowering information provided by 
Our Bodies Ourselves, these days many teens turn to online resources or 
magazines as opposed to books.

Funded by a generous grant from the Frederick & Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser 
Foundation, the project will create modules that focus on topics such as 
depression, suicide, and anxiety.

The modules will be publicized and distributed through the OBOS blog and 
website, online sites that many teens visit (such as MySpace and 
Facebook), and in print and online versions of 'Teen Voices'.

Would you like to help them continue their work? Then host a house party 
to raise money and awareness. You may even be able to coax Executive 
Director Judy Norsigian to attend.

Visit http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/about/houseparty.asp for a 
complete guide to a successful Our Bodies Ourselves house party.

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WEB SURFIN' WITH THE HERSTORY PROJECT

http://www.wimnonline.org/
Women In Media & News, a media analysis, education and advocacy group, 
works to increase women's presence and power in the public debate.

http://www.colorlines.com/
Currently in its 9th year of publication, ColorLines is the leading 
national, multi-racial magazine devoted to the creativity and complexity 
of communities of color.

http://www.themuslimwoman.org/
If you are tired of the Main Stream Media's relentless distortions about 
Islamic women check out the news from the The Muslim Woman. It's the 
truth unveiled.


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THAT'S IT FOR THIS ISSUE

Please send us any news about former CWLUers, upcoming events and 
feminist happenings. We depend on you to be our eyes and ears. Do you 
need research assistance? Do you provide a service? Do you need a 
service? Do you have a cool project you need help with? Are you looking 
for a job? Do you have a job to offer? Let us know and we'll try to 
include it. Feminist networking is part of what we are about. E-mail 
infogal at cwluherstory.org with your contribution.

-- 



CWLU Herstory Website Project
http://www.cwluherstory.org
infogal at cwluherstory.org
PO Box 548
Oak Park, IL 60303-0548
708-386-7197

A Project of the University of Illinois
Center for Research on Women and Gender
http://www.uic.edu/depts/crwg/

"We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster." - Rachel Carson