Feminist Book Club

“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” — Lilla Watson


The 2016 election was a wake up call on many fronts — but in particular for white women. 53% of white women voted to elect Donald Trump. A majority cast their ballots for racism, misogyny, and hate. Just one year later in Alabama, 63% of white women voted to support Roy Moore. During Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings, while thousands of women protested, Senator Susan Collins chose to align herself with the white, patriarchal power structure in a vocal show of support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.


Since the election, many white women have begun the work of waking up and unpacking our own internalized racism and places within white supremacist systems. Many have committed to building a truly intersectional movement for feminist liberation. But this work isn’t one-and-done. It takes deep, sustained engagement with women of color. It takes a meaningful exploration of the legacy and contemporary texts at the core of today’s feminist movement. As we organize resistance to the current administration, it is not enough to take action. We must provide spaces for education and feminist growth. We must do deeper, more personal work to ensure that each woman who shows up to the polls in 2020- our families, our neighbors, our colleagues- casts her vote against the increasing tide of unapologetic authoritarianism and white nationalism.


With the Women’s March, we’ve begun to get street smart. Now it’s time to get book smart.


The Feminist Book Club has four essential goals:


  • Educate white women, and feminist activists of all backgrounds, on the histories, theories, and stories at the core of today’s feminist movement.

  • Amplify the voices of women of color whose writings, thoughts, and experiences are the soul of the modern feminist movement.


  • Inspire educators, voters, change agents, and the next generation of grassroots leaders to engage with intersectional feminist thinking and writing.


  • Challenge women to use their new understanding to engage in courageous conversations and transformational relationship building rooted in the collective liberation of all.


We aim to create space for challenging, nuanced conversations on the interconnections between sexism, racism, and all systems of oppression. We will give feminists of all backgrounds the tools to deepen their knowledge and make their activism more informed and accountable. We also aim to partner with secondary school teachers and college professors, who can participate in the book club and commit to adding intersectional feminist texts to their classroom syllabi to educate the next generation of feminist activists and organizers.


How will it work?


Each month, we will select either a legacy or contemporary text that teaches readers about intersectional feminism. Book club participants will be invited to read excerpts of these texts in advance of the monthly meeting. At the meeting, a guest moderator will reflect on the text’s resonance and meaning within the modern feminist movement. Participants will then be invited to discuss the work, share questions, and examine its relevance within their own lives and work. For the book club meetings focused on more contemporary texts, authors will be invited to reflect on their work and moderate conversation.


The introductory book club meetings will be held at venues in New York and Washington, D.C. They will be livestreamed, and Women’s March members across the country will be encouraged to hold local meetings for discussion and analysis of the chosen texts.


The first three meetings will focus on:


  • bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: “Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” This meeting will lay the foundation for the book club, introducing participants to the concept of intersectionality and the interconnection of sexism, racism, and all systems of oppression.


  • Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, This Bridge Called My Back: “We are challenging white feminists to be accountable for their racism because at the base we still want to believe that they really want freedom for all of us.” This meeting will build on the first, challenging white feminists to examine their claims of solidarity and listen more deeply to the experiences of women of color.


  • Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other: “You and I are close, we intertwine; you may stand on the other side of the hill once in awhile, but you may also be me while remaining what you are and what I am not.” This meeting will begin to explore intersectional feminism within the context of the United States’ colonial history and the native female experience.


Moderators:



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