Introduction

xiii

Your Life As a Girl

(8)

Curtis Sittenfeld

``Everything about you is horrifying: your voice, body, hair, inability to be witty and panicky desires for approval and companionship.''

Chicks Goin' At It

(8)

Anastasia Higginbotham

``Was I a wannabe? A baby dyke? A lesbian chic groupie, flashing in the pan?''

Lusting for Freedom

(6)

Rebecca Walker

``By the time I was eighteen I was fluent in the language of sex and found myself in restaurants with men twice my age, drinking red wine and artfully playing Woman.''

Ruminations of a Feminist Fitness Instructor

(8)

Alisa L. Valdes

``The gym was one of the few places on earth that I felt I possessed an irrefutable degree of power. It hadn't occurred to me yet to analyze why so many brilliant, professional women were wasting so many hours every week hopping around in leotards.''

Don't Call Me a Survivor

(7)

Emilie Morgan

``There was a clock, a digital clock on the shelf by the table. Having the clock there was very important to me. It was my only reminder that the world was continuing as usual, despite what was happening to me.''

Bloodlove

(11)

Christine Doza

``This is what it means to be an intelligent girl? Listening to bands with female members and wearing a more natural shade of lipstick?''

Weaving an Identity Tapestry

(8)

Sonja D. Curry-Johnson

``As an educated, married, monogamous, feminist, Christian, African American mother, I suffer from an acute case of multiplicity.''

Two Jews, Three Opinions

(8)

Robin M. Neidorf

``It is a contradiction to see the strength of women within the traditions of the oldest patriarchy in the world.''

Beyond Bean Counting

(7)

JeeYeun Lee

``Women of color do not struggle in feminist movements simply to add cultural diversity.''

You're Not the Type

(10)

Laurel Gilbert

``Neither my brand of motherhood nor my sexual identity were ever presented as options to me.''

One Bad Hair Day Too Many, or The Hairstory of an Androgynous Young Feminist

(5)

Jennifer Reid Maxcy Myhre

``Some of us come to feminism because of abuse, harassment, eating disorders. I came to feminism because I hated shaving my legs.''

Ghosts and Goddesses

(14)

Bhargavi C. Mandava

``I gazed across the hotel room at my mother, who was sleeping peacefully. Who was this woman? What made her wait an entire day in the rain to be blessed by a dead saint?''

The Body Politic

103

(9)

Abra Fortune Chernik

``Gaining weight and getting my head out of the toilet bowl was the most political act I ever committed.''

Abortion, Vacuum Cleaners and the Power Within

112

(6)

Inga Muscio

``The fight for human rights does not take place on some bureaucratic battleground. The real fight for human rights is inside each and every individual on this earth.''

Reality Check

118

(8)

Aisha Hakim-Dyce

``I had never thought that my underemployed status would lead me to seriously consider a stint that would require me to shake my breasts and gyrate my hips to the catcalls, whistles and sexually explicit suggestions of men.''

Why I Fight Back

126

(7)

Whitney Walker

``Why is a woman's right to control her body constantly threatened? Whether referring to reproductive rights or sexual violence, the answer is to take control back.''

It's a Big Fat Revolution

133

(9)

Nomy Lamm

``My body is fucking beautiful, and every time I look in the mirror and acknowledge that, I am contributing to the revolution.''

And So I Chose

142

(11)

Allison Crews

``After much prayer and divination, many tears and several horrible poems, I made a choice to bear a child.''

Woman Who Clears the Way

153

(12)

Lisa Tiger

``When I walked in the front door, I saw my mom and I knew. Two years after her beautiful twenty-two-year-old son walked out of the house for the last time, her daughter tested positive for HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.''

Class Feminist

165

(8)

Erica Gilbert-Levin

``One of my (male) teachers suggested to me that the name `Feminist Alliance' sounded militant and conjured up images of shrieking women demanding that men do as they are told.''

On the Rag

173

(9)

Tiya Miles

``We had caused a ripple of interest and criticism among our fellow students, some of whom flung the terms `lesbian' and `angry' as intended slurs. And now, as we prepared to tell them where we stood and where they could go, we felt formindable.''

Imagine My Surprise

182

(6)

Ellen Neuborne

``It is a dangerous thing to assume that just because we were raised in a feminist era, we are safe. We are not. They are still after us.''

Knowledge Is Power

188

(9)

Maria Cristina Rangel

``It wasn't fair that welfare moms got to go to Smith College and idly pass their time studying such frivolities as literature and writing at the expense of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.''

Taking It to the Streets

197

(12)

Melissa Silverstein

``No one should have control over my body but me. For me, this was a clear-cut issue. They were wrong and I was right.''

Bringing Feminism a la Casa

209

(3)

Daisy Hernandez

``How do you go off to college, learn about feminism in English and then bring it back to a working-class community where women call their children in from the street at night in every language---except `standard' English?''

What Is Mine

212

(11)

Sharon Lennon

``I thought my mother personified everything I was fighting against, everything I was determined not to be, and I made her aware of that constantly.''

Tight Jeans and Chania Chorris

223

(6)

Sonia Shah

``I had already been away at college for a few years when my little sister unleashed her budding sexuality on my unsuspecting suburban Indian family.''

The Immaculate Conception

229

(10)

Amy Richards

``I am only beginning to realize the advantages I had because I was raised by a single mother. My family has always been a partnership between my mother and me.''

Better in the Bahamas? Not If You're a Feminist

239

(8)

Lisa Bowleg

``My protests were dismissed as militant feminist rantings, and I was transformed from fellow native to antagonistic outsider. It was official: I was now an American.''

Selling Out

247

(6)

Sarah McCarry

``Your revolution starts in your house. It started the day you noticed feminism wasn't such a bad word, the day you started working at a women's shelter, the day you started composting.''

Some Things You Keep With You

253

(5)

Ellen Friedrichs

``I wish that these girls who dance with me and talk politics and poetry and school and family would dump the assholes, ignore the cheerleader aesthetic, understand that they can be smart and fun and cool and confident. But I know that they can't all do this right now.''

Betrayal Feminism

258

(7)

Veronica Chambers

``Like many black women before me, I learned the hard way that some people, including many white feminists, like having blacks at their meetings and social gatherings. Whether you were happy there, whether you were taken seriously there, was beside the point.''

Word Warrior

265

(7)

Jennifer DiMarco

``I reclaimed my power, my energy and my life with a passion. I wrote until I cried, until I laughed out loud. I wrote about dispelling pain, darkness, hate.''

One Resilient Baby

272

(9)

Cheryl Green

``At the age of twenty-four I have found some peace and a sense of full belonging, with the help of older women mentors who have connected with me across our differences.''

This Place Called Home

281

(7)

Taigi Smith

``To the untrained eye, we are simply women grooming ourselves on a Saturday afternoon, but beneath that facade, we are sisters seeking clarity and guidance from the extended family we've come to know and love.''

Isolated-Connected

288

(6)

Ariel Gore

``I wrote long narratives and tragic teenage poems. I shared impressions, itineraries, lies. In short, I become a writer. Isolated-connected. I became a writer.''

Contributors

294