Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution

by Judy Rebick

Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change. Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the second wave of feminism. Judy Rebick, feminist activist, weaves together an insightful and stirring oral history full of four decades of struggle, defeat and triumph. The book also offers honest and insightful discussions of the differences that simultaneously divided and strengthened the women's movement in its efforts to remake a male-dominated culture. These stories define the Canadian women's movement as one of the most successful on the planet and open a treasure chest of knowledge for anyone wanting to make a better world.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, History, Canada

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Judy Rebick is a well-known social justice and feminist activist. My new book "[book Heroes in My Head] is a memoir of my healing from Multiple Personality Syndrome (now called DID). I am also the founding publisher of , Canada's progressive multimedia web site.

Reviews

[Ann Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really comprehensive and insightful history of the struggles and achievements of the Canadian feminist movement from the 1960s through the early 2000s. I particularly appreciated the fact that Judy Rebick was willing to show the hard work and the messiness involved in movement building; and her emphasis on the importance of organizing for change over time. I particularly love this quote from an interview with organizer Debbie Field (pg. 200): "Social movements are like rivers. They either flow or they don't flow. As a political leader, you can change the direction, but you can never start the river flowing." In other words, it's not what happens during election cycles that matters. It's what happens in between elections.

[GwenViolet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely coloured by 90s/00s anti-globalization movement stuff, which does make a fair bit of sense given when it was written. Given that whole scene was probably the place where stuff must have felt the most generative in 2005.

Probably a good introduction to various feminist movement ideas and the historical context of the era (esp given that Canadian feminism feels particularly neglected and is swallowed in the Canadian self conception by what went down on in the States).

I say probably because I can never tell what is "accessible" to people who have never read about feminism or feminist mvnt stuff, but I also err on the side of having faith in the intelligence of people to decode stuff that might seem weird/difficult.

[Manpreet Sahota · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this is an excellent book with comprehensive storytelling. However, as noted by previous reviewers, the historical facts are not 100% accurate. Nonetheless, I would still recommend this book to anyone that is interested in feminist literature. This book helped me understand feminism through a different lens. All I can say is that historical context is critical and the best way to value that statement is to read this book!

[Scott Neigh]

Reviewed here.

[Laurie Siblock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book based on the individual stories of women working hard for a better life, not just for women, but for everyone was a real eye-opener. The women's movement pioneered advances in social justice issues of poverty, racism, sexism, ablism, homophobia, patriarchy and more. This book helped me better understand the dedication and hard work of women before me that have resulted in huge advances in eradicating gender inequality and the better life I live as a woman in Canada now - though we still have much more work to do. I thank and applaud all these women who made such sacrifices because they believed in a better world.

[Omi Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable collection of essays and oral histories of the Canadian feminist movement.

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a sometimes boring but mostly interesting recount of the history of the feminist movement in Canada, I really enjoyed learning about the creation of DAWN.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really remember this book but that's not because it wasn't interesting. A lot of the books I'm marking as read today are books I read a year or more ago. I just haven't logged into good reads in a while. I remember liking this book and enjoying reading about the Canadian side of things (most of the books out there are on american feminist history) but that's about it.

I'm bad at reviews so I'll just repost the blurb about it from the Penguin Publishing website:
Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change.

Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child care: these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the second wave of feminism. Judy Rebick, feminist activist, weaves together an insightful and stirring oral history full of four decades of struggle, defeat and triumph. The book also offers honest and insightful discussions of the differences that simultaneously divided and strengthened the women's movement in its efforts to remake a male-dominated culture. These stories define the Canadian women's movement as one of the most successful on the planet and open a treasure chest of knowledge for anyone wanting to make a better world.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUdt2...