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Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium
Thirty years after Robin Morgan's groundbreaking anthology, Sisterhood Is Powerful -- named by The American Librarians' Association one of "The 100 Most Influential Books of the Twentieth Century" -- comes this landmark new collection for the twenty-first century.
Sisterhood Is Forever -- with over 60 original essays Morgan commissioned from well-known feminist leaders plus energetic Gen X and Y activists -- is a composite mural of the female experience in where we've been, where we are, where we're going. The stunning scope of topics ranges from reproductive, health, and environmental issues to workplace inequities and the economics of women's unpaid labor; from globalization to the politics of aging; from cyberspace, violence against women, and electoral politics to spirituality, the law, the media, and academia. The deliberately audacious mix of contributors spans different generations, races, ethnicities, and sexual CEOs, housewives, rock stars, farmers, scientists, prostituted women, politicians, women in prison, firefighters, disability activists, artists, flight attendants, an army general, an astronaut, an anchorwoman, even a pair of teens who edit a girls' magazine. Each article celebrates the writer's personal voice -- her humor, passion, anger, and the integrity of her perspective -- while offering the latest data on women's status, political analysis, new "how-to" tools for activism, and visionary yet practical strategies for the future -- strategies needed now more than ever. Robin Morgan's own contributions are everything her readers prophetic, powerfully argued, unsentimentally lyrical. From her "The book you hold in your hands is a tool for the future -- a future also in your hands." •
Edna Acosta-Belén • Carol J. Adams • Margot Adler • Natalie Angier • Ellen Appel-Bronstein • Mary Baird • Brenda Berkman • Christine E. Bose • Kathy Boudin • Ellen Bravo • Vednita Carter • Wendy Chavkin • Kimberlé Crenshaw • Gail Dines • Paula DiPerna • Helen Drusine • Andrea Dworkin • Eve Ensler • Barbara Findlen • Mary Foley • Patricia Friend • Theresa Funiciello • Carol Gilligan • Sara K. Gould • Ana Grossman The Guerrilla Girls • Beverly Guy-Sheftall • Kathleen Hanna • Laura Hershey • Anita Hill • Florence Howe • Donna M. Hughes • Karla Jay • Mae C. Jemison • Carol Jenkins • Claudia J. Kennedy • Alice Kessler-Harris Clara Sue Kidwell • Frances Kissling • Sandy Lerner • Suzanne Braun Levine • Barbara Macdonald • Catharine A. MacKinnon Jane Roland Martin • Debra Michals • Robin Morgan Jessica Neuwirth • Judy Norsigian • Eleanor Holmes Norton • Grace Paley • Emma Peters-Axtell Cynthia Rich Amy Richards • Cecile Richards Carolyn Sachs • Marianne Schnall • Pat Schroeder • Patricia Silverthorn • Eleanor Smeal Roslyn D. Smith Gloria Steinem Mary Thom • Jasmine Victoria • Faye Wattleton • Marie Wilson • Helen Zia
Sisterhood Is Forever -- with over 60 original essays Morgan commissioned from well-known feminist leaders plus energetic Gen X and Y activists -- is a composite mural of the female experience in where we've been, where we are, where we're going. The stunning scope of topics ranges from reproductive, health, and environmental issues to workplace inequities and the economics of women's unpaid labor; from globalization to the politics of aging; from cyberspace, violence against women, and electoral politics to spirituality, the law, the media, and academia. The deliberately audacious mix of contributors spans different generations, races, ethnicities, and sexual CEOs, housewives, rock stars, farmers, scientists, prostituted women, politicians, women in prison, firefighters, disability activists, artists, flight attendants, an army general, an astronaut, an anchorwoman, even a pair of teens who edit a girls' magazine. Each article celebrates the writer's personal voice -- her humor, passion, anger, and the integrity of her perspective -- while offering the latest data on women's status, political analysis, new "how-to" tools for activism, and visionary yet practical strategies for the future -- strategies needed now more than ever. Robin Morgan's own contributions are everything her readers prophetic, powerfully argued, unsentimentally lyrical. From her "The book you hold in your hands is a tool for the future -- a future also in your hands." •
Edna Acosta-Belén • Carol J. Adams • Margot Adler • Natalie Angier • Ellen Appel-Bronstein • Mary Baird • Brenda Berkman • Christine E. Bose • Kathy Boudin • Ellen Bravo • Vednita Carter • Wendy Chavkin • Kimberlé Crenshaw • Gail Dines • Paula DiPerna • Helen Drusine • Andrea Dworkin • Eve Ensler • Barbara Findlen • Mary Foley • Patricia Friend • Theresa Funiciello • Carol Gilligan • Sara K. Gould • Ana Grossman The Guerrilla Girls • Beverly Guy-Sheftall • Kathleen Hanna • Laura Hershey • Anita Hill • Florence Howe • Donna M. Hughes • Karla Jay • Mae C. Jemison • Carol Jenkins • Claudia J. Kennedy • Alice Kessler-Harris Clara Sue Kidwell • Frances Kissling • Sandy Lerner • Suzanne Braun Levine • Barbara Macdonald • Catharine A. MacKinnon Jane Roland Martin • Debra Michals • Robin Morgan Jessica Neuwirth • Judy Norsigian • Eleanor Holmes Norton • Grace Paley • Emma Peters-Axtell Cynthia Rich Amy Richards • Cecile Richards Carolyn Sachs • Marianne Schnall • Pat Schroeder • Patricia Silverthorn • Eleanor Smeal Roslyn D. Smith Gloria Steinem Mary Thom • Jasmine Victoria • Faye Wattleton • Marie Wilson • Helen Zia
640 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 2003
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769 people want to read
About the author
Robin Morgan
151 books109 followersAn award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor, and best-selling author, Robin Morgan has published 20 books, including the now-classic anthologies
Sisterhood Is Powerful
(Random House, 1970) and
Sisterhood Is Global
(Doubleday, l984; updated edition, The Feminist Press, 1996); with the recent
Sisterhood Is Forever
(Washington Square Press, 2003). A leader in contemporary US feminism, she has also played an influential role internationally in the women’s movement for more than 25 years.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
An invited speaker at every major university in North America, Morgan has traveled — as organizer, lecturer, journalist — across Europe, to Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Central America, China, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Nepal, New Zealand, Pacific Island nations, the Philippines, and South Africa; she has twice (1986 and 1989) spent months in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza, reporting on the conditions of women.
Her books include the novels Dry Your Smile (Doubleday, l987) and The Mer-Child A Legend for Children and Other Adults (Feminist Press, 1991); nonfiction Going Too Far (Random House, 1977), The Word of a Woman (Norton, 1992, 2nd ed. 1994), and The Anatomy of Freedom (Norton, 1994). Her work has been translated into 13 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Russian, and Sanskrit. Recent books include the poetry anthologies Upstairs in the Garden (1994) and A Hot January (both Norton), as well as the memoir Saturday's Child (Norton, 2000), and her best-selling nonfiction piece The Demon Lover - The Roots of Terrorism (Norton, 1989—2nd ed. with a new introduction and afterword (Washington Square Press, 2001). Her novel on the Inquisition — The Burning Time — was published in 2006 (Melville House), and Fighting Words A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right in 2006 (Nation Books).
As founder and president of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute and co-founder and board member of The Women’s Media Center, she has co-founded and serves on the boards of many women’s organizations in the US and abroad. In 1990, as editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, she relaunched the magazine as an international, award-winning, ad-free bimonthly, resigning in late 1993 to become consulting global editor. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Prize for poetry, and numerous other honors, she lives in New York City.
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June 10, 2015It's been a while since I read something that feels as academic as this does. Feels good. I'm gonna be doing a lot of over-my-head-fist-pumping in the upcoming weeks.
July 14, 2025
THE THIRD ANTHOLOGY OF THIS SERIES OF FEMINIST ESSAYS
Editor Robin Morgan wrote in the introduction to this 2003 book, “The U.S. Women’s Movement is in a sense the victim of its own success: our accomplishments, while almost never construed to feminism, are construed as negating the NEED for feminism… We enjoy a renaissance in feminist writing: literature, political theory, scholarly research. But with ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ now available only in hard-to-find copies, there is no ‘entry’ book, no ‘primer,’ no composite mural of the vastness that now comprises U.S. feminism(s). And there’s no single, trustworthy, populist, portable resource that offers women---and men of conscience---the multifaceted truths about where we’ve been, are now, and are going. This book aims to meet that need.” (Pg. xvii)
She continues, “In 1984, my second Sisterhood anthology, ‘Sisterhood is Global’… came out… I’ve been asked the so-called secret of these anthologies, what fosters their popularity and unusual longevity, why many regard them as ‘definitive.’ … there’s no secret… the components are simple: (1) commissioning brand-new articles from a deliberately audacious mix of voices: famous through moderately known to virtually unknown contributors; (2) being broadly inclusive so as to be representative… (3) respecting---in fact celebrating---the PERSONAL voice and experience of each contributor: her humor, passion, anger, and the integrity of her unique perspective; (4) nurturing each piece via the editing process to forge its information and energy into a bridge between the contributor’s reality and the reader’s, toward an electrifying moment of recognition---what elsewhere I’ve termed the ‘You, TOO?’ Epiphany…
“Like ‘Sisterhood is Powerful, this collection focuses on the U.S. Women’s Movement and its multiple constituencies… a mere updating of ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ couldn’t possibly suffice. A new, American ‘Sisterhood,’ for today and the future, was needed. And it IS needed, because contemporary feminism is here to STAY.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
She goes on, “We’ve spent almost forty years building a vital, alternate feminist ‘establishment’---visionaries, theorists, organizers, leaders, and activists who’ve created and solidified concepts and institutions that have profoundly transformed the ways Americans live, how we perceive ourselves and the world. The contents page lists many of these well-known women, addressing and updating specific subjects with which they’re most associated through years of activism. But fresh feminist definitions are also bursting forth from younger women, teenagers, and girls; these voices---enthusiastic, determined, sometimes surprising---are proudly featured here. The energy of dialogue hums across these pages, a communication spanning not only race, ethnicity, age, class, and sexual preference/orientation differences, but among such previously ignored, silenced, or marginalized constituencies as disabled women, old women, women on welfare, women in prison, and prostituted women fighting sexual slavery.” (Pg. xix-xx)
She summarizes, “Here… are some signs of progress hard-won by American women. Here, too, is some evidence of why we’ll be ‘post-feminist’ only when we’re ‘post-patriarchy.’ *In 1970, when ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ was published, one woman was in the Senate and 12 were in the House of Representatives. At this writing, a record 13 women sit in the Senate… and … 60 sit in the House… *In 1970, the number of women Supreme Court Justices was zero; currently it’s two out of nine… *In 1970, women earned 59.4 cents to every dollar men earned; today, overall, women earn 76%... *Unionized women earn 31% more than non-union women, but while women constitute almost 40% of trade-union members worldwide, only 1% of trade-union leaders are women… *… Over half of all personal wealth in the United States is now held under women’s names… but less than 7% of grants from traditional funding sources go to programs for women and girls…*… Approximately 90% of lead characters in educational TV are male---as are 87% of experts cited on public affairs news programs, and 80% of the decision-making characters in top films… *There’s been major progress in sports, thanks to feminist agitation… Billie Jean King, and … Title IX…” (Pg. xx-xxiv)
Kimberlé Crenshaw begins her essay, “I hope to inspire greater attention to the interactive effects of discrimination. My focus on the intersection of race and gender is merely illustrative; I don’t mean to imply that the framework is exclusive to race and gender, or that race and gender are the
exclusive intersections that illumine conditions raised by women of color.” (Pg. 43)
Andrea Dworkin observes, “there is still a war going on against women, and the violence of that war is overwhelming… The husband batters; the uncle molests; the father rapes; strangers attack with words and fists… the wife is hit repeatedly until fear is all she knows. The prostitute is made to enact particularly degraded sex. Pornography is the story, in words and pictures, of violent conquest and petty hate. In pornography, the real woman… is the woman as stranger alienated from the human. Violence against women is both systematic and random.” (Pg. 61)
Carol Gilligan suggests, “It is hard to resist the impression that psychology is catching up with feminism, and with a long line of artists and writers. More than 30 years ago… Naomi Watts deconstructed a psychology that had construed patriarchy as nature. In a devastating critique, she exposed the fallacy of turning a patriarchal ‘is’ into a psychological ‘ought,’ and underscored the dangers of bestowing scientific authority on patriarchal norms and values. Throughout the 1970s, the feminist analysis of the field cleared the way for a new psychology.” (Pg. 95)
Gloria Steinem points out, “if we don’t learn to use the media, mainstream and alternate, global and local---and by ‘use’ I mean monitor, infiltrate, replace, protest, teach with, create our own, whatever the situation demands---we will not only be invisible in the present, but absent from history’s first draft.” (Pg. 103)
Karla Jay acknowledges, “sometimes I worry that the push for [same sex] marriage, which started in Hawaii, has been machinated by lawyers eager for additional divorce clients. Gone are the days when the greatest difficulties for lesbians contemplating separation were custody and visiting-rights issues pertaining to the jointly adopted cats.” (Pg. 213)
Catharine A. MacKinnon states, “Women seeking change for women have found that all these consequences and possibilities cannot be left to those elite men who have traditionally dominated in and through law, shaping its structures and animating attitudes to guarantee the supremacy of men as a group over women in social life. Women who work with law have learned that, while a legal change may not always make a social change, sometimes it helps, and law unchanged can make social change impossible.” (Pg. 447)
Amy Richards and Marianne Schnall state, ‘When Internet communications technologies were in their infancy, they were described as ‘new media,’ obscuring Internet capability for being more than just a new way to access news and events. The Internet does provide some media unique to it, but its real power lies in its ability to interconnect people and ideas, as its name implies. Misunderstanding it merely as ‘new media’ means we’ve missed its capacity to be a dynamic source for networking and activism. It might be more appropriate to call it a new MEDIUM, a new MEANS toward feminism’s goals.” (Pg. 517-518)
This outstanding anthology will be of great interest to all feminists, and nearly all women (and sympathetic men!).
Editor Robin Morgan wrote in the introduction to this 2003 book, “The U.S. Women’s Movement is in a sense the victim of its own success: our accomplishments, while almost never construed to feminism, are construed as negating the NEED for feminism… We enjoy a renaissance in feminist writing: literature, political theory, scholarly research. But with ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ now available only in hard-to-find copies, there is no ‘entry’ book, no ‘primer,’ no composite mural of the vastness that now comprises U.S. feminism(s). And there’s no single, trustworthy, populist, portable resource that offers women---and men of conscience---the multifaceted truths about where we’ve been, are now, and are going. This book aims to meet that need.” (Pg. xvii)
She continues, “In 1984, my second Sisterhood anthology, ‘Sisterhood is Global’… came out… I’ve been asked the so-called secret of these anthologies, what fosters their popularity and unusual longevity, why many regard them as ‘definitive.’ … there’s no secret… the components are simple: (1) commissioning brand-new articles from a deliberately audacious mix of voices: famous through moderately known to virtually unknown contributors; (2) being broadly inclusive so as to be representative… (3) respecting---in fact celebrating---the PERSONAL voice and experience of each contributor: her humor, passion, anger, and the integrity of her unique perspective; (4) nurturing each piece via the editing process to forge its information and energy into a bridge between the contributor’s reality and the reader’s, toward an electrifying moment of recognition---what elsewhere I’ve termed the ‘You, TOO?’ Epiphany…
“Like ‘Sisterhood is Powerful, this collection focuses on the U.S. Women’s Movement and its multiple constituencies… a mere updating of ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ couldn’t possibly suffice. A new, American ‘Sisterhood,’ for today and the future, was needed. And it IS needed, because contemporary feminism is here to STAY.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
She goes on, “We’ve spent almost forty years building a vital, alternate feminist ‘establishment’---visionaries, theorists, organizers, leaders, and activists who’ve created and solidified concepts and institutions that have profoundly transformed the ways Americans live, how we perceive ourselves and the world. The contents page lists many of these well-known women, addressing and updating specific subjects with which they’re most associated through years of activism. But fresh feminist definitions are also bursting forth from younger women, teenagers, and girls; these voices---enthusiastic, determined, sometimes surprising---are proudly featured here. The energy of dialogue hums across these pages, a communication spanning not only race, ethnicity, age, class, and sexual preference/orientation differences, but among such previously ignored, silenced, or marginalized constituencies as disabled women, old women, women on welfare, women in prison, and prostituted women fighting sexual slavery.” (Pg. xix-xx)
She summarizes, “Here… are some signs of progress hard-won by American women. Here, too, is some evidence of why we’ll be ‘post-feminist’ only when we’re ‘post-patriarchy.’ *In 1970, when ‘Sisterhood is Powerful’ was published, one woman was in the Senate and 12 were in the House of Representatives. At this writing, a record 13 women sit in the Senate… and … 60 sit in the House… *In 1970, the number of women Supreme Court Justices was zero; currently it’s two out of nine… *In 1970, women earned 59.4 cents to every dollar men earned; today, overall, women earn 76%... *Unionized women earn 31% more than non-union women, but while women constitute almost 40% of trade-union members worldwide, only 1% of trade-union leaders are women… *… Over half of all personal wealth in the United States is now held under women’s names… but less than 7% of grants from traditional funding sources go to programs for women and girls…*… Approximately 90% of lead characters in educational TV are male---as are 87% of experts cited on public affairs news programs, and 80% of the decision-making characters in top films… *There’s been major progress in sports, thanks to feminist agitation… Billie Jean King, and … Title IX…” (Pg. xx-xxiv)
Kimberlé Crenshaw begins her essay, “I hope to inspire greater attention to the interactive effects of discrimination. My focus on the intersection of race and gender is merely illustrative; I don’t mean to imply that the framework is exclusive to race and gender, or that race and gender are the
exclusive intersections that illumine conditions raised by women of color.” (Pg. 43)
Andrea Dworkin observes, “there is still a war going on against women, and the violence of that war is overwhelming… The husband batters; the uncle molests; the father rapes; strangers attack with words and fists… the wife is hit repeatedly until fear is all she knows. The prostitute is made to enact particularly degraded sex. Pornography is the story, in words and pictures, of violent conquest and petty hate. In pornography, the real woman… is the woman as stranger alienated from the human. Violence against women is both systematic and random.” (Pg. 61)
Carol Gilligan suggests, “It is hard to resist the impression that psychology is catching up with feminism, and with a long line of artists and writers. More than 30 years ago… Naomi Watts deconstructed a psychology that had construed patriarchy as nature. In a devastating critique, she exposed the fallacy of turning a patriarchal ‘is’ into a psychological ‘ought,’ and underscored the dangers of bestowing scientific authority on patriarchal norms and values. Throughout the 1970s, the feminist analysis of the field cleared the way for a new psychology.” (Pg. 95)
Gloria Steinem points out, “if we don’t learn to use the media, mainstream and alternate, global and local---and by ‘use’ I mean monitor, infiltrate, replace, protest, teach with, create our own, whatever the situation demands---we will not only be invisible in the present, but absent from history’s first draft.” (Pg. 103)
Karla Jay acknowledges, “sometimes I worry that the push for [same sex] marriage, which started in Hawaii, has been machinated by lawyers eager for additional divorce clients. Gone are the days when the greatest difficulties for lesbians contemplating separation were custody and visiting-rights issues pertaining to the jointly adopted cats.” (Pg. 213)
Catharine A. MacKinnon states, “Women seeking change for women have found that all these consequences and possibilities cannot be left to those elite men who have traditionally dominated in and through law, shaping its structures and animating attitudes to guarantee the supremacy of men as a group over women in social life. Women who work with law have learned that, while a legal change may not always make a social change, sometimes it helps, and law unchanged can make social change impossible.” (Pg. 447)
Amy Richards and Marianne Schnall state, ‘When Internet communications technologies were in their infancy, they were described as ‘new media,’ obscuring Internet capability for being more than just a new way to access news and events. The Internet does provide some media unique to it, but its real power lies in its ability to interconnect people and ideas, as its name implies. Misunderstanding it merely as ‘new media’ means we’ve missed its capacity to be a dynamic source for networking and activism. It might be more appropriate to call it a new MEDIUM, a new MEANS toward feminism’s goals.” (Pg. 517-518)
This outstanding anthology will be of great interest to all feminists, and nearly all women (and sympathetic men!).
August 3, 2009
I really enjoyed some of the pieces in this anthology, but others offered nothing new or particularly insightful.
June 1, 2014
Changed my life.
January 22, 2018
excellent compilation although could be a little more intersectional.
June 18, 2007
a little too colloquial for my taste...more of a women's empowerment anthology than a piece of academic writing.
January 1, 2015
A Beautiful book. A soecial thanks to Jocelyn Glaze for introducing me to this amazing book.
September 5, 2008
thanks, brooke!
Read
January 15, 2010essays,women's studies
August 29, 2012
An interesting collection of diverse perspectives on women's issues in the US.
March 1, 2012
i read the old one
found second-hand
it was amazing
found second-hand
it was amazing
January 18, 2013
A great selection of readings for anyone beginning to explore women's studies or feminism, or even just being a woman.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews