The F-word discussion

What ideas and activities would you like to be in this group?

Better late than never! Thanks for staring this thread, LilyCat.

We've been talking about incorporating a supplementary monthly read based on topic. This would be separate / in addition to the monthly Fiction/Non-Fiction choices. Some people aren't always able to participate in those reads, and so we wanted to give an opportunity to everyone to read something based on chosen topics/themes.

To begin with, we are looking for some suggestions on feminist issues to be explored, and we would like some input from all of you!

One example for a monthly issue might be Reproductive Rights. Everyone can read something (or several somethings, depending on much time one has) that involves that topic. Thinking back through our group reads we've had already, the first that pops into my mind that fit in that theme would be This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Dr. Susan Wickland.

Our hope is that many would participate in choosing books on their own along these themes and come and discuss what they are reading with the group. Several people reading various books on a similar topic could lead to very interesting discussions! (And contribute to the ever-growing TBR mountain...)

We'll take suggestions for some feminist issues/themes here and depending on how many suggestion we get we will either open a poll for everyone to choose what our first theme will be or just use a randomizer to pick which will be first.

It would be great to be able to start in January 2017 for this, so please throw out some ideas for us to start! Don't be shy. :)

oh gee, how to pick a good topic for discussion! I'd really like to explore birth control... and by birth control I mean the history and the politics of birth control. Is this too broad of a topic for this read?

I know lots of people have thoughts and want to discuss feminist topics here, so I'd love to see what other people come up with. gender roles would be another great one, but we'd have to find some way to narrow that down I think

Hi Anita, thanks for your thoughts! I think the history and politics of birth control could be a very interesting topic. And I don't think it's too broad of a topic. I would hope people would find a variety of things to read along the topic to give us all different things to discuss.

Any other ideas from anyone else? Or should we make January's theme birth control and see if we come up for anything for February? I want to be sure people have time to find things to read if they want to participate.

I would like to read a book or two that takes a modern approach to the objectification of women; a book that incorporates 2nd, 3rd, & 4th wave feminist ideas about objectification would be interesting

Anna wrote: "I would like to read a book or two that takes a modern approach to the objectification of women; a book that incorporates 2nd, 3rd, & 4th wave feminist ideas about objectification would be interesting"

Thanks for the suggestion, Anna! I would be interested in that as well as a topic, though I admit I wouldn't know which direction to turn to find any titles. Do you have some titles in mind that would work for that theme?

Alright, for the first theme of 2017 (because it starts tomorrow!) will be the exploration of the history and politics of birth control as suggested by Anita.

I'll set up a separate thread for that.

I would still love some other ideas so we can do additional themes throughout the year, so feel free to share them here! And, Anna, if you're still out there and could help maybe narrow down your idea so I have an idea what you're interested in, that'd be great. Maybe we could do that then for February.

ETA: I've opened the thread here in Book Discussions. Hope to see you all there!

Hi everyone,
I've changed the group's profile picture to mix things up a bit and I recognize that it's not as vibrant as the other one was. My intention was to use something that was more intersectional.

Let me know if anyone has any questions or concerns.

How do we feel about the group masthead with the feminism definition? I'm not opposed to it, but feel it lacks diversity. Any suggestions? Leave it the way it is? Open to ideas here.

The person who originally started this group, I believe, is no longer on Goodreads, and the group has changed hands a few times over the years. I understand keeping the profile and masthead pics as posterity, but I'm also a fan of mixing things up a bit and seeing if that draws in others who might have felt limited or excluded by the previous image.

Seriously, share with me your thoughts. Open to ideas, suggestions, concerns, whatever ya got!

El, the profile pic is a great choice! However, the grayish color scheme makes it a bit hard to read when the picture is small.

Ying Ying wrote: "El, the profile pic is a great choice! However, the grayish color scheme makes it a bit hard to read when the picture is small."

Thanks for the suggestion! I just pulled the image from the internet, so I can't take credit for it. I did, however, trace over it with red in a basic Paint program. Not sure if that's better or worse, to be honest.

If someone can do something fancier, that'd be great.

How about 'The Pimping of Prostitution' by Julie Bindel?

Erin wrote: "How about 'The Pimping of Prostitution' by Julie Bindel?"

Hi, Erin! I'm going to add this suggestion to the nomination thread so we can include that in our votes. Thanks for the suggestion!

Not sure if this is the place and maybe this thread already exists in the group... Please let me know where it is. :-)

Since making the conscious effort to incorporate feminist reading in my life (better late than never) and I also consume a lot of media (movies, TV, books, online stuff, etc) especially with movies and read reviews, commentary I find myself critiquing things from a what I hope is a feminist point of view.

I know this is a book club and I do read the conversations even if I haven't gotten to the book yet but is there a thread where we can post a review/critique of movies, TV, other media from a feminist point of view? I even critique other reviews.

I find myself doing it but would like to find out what others think of it, how they approach it, different perspective, etc.

Thank you!

Hi, Coral. I feel we might have a thread but I can look when I am at my laptop. I know we do have a Feminist Movies thread somewhere. I have no problem with you starting a thread for that though! I think others would be interested too.

I saw the feminist thread but I wasn't going to critique feminist movies although I'm not opposed to doing it when I come across something.

I was thinking more that there aren't enough feminists on the news to offer commentary to things on a regular basis. Wouldn't that be nice. hehe I know there are some good sites that I follow.

I'm going to see a big box office movie today and when I read some of the reviews which happened to be written by men there were some issues I found.

Maybe it would be a good place to offer feminist critique on movies to make them better.

I don't know!! :-) I feel like I'm squirming around in the dark with not enough people to bounce ideas off of so I hope there are some others interested in doing this.

I'll send you a movie review next week and see what you think. Thanks El!!

Hi Anna and Coral, I like your ideas about addressing the objectification of women and big box movies. Movie and TV producers promote objectification because that's what sells. But so many women buy into the objectification that it's hard to get the traction to change it. Did you know that studies show that 90% of women aren't happy with how they look?

I think it would be interesting to look into the history of things such as pregnancy and birth. I've read a lot of clips and snippets of information about the history of midwifery, how methods of birth and pregnancy care have changed over the ages, and the origins of c-sections being in African areas, and I would enjoy going more in-depth in such subjects. It would be valuable, especially as midwives were targeted as witches, and that we lost medical information they had written or remembered that could have been hugely valuable.

Great idea, Sadie. Towards the end of the year we'll have nomination threads open for books to read for the first six months next year. (We just closed the poll for the six books for the second half of this year.) That would be a great time to share some ideas for books on pregnancy and birth. I know we read a book about birth control not too long ago, but I wasn't too fond of it personally. I'd be interested in reading about these other areas as well.

Hi,

I am wondering if we can add a feminist reading list or bookshelf for children aimed at different age groups?

My 7 year old nephew picked up Nelson Mandela's autobiography from my bookshelf and asked me who is he and what are you reading about? It had me wondering where can I find feminist reading literature for children to introduce them to complex subject matters?

I will appreciate all suggestions. Cheers.

Thank you, Laurie. Hope you are doing well.

I wanted to recommend Choice Words: Writers on Abortion as a great read. It is a literary collection so it covers many emotional, political and personal aspects of abortion stories through poems, essays and short stories. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/...

Great suggestion Dana! There's also a discussion guide available for Choice Words. I edited the book and if it is discussed here, I would be happy to do a q&a or whatever. Cheers, Annie