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review 2016-10-06 15:46
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Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Pr... Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee,To Be Announced

This is not a call to action, as I had originally thought it was. It is a memoir of a life in successful activism. It recounts how humble beginnings could grow into far reaching accomplishments. It doesn't appear to pull any punches when it comes to the circumstances that this woman and many of the other people in her country were living in before the women decided that it was enough and organized their own, peaceful, action.

This is yet another example of how peace can be active and peaceful protest and actions can lead to far greater things than fighting. It's also honest about the aftermath of war, and this is an area that many people forget about. It's easy to say the war is over and we must bring our people home, but it's hard to realize that you are leaving a shattered generation who aren't familiar with things that are not violent. It mentions the ways that peace builders can further victimize the women of a post-war country and the ways that these countries must build much of their own peace. It's a long and hard road back to a feeling secure and building futures. I hope to one day see a sequel that recounts the ways that they fully recuperated and the things that they did. Unfortunately, I realize how unrealistic it is to think that this can happen any time soon. Wounds take far longer to heal than they take to create.

This is a powerful book. It definitely makes me feel like I can do far more than I've dreamed while contrasting with an overwhelming feelings that I will never do enough. Mentioning many of the sacrifices in her personal life, though, Gbowee makes it clear that it is a hard life to continue to choose. You have to decide everyday if what you are doing is worth the sacrifice of time with your own family. Hopefully they grow to appreciate what you've done for the bigger picture.

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url 2016-09-13 13:30
Top Ten Favorite Women's Memoirs
Mighty be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Malala Yousafzai, With Christina Lamb
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth - Sojourner Truth,Olive Gilbert
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir - Felicia Day
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Yes Please - Amy Poehler
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling
The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING; Or, Why I'm Never Getting All That Glitter Off of the Dog - Jen Lancaster
I Have Iraq in My Shoe: Misadventures of a Soldier of Fashion - Gretchen Berg
Brown Girl Dreaming - Jacqueline Woodson

This weeks Top Ten Tuesday, a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books Of X Genre (I know, I know. Picking all time faves. I'm MEAN. But I like knowing people's definitive faves). Can also break it down into sub-genre if that helps?

My favorite genre is Science Fiction, but one could hardly ask me to pick favorites there. I decided instead to do my favorite of the memoirs that I've read. My full list of memoirs are here, with some biography and anthologies of women sprinkled in.

 

Click here for the original post! 

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text 2016-04-12 17:00
TTT: Top Ten Herstory books every new feminist should read
The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace - Lynn Povich
At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power - Danielle L. McGuire
The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution - Jonathan Eig
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Christina Lamb,Malala Yousafzai
Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Dover Thrift Editions) - Sojourner Truth,Olive Gilbert
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots - Deborah Feldman
Fragments Of Gender - Lisa Lees
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee
Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World - Rachel Swaby
Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women - Catherine Thimmesh,Melissa Sweet

This is my first Top Ten Tuesday! 

I've always been a bit of a history nerd, but as I became comfortable with calling myself a feminist, I realized I didn't know nearly enough about women in history. Or women's accomplishments in general. Or about people who don't identify as women or men. Or that people even existed that didn't identify as women or men. Or how bad the struggle still is all around the world. 

As I delved into feminist ideology, I also found the herstory genre. Here are my top ten herstory books for new (or any) feminists!

 

  1. The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace - Lynn Povich  This was a great one for me becaue I have always thought of myself as a good girl too. I don't want anything special, just not to be held back by someone else's antiquated ideas about what I'm capable of. These girls loved their jobs and where they were working, they just wanted to be treated fairly and they were willing to go after that together. Loved it!
  2. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power - Danielle L. McGuire  I had learned a lot of the things covered in this book in Black History Month specials in middle and elementary school, but history just wasn't real to me back then. Of course, all these stories also get sanitized for children in schools so it's never as poignant as it should be. By the time we get to high school, we can recite the key points but it almost feels too late to actually digest and understand it. Then I read this book and it was like I heard it for the first time. More than the key points, this is a peak behind the curtain. It all finally made sense in a way that I never thought it could. 
  3. The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution - Jonathan Eig I'd had no idea how bad it was before the mighty pill. I took it for granted. That'll never happen again. There are just too many things that we don't have to deal with or worry about or can take a stand against now that I can't even begin to explain the impact that little pill has made. Reading about it coming to fruition was fascinating. 
  4. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Christina Lamb,Malala Yousafzai I have been in awe of Malala since I first heard her story. She is an amazing young woman who has already done more with her life than most. What do you do after being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize? I can't wait to find out.
  5. Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Dover Thrift Editions) - Sojourner Truth,Olive Gilbert  I had heard the name of Sojourner Truth countless times. I knew it from those same February showcases mentioned above. I just never knew much about her. It wasn't until I listened to one of the many famous actresses recite her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech that I realized I had to read her narrative. I love that speech. You can find it here, read by my favorite of the actresses who has done so. 
  6. Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots - Deborah Feldman I never knew much about Hasidic Jews but this had sounded interesting when I first saw it and it was. I know it isn't the picture of modern Jewish life and probably doesn't paint the kindest of pictures about being a Hasidic Jew, but it was still interesting to read about a world that was so foreign and yet not so far from where I am. 
  7. Fragments Of Gender - Lisa Lees This is a collection of essays that explore life along the gender spectrum, rather than stuck on one side of it or the other. I knew relatively little about transgender and non-binary gendered people, so this was a revelation at just the right time. Don't get me wrong, I still don't have all the answers and make faux pas around people about this sort of thing, but I know more than the average cisgendered person, I think. I hope. I'm still learning, but as I said at the beginning, this was a great place to start. It gave me that first idea about what people went through and that was invaluable. 
  8. Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee  Another Nobel Laureate, Gbowee has accomplished great feats by what seems like sheer will. She is amazing beyond belief and hearing her story was remarkable. She just understands so much about everything, especially healing. If you have ever doubted what women could be capable of if we just stuck together, pick up this book! 
  9. Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World - Rachel Swaby I LOVE a good anthology! I've even talked about it a few Femme Fridays ago. The thing about these anthologies is that they prove that while we may not have been prevalent, we have always been present in STEM and war and other places some say we don't belong. This book has one woman for every week to learn about that did great things in science. I tore through it much faster than that, though. It's one of my favorites. 

 

Ok, I only had nine of my herstory books that I could honestly put on this list. The others that are on my shelf are good, but I don't feel like they exemplify parts of the experience quite the same way these do. While I strive for diversity in my reading, I also realized that I don't reach all groups. 

I had hoped to read Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women by the time of this post, but it wasn't meant to be. I connected it anyway because what I saw in the table of contents led me to believe that I'll wish I had when I do get to read it. 

 

For more Top Ten Tuesday posts, check out the originator The Broke and the Bookish!

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review 2013-06-14 00:00
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee,Carol Mithers 10 stars for her and her story, but three for the memoir itself. It may be due to the ghostwriting, but she's such an engaging and fascinating person, and the writing never quite captured that.
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review 2012-04-25 00:00
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War
Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War - Leymah Gbowee, Read by To be Announced Lemah Gbowee has come as close as it is humanly possible to staring the devil in his face. She didn't blink, lived to tell about it, and is now the co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. In this memoir she describes her journey from hopelessness to empowerment. It is a story that will touch the hearts of any reader who dreams of a better world.

This is the memoir of a woman who experienced the devastation and horror of civil war in her native Liberia. In many ways her life was broken when the war shattered her girlhood hopes and dreams. A victim of circumstances beyond her control she ended up as a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse. In 1999 she found herself utterly depressed, mother of four children, separated from the father of her children, and with no ideas for a possible future for herself and her children.

Somehow she found the strength to turn her depression and bitterness into positive action. She began to work at helping those traumatized by the war and by promoting steps toward reconciliation and forgiveness. She gradually gained the realization that it is women who suffer the most during conflicts, and that if united women are in a unique position to do something about it. "When it comes to preventing conflict or building peace, there’s a way in which women are the experts." She read about Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and she began to see the possibility of the power of women working together to create a compelling force for peace.
"I read the Politics of Jesus [by Yoder], which talked of Christ as a revolutionary, fighting injustice and giving a voice to the powerless. I read Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and the Kenyan author and conflict and reconciliation expert Hizkias Assefa, who believed that reconciliation between victim and perpetrator was the only way to really resolve conflict, especially civil conflict, in the modern world. Otherwise, Assefa wrote, both remained bound together forever, one waiting for apology or revenge, the other fearing retribution."
Driven by her growing passion for her new found cause she helped organize and led the Women In Peace Building Network (WIPNET). This organization organized a coalition of Christian and Muslim women to stage mass actions to call for an end to violence and demand that there be peace. They confronted Liberia's ruthless president and rebel warlords in ways that only the mothers of Liberia could have done without being shot on the spot.

The actions of these women is an amazing story which I first learned about one evening while TV channel surfing. I came across the movie "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," a documentary about the role of women in bringing peace to Liberia. The bravery and audacity shown by the women in this film took my breath away. If you watch the DVD be sure to also watch the "extra feature" about the making of the film. I thought it was interesting to note that the film makers at first had a difficult time finding archival film footage of the women's mass action because CNN and other American networks had ignored the actions of the women. They had tons of footage showing young kids toting Kalashnikovs, but ignored the women demonstrating for peace. The BBC did a bit better job, but some of the best footage came from a former government videographer who hid his films in his house after President Taylor fled the country.

I think almost everyone agrees now that the action of these women hastened the end of the war, and consequently reduced the amount the death, destruction and suffering. Nevertheless, the postwar conditions were devastating.
"A war of fourteen years doesn't just go away. In the moments we were calm enough to look around, we had to confront the magnitude of what had happened to Liberia. Two hundred and fifty thousand people were dead, a quarter of them children. One in three were displaced, with 350,000 living in internally displaced persons camps and the rest anywhere they could find shelter. One Million people, mostly women and children, were at risk of malnutrition, diarrhea, measles and cholera because of contamination in the wells. More than 75 percent of the country's physical infrastructure, our roads, hospitals and schools, had been destroyed."
After the war, WIPNET was very much involved in securing the peace. "Peace isn't a moment, it's a very long process." Gbowee's post-war reputation for peace building now made her in demand as a speaker at international conferences. This exposure broadened her horizons, and she began to study techniques of reconciliation and peace. She is very complimentary of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Virginia where she earned a Master's Degree in conflict transformation studies. The movie, "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," allowed the whole world to learn about the peace building activities of the women in Liberia. This book must have been written prior to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize because I don't recall any mention of it in this book.

A reader of my review thus far could perhaps conclude that Leymah Gbowee must be a saint. To her credit she included in her memoir admissions to a number of mistakes and shortcomings in her life. The details of her family life and her organizational efforts are filled with nitty gritty problems, conflicts and jealousies. Her work at peace building took all of her time so she pretty much turned over her role as mother to her children to her sister. (Her sister was the one who deserves sainthood; unfortunately she unexpectedly died at age 40 which was a devastating loss to the children in her care.) During the worst stages of the civil war Gbowee's children were out of the country, safe in Ghana, while Gbowee stayed in Liberia to work for peace.

Leymah Gbowee's website: http://leymahgbowee.com/
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