Viva la Feminista

90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow My rating: 4 of 5 stars To be called a bitch is contextual and gendered. If a woman is called a bitch in anger, it is demeaning. If a man is called one in anger, it is not just demeaning, but an attack on their masculinity. And then there are those, like myself, who embrace the term as one of strength. Sometimes women use it as a term of endearment, "You are a strong bitch!" Other times we translate the attack and flip is back to the offender, "You're damn right I'm a bitch!" But how does the word impact our daily lives and politics? From Brenda versus Kelly to Tonya versus Nancy, Allison Yarrow's careful examination of who gets called a bitch reveals why the feminist movement failed to make the progress it should have in the 1990s and its ramifications to our lives today. You may wonder how one word has so much power. That is why ...

Keep Marching: How to Take Action and Change Our World by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Keep Marching" is the book to get your friend who discovered their political outrage after the 2016 election. For a seasoned activist like myself, this book was a nice refresher on the number of issues we have to address. "Keep Marching" also gives you enough of a historical background, without being boring, to remind you even before November 2016 we had a lot of work to tackle. Rowe-Finkbeiner (whom I call a friend) is deliberate in her attempts to ensure the intersectionality of the book. It is a solid attempt that makes me comfortable recommending this book for activists of color. What really makes this book accessible is the fact that Rowe-Finkbeiner writes in a manner that makes you feel you are having coffee with a good friend who is sharing their knowledge with you. There is no sense of lecturing or "Where have yo...