Book Reviews
Jo Freeman's Book Reviews: Looking back 40 years at the National Women's Conference in Houston
Jo Freeman reviews: Leader and Hyatt look at each of the planks in the National Plan, assessing what has changed and what hasn't. Spruill pays more attention to politics, following the ways in which feminists and anti-feminists polarized party politics and presidential elections. She finds that both the Democratic and Republican parties were substantially changed by the feminist and anti-feminist blocks within them. In the 2016 election, Phyllis Schlafly endorsed Donald Trump long before he won the primaries, while organized feminism turned out the troops for Hillary Clinton. Abortion has become a litmus test in each party, and women, both feminists and anti-feminists, write the relevant planks within each party's platform.
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Culture Watch: Jo Freeman's Review of Constance Baker Motley, One Woman's Fight for Civil Rights and Equal Justice Under Law
Jo Freeman writes: Constance Baker Motley was the first black woman to be appointed as a federal judge. But it was what she did before becoming a judge that warrants this biography. For twenty years she was on the front line of the legal assault on segregation, arguing dozens of cases as the only female attorney on the staff of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. I knew Pauli Murray and I met CBM, at a conference in 1998. I would love to hear a debate between the two of them on race and gender. Ford does an excellent job of describing CBM's impressive life and work. Maybe he should write his next book on Pauli Murray. more »
Masterpiece's The Durrells+Season Two; Enjoy Reading Gerald's Triology
During the recent UK broadcast, The Telegraph (London) was delighted to find that "Corfu was still sun-drenched, the titular family of lovable eccentrics remained in perpetual chaos and ... the tone was, as before, one of warm nostalgia and deep, abiding silliness." And The Guardian (London) hailed Season 2 as "sweet, and charming, and pretty, and funny…. [It's] that rather nice thing: Sunday night family drama entertainment." more »
The Cantor Arts Center, Sally Fairchild and Sargent's Women, A New Book About the Artist
A new book about John Singer Sargent and the women he painted: "Like characters in an Edith Wharton novel, these women challenged society’s restrictions, risking public shame and ostracism. All had forbidden love affairs; Lucia bravely supported her family despite illness, while Elsie explored Spiritualism, defying her overbearing father. Finally, the headstrong Isabella outmaneuvered the richest plutocrats on the planet to create her own magnificent art museum." more »