The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women's Liberation

The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women's Liberation, edited by Ann Snitow and Rachel Blau DuPlessis collects the thoughts and memories of a wide range of women who were prominent American activists and theorists (and often both) during the second wave of feminism, in the 1960s. These voices come from all elements of the movement, and together document an exciting, sometimes dangerous, and profoundly important time.

My early reaction to reading this was: "Reading this is difficult. Remembering how it was it be a female person in the 60s, how much there was to overcome, thinking of how long we have struggled, realising how much remains the same even while seeing how much has changed."

Now that I've finished, that feeling remains, but is joined by many other thoughts and feelings. Of course, because this is a collection of memories and observations about the Women's Movement in the US, much of what is recollected here is, to me, about second-hand memories. I remember reading and talking about the events these women remember being a part of, but the movement in Canada evolved differently, despite the infusion of ideas and inspiration from what was happening to the south of us. The starting points were similar, but the paths diverged and there are significant differences in what was achieved. I long to see a similar book produced that collects the experiences and thoughts of the early participants in the Canadian movement.

Nonetheless, reading this book brings back all the moments of realisation, all the nights of consciousness-raising and analysis, all the hours of reading, all the work of building a functional women's centre, of spreading ideas, of talking, talking, talking to other women, all the joy of growing liberation.

What also emerges from all these accounts, and from the various response papers solicited by the editors and published at the conclusion of the book, are the themes that recurred in the lives of these pioneering women, both positive and negative.

It's an important book, to help us remember where we've comes from, and also to see where we still need to go.

Kim Headlee: Dawnflight

For over a thousand years, people have been creating stories about King Arthur and his companions. For most of that time, the stories have centred on the deeds of the men of The Arthurian mythos (not that there haven't been women in these stories, but with a few exceptions, such as Arthur's sisters Morgana and Morgause, the main function of women in these tales has been to be the reason that the men go off and do things). In the last few decades, this has changed, as more and more writers have begun to tell stories of the women in Arthur's world, from the women's perspective. One emerging group of stories, of which Dawnflight is a fairly early example, focuses on Arthur's wife Guinevere, reimaging her as a warrior queen in her own right.

Dawnflight is the first book of a projected multi-volume series; the author, Kim Headlee, published this first volume in 1999 and has only recently brought out its first sequel. Now newly released and revised, Dawnflight follows Guinevere - here named Gyanhumara - from her upbringing to her marriage to Arthur. Gyan, as she is known, is a Pictish chieftainess, raised in a matrilineal society where power is shared between male and female; Arthur is Romano-British, from a culture in which women are rarely warriors or leaders. As the novel follows their inexorable coming together, we met many of the familiar characters of Arthurian legends, their traditional natures fleshed out and fitted into Headlee's vision of Arthur and Guinevere's world. A mixture of history, mythos and myth (the Irish hero Cuchulainn makes an appearance), it's an interesting take on the old stories and I'm looking forward to reading further volumes.