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Women's words: The feminist practice of oral history
Women’s Sludres ht. Printed in the USA.
Forum.
Vol. 16, No. I, pp. 83-92, 1993
0277.5395/93 $6.00 + .oO Copyright 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd.
BOOK REVIEWS
WOMEN’SWORDS:
THEFEMINISTPRACTICEOFORAL HISTORY,edited by Sherna Berger Cluck and Daphne
women. In “A Third World Woman’s Text,” Claudia Salazar deconstructs and interprets the well-known oral history, I. . . Rigoberta Menchu, to show how Guatemalian Indian civil rights organizer Rigoberta symbolically re-appropriated “the private as public” in order “to construct a new social identity for the Indians” and lay “a ground for political struggle” (p. 96). Part III addresses various “dilemmas and contradictions.” To the question “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” Judith Stacey responds “that, while there cannot be a fully feminist ethnography, there can be (indeed there are) ethnographies that are partially feminist” (p. 117). She warns, however, “that ethnographic method exposes subjects to far greater danger and exploitation than do more positivist, abstract, and ‘masculinist’ research methods” (p. 114). Sondra Hale’s “Feminist Method, Process, and Self-Criticism” evolved from her interviews withSudanese women over 29 years. She discovered that Women’s Union leader Fatma Ahmed Ibrahim, who helped to overthrow the military dictatorship in 1985, “is not a ‘feminist’ in the ways that many Western feminists understand the word” (p. 127). Instead, Fatma “seemed nondemocratic or patronizing tosisters in the organization, and ward . . . competitors, working-class or peasant women”(p. 128). 1n”U.S. Academics and Third World Women,” Daphne Patai examines whether research can be ethical, drawing on her 60 interviews with Brazilian women. She concludes that “even ‘feminist’ research too easily tends to reproduce the very inequalities and hierarchies it seeks to reveal and to transform” (p. 149), since a researcher usually obtains greater rewards for publishing a book based on oral memoirs than do the’narrators. Part IV examines the ways in which community studies lessen the distance between academicians and narrators. In “Testimony, Action Research, and Empowerment,” Rina Benmayor describes how the Spanish-language adult literacy program introduced in 1984 in East Harlem empowered Puerto Rican Women “by creating a space for testimony” (p. 172). In “Confronting the Demons of Feminist Public History,” Laurie Mercier and Mary Murphy describe the problems and rewards experienced by five women scholars who collaborated in the 1987 oral history project and publication, Molders & Shapers: Montana Women as Community Builders. In “Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges.” Karen Olson and Linda Shopes discuss the; community-based oral history projects, respectively, Olson’s ethnographic project exploring “class, race, and gender in the steelmaking community of Dundalk, Maryland” (p. 190) and Shopes’s study of how Baltimore canneries “shaped among” Polish women “an identity that was simultaneously female, working-class, and ethnic” (p. 193). They also sought to equalize “the interview encounter” by affirming “certain commonalities-a shared social milieu, common ethnic bonds, similar life experiences” (p. 196) and by pledging to serve as “citizen-scholar-activists” (p. 201). In “Advocacy Oral History,” Sherna Berger Cluck studied “the expression of Palestinian ‘women’s con-
Patai, 234 pages. Routledge, New York and London. 1991. Cloth, US $39.50 and paper $14.95. Sherna Berger Cluck, program at California
coordinator of the oral history State University and author of Rosie the Riveter Revisited (1987), and Daphne Patai, Professor of Women’s Studies and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of Brazilian Women Speak (1988), have brought together 13 stimulating essays authored or co-authored by 16 contributors, ranging from doctoral candidates to established scholars. A pioneering study, Women’s Words reveals both traditional oral history’s methodological limitations and the pitfalls of “a single feminist methodology” (p. 2). The editors also caution against “the innocent assumptions that gender united women more powerfully than race and class divided them, and that the mere study of women fulfilled a commitment to do research ‘about’ women” (p. 2). Scholar/interviewers should “engage in self-critical examination” and “develop a range of models” for their research (p. 222). Part I focuses on how gender shapes “language and communication.” In “Learning to Listen,” Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack discuss their research, respectively, on farming women in northwest Washington state and “on depression among women and on moral reasoning among practicing attorneys” (p. 18). Anderson recognizes that her initial interview techniques overemphasized women’s activities and factual information at the expense of their subjective perceptions and spontaneous comments. Kristina Minister argues for “A Feminist Frame for the Oral History Interview,” since girls use communication to establish “equality and intimacy in relatively small and private groups,” while boys use it to contest “dominance in hierarchally structured groups that are public and relatively large” (p. 30). The interview process becomes more complex with the addition of race, says Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, in “Black Women’s Life Stories.” Because of their membership in “two oppressed groups” (p. 55), African Americans and women, the black professional women she interviewed had to develop “a self-concept” that could “regenerate” their “selfesteem“ (p. 54). Part II explores the themes of “authority and interpretation.” In “‘That’s Not What I Said,“’ Katherine Borland acknowledges the conflict created by her interjection of “contemporary feminist conceptions of patriarchal structures” (p.69) into her grandmother’s Bangor, Maine “racetrack story” (p. 73), at which she had bet on a horse that had bested her own father’s choice. Borland then negotiated with her grandmother a mutually acceptable interpretation of the incident. In “Narrative Structures, Social Models, and Symbolic Representation in the Life Story.” Marie-Francoise Chanfrault-Duchet uses an interdisciplinary method drawing on narratology and textual analysis to explore “the socio-symbolic contents” (p. 90) of the lives of two working class French83
84
Book Reviews
sciousness’ within the context of the intifada and the nationalist movement, and” examined “feminist consciousness, among women at the grass roots level” (p. 207). A long-standing opponent of Zionist expansionism, she endeavors “to educate the feminist public in the United States on the Palestinian question” (p. 206). In conclusion, Women’s Words admirably achieves its purposes: documenting the need to record women’s life stories; and demonstrating the effectiveness of various approaches, informed by a feminist perspective and rooted in such disciplines as anthropology, history, folklore, literature, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and speech communication. MARCIAG.SYNOTT DEPARTMENTOFHISTORY UNIVERSITYOFSOUTHCAROLINA COLUMBIA,SC,USA
ABORTION:A POSITIVE DECISION, by Patricia Lunneborg, 194 pages. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Westport, CT, 1992. Cloth, $19.95. Patricia Lunneborg has written a well-researched, easyto-read book that provides a new perspective on abortion and its impact on women. Her positive approach to the issue is energizing and highly recommended for everyone involved in the pro-choice movement. The author dedicates her book to three audienceswomen who have faced the abortion decision; those who work with women seeking abortions; and women seeking information to make a decision about having an abortion. I would highly recommend the entire book to the first two groups and add anyone in the pro-choice movement, but I would only recommend chapters 3-10 to those women currently facing a decision about an unplanned pregnancy and seeking a self-help counseling book. The other three chapters in the book would not be relevant to their decision. The author weaves together research findings, her own experiences, and most importantly bits of 100 interviews she had both with women who have had abortions and with abortion providers. She interviewed a wide cross section of women from a variety of races, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds who had experienced legal and illegal abortions. Her extensive use of quotes from these women provides a very personal and positive perspective on one of the most important issues in a woman’s life-whether or not to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term. Each of the book’s 11 chapters could stand alone as a wealth of information and new perspectives on the issue of abortion. Chapter 1 contains the basic premise of the book told through the personal stories of a wide variety of women. The author makes a compelling case that the primary reason women seek abortion at any age is simply because they didn’t want to bring an unwanted child into the world. She also found that having an abortion is often a positive milestone in women’s lives because it is often the first time they made a major decision about their lives; the experience gives them new strengths and perspectives. Chapter 2 makes the point that despite legislative and judicial anti-choice attacks women continue to seek abortions as they have throughout time.
Chapter 3 is highly recommended for women seeking to make a decision about whether to have an abortion. The chapter outlines the reasons why women have abortions and contains excellent advice about how to make a good decision. Chapter 4 is the most thought-provoking and useful chapter and should be read by all pro-choice people. Entitled “Abortion is Something to Talk About,” the author makes the powerful argument that we need to talk about abortion and not be afraid or ashamed of it if we are to counter the anti-choice rhetoric we have come to fear. She states that talking about abortion as a positive decision will help women to share their own experiences and realize they are not alone. Lunneborg states this is the most effective tool to change society’s attitudes, garner public support, and educate society about the real reason women seek abortions-so they won’t bring unwanted children into the world. Chapter 5 uses detailed quotes from women to describe the self-evaluation process that occurs in counseling prior to and after their abortion. The emphasis is on how women in making the decision to have an abortion reassess their life plan and future. Chapter 6 focuses on the positive consequences of abortions for women’s mental health and explodes the post abortion syndrome myth. Citing the results of research conducted by the former U.S. Surgeon General and interviews with over 100 women she found that the vast majority of women had feelings of relief and a sense of control of their lives after having an abortion whether it was months or years ago. Chapters 7 and 8 discuss family planing and abortion and make two very important points: (a) half of the women who had abortions were using contraception that failed; and (b) a major theme in interviews with women who had abortions was that they felt a strong sense of responsibility towards having healthy and stable families for their future children; since they could not provide that option at that point in time they sought an abortion. Chapter 9 focuses on education and careers as the two most given reasons for why women were not yet ready to have an unplanned child. Chapter 10 makes a compelling case for social support for women seeking or who have had abortions. Women interviewed by the author share their experiences of having achieved improved relationships with important people in their lives after they have broken the bonds of silence and secrecy regarding their own abortions. Chapter II describes the work and experiences of three abortion providersan administrator, doctor, and nurse, with the hope that sharing their experience will recruit new workers to the field. Hopefully, the author’s uniquely positive approach to this vitally important topic will be only the first of many more. COLLEENDONALDSON STATEUNIVERSITYOFNEWYORKCOLLECEAT BROCKPORT BROCKPORT,NY, USA
YOURS IN STRUGGLE:THREE FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON ANTI-SEMITISM ANDRACISM, by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, 230 pages. Firebrand Books, Ithaca, NY, 1984, US $8.95.
Forum.
Vol. 16, No. I, pp. 83-92, 1993
0277.5395/93 $6.00 + .oO Copyright 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ltd.
BOOK REVIEWS
WOMEN’SWORDS:
THEFEMINISTPRACTICEOFORAL HISTORY,edited by Sherna Berger Cluck and Daphne
women. In “A Third World Woman’s Text,” Claudia Salazar deconstructs and interprets the well-known oral history, I. . . Rigoberta Menchu, to show how Guatemalian Indian civil rights organizer Rigoberta symbolically re-appropriated “the private as public” in order “to construct a new social identity for the Indians” and lay “a ground for political struggle” (p. 96). Part III addresses various “dilemmas and contradictions.” To the question “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” Judith Stacey responds “that, while there cannot be a fully feminist ethnography, there can be (indeed there are) ethnographies that are partially feminist” (p. 117). She warns, however, “that ethnographic method exposes subjects to far greater danger and exploitation than do more positivist, abstract, and ‘masculinist’ research methods” (p. 114). Sondra Hale’s “Feminist Method, Process, and Self-Criticism” evolved from her interviews withSudanese women over 29 years. She discovered that Women’s Union leader Fatma Ahmed Ibrahim, who helped to overthrow the military dictatorship in 1985, “is not a ‘feminist’ in the ways that many Western feminists understand the word” (p. 127). Instead, Fatma “seemed nondemocratic or patronizing tosisters in the organization, and ward . . . competitors, working-class or peasant women”(p. 128). 1n”U.S. Academics and Third World Women,” Daphne Patai examines whether research can be ethical, drawing on her 60 interviews with Brazilian women. She concludes that “even ‘feminist’ research too easily tends to reproduce the very inequalities and hierarchies it seeks to reveal and to transform” (p. 149), since a researcher usually obtains greater rewards for publishing a book based on oral memoirs than do the’narrators. Part IV examines the ways in which community studies lessen the distance between academicians and narrators. In “Testimony, Action Research, and Empowerment,” Rina Benmayor describes how the Spanish-language adult literacy program introduced in 1984 in East Harlem empowered Puerto Rican Women “by creating a space for testimony” (p. 172). In “Confronting the Demons of Feminist Public History,” Laurie Mercier and Mary Murphy describe the problems and rewards experienced by five women scholars who collaborated in the 1987 oral history project and publication, Molders & Shapers: Montana Women as Community Builders. In “Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges.” Karen Olson and Linda Shopes discuss the; community-based oral history projects, respectively, Olson’s ethnographic project exploring “class, race, and gender in the steelmaking community of Dundalk, Maryland” (p. 190) and Shopes’s study of how Baltimore canneries “shaped among” Polish women “an identity that was simultaneously female, working-class, and ethnic” (p. 193). They also sought to equalize “the interview encounter” by affirming “certain commonalities-a shared social milieu, common ethnic bonds, similar life experiences” (p. 196) and by pledging to serve as “citizen-scholar-activists” (p. 201). In “Advocacy Oral History,” Sherna Berger Cluck studied “the expression of Palestinian ‘women’s con-
Patai, 234 pages. Routledge, New York and London. 1991. Cloth, US $39.50 and paper $14.95. Sherna Berger Cluck, program at California
coordinator of the oral history State University and author of Rosie the Riveter Revisited (1987), and Daphne Patai, Professor of Women’s Studies and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of Brazilian Women Speak (1988), have brought together 13 stimulating essays authored or co-authored by 16 contributors, ranging from doctoral candidates to established scholars. A pioneering study, Women’s Words reveals both traditional oral history’s methodological limitations and the pitfalls of “a single feminist methodology” (p. 2). The editors also caution against “the innocent assumptions that gender united women more powerfully than race and class divided them, and that the mere study of women fulfilled a commitment to do research ‘about’ women” (p. 2). Scholar/interviewers should “engage in self-critical examination” and “develop a range of models” for their research (p. 222). Part I focuses on how gender shapes “language and communication.” In “Learning to Listen,” Kathryn Anderson and Dana C. Jack discuss their research, respectively, on farming women in northwest Washington state and “on depression among women and on moral reasoning among practicing attorneys” (p. 18). Anderson recognizes that her initial interview techniques overemphasized women’s activities and factual information at the expense of their subjective perceptions and spontaneous comments. Kristina Minister argues for “A Feminist Frame for the Oral History Interview,” since girls use communication to establish “equality and intimacy in relatively small and private groups,” while boys use it to contest “dominance in hierarchally structured groups that are public and relatively large” (p. 30). The interview process becomes more complex with the addition of race, says Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, in “Black Women’s Life Stories.” Because of their membership in “two oppressed groups” (p. 55), African Americans and women, the black professional women she interviewed had to develop “a self-concept” that could “regenerate” their “selfesteem“ (p. 54). Part II explores the themes of “authority and interpretation.” In “‘That’s Not What I Said,“’ Katherine Borland acknowledges the conflict created by her interjection of “contemporary feminist conceptions of patriarchal structures” (p.69) into her grandmother’s Bangor, Maine “racetrack story” (p. 73), at which she had bet on a horse that had bested her own father’s choice. Borland then negotiated with her grandmother a mutually acceptable interpretation of the incident. In “Narrative Structures, Social Models, and Symbolic Representation in the Life Story.” Marie-Francoise Chanfrault-Duchet uses an interdisciplinary method drawing on narratology and textual analysis to explore “the socio-symbolic contents” (p. 90) of the lives of two working class French83
84
Book Reviews
sciousness’ within the context of the intifada and the nationalist movement, and” examined “feminist consciousness, among women at the grass roots level” (p. 207). A long-standing opponent of Zionist expansionism, she endeavors “to educate the feminist public in the United States on the Palestinian question” (p. 206). In conclusion, Women’s Words admirably achieves its purposes: documenting the need to record women’s life stories; and demonstrating the effectiveness of various approaches, informed by a feminist perspective and rooted in such disciplines as anthropology, history, folklore, literature, psychology, sociology, linguistics, and speech communication. MARCIAG.SYNOTT DEPARTMENTOFHISTORY UNIVERSITYOFSOUTHCAROLINA COLUMBIA,SC,USA
ABORTION:A POSITIVE DECISION, by Patricia Lunneborg, 194 pages. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Westport, CT, 1992. Cloth, $19.95. Patricia Lunneborg has written a well-researched, easyto-read book that provides a new perspective on abortion and its impact on women. Her positive approach to the issue is energizing and highly recommended for everyone involved in the pro-choice movement. The author dedicates her book to three audienceswomen who have faced the abortion decision; those who work with women seeking abortions; and women seeking information to make a decision about having an abortion. I would highly recommend the entire book to the first two groups and add anyone in the pro-choice movement, but I would only recommend chapters 3-10 to those women currently facing a decision about an unplanned pregnancy and seeking a self-help counseling book. The other three chapters in the book would not be relevant to their decision. The author weaves together research findings, her own experiences, and most importantly bits of 100 interviews she had both with women who have had abortions and with abortion providers. She interviewed a wide cross section of women from a variety of races, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds who had experienced legal and illegal abortions. Her extensive use of quotes from these women provides a very personal and positive perspective on one of the most important issues in a woman’s life-whether or not to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term. Each of the book’s 11 chapters could stand alone as a wealth of information and new perspectives on the issue of abortion. Chapter 1 contains the basic premise of the book told through the personal stories of a wide variety of women. The author makes a compelling case that the primary reason women seek abortion at any age is simply because they didn’t want to bring an unwanted child into the world. She also found that having an abortion is often a positive milestone in women’s lives because it is often the first time they made a major decision about their lives; the experience gives them new strengths and perspectives. Chapter 2 makes the point that despite legislative and judicial anti-choice attacks women continue to seek abortions as they have throughout time.
Chapter 3 is highly recommended for women seeking to make a decision about whether to have an abortion. The chapter outlines the reasons why women have abortions and contains excellent advice about how to make a good decision. Chapter 4 is the most thought-provoking and useful chapter and should be read by all pro-choice people. Entitled “Abortion is Something to Talk About,” the author makes the powerful argument that we need to talk about abortion and not be afraid or ashamed of it if we are to counter the anti-choice rhetoric we have come to fear. She states that talking about abortion as a positive decision will help women to share their own experiences and realize they are not alone. Lunneborg states this is the most effective tool to change society’s attitudes, garner public support, and educate society about the real reason women seek abortions-so they won’t bring unwanted children into the world. Chapter 5 uses detailed quotes from women to describe the self-evaluation process that occurs in counseling prior to and after their abortion. The emphasis is on how women in making the decision to have an abortion reassess their life plan and future. Chapter 6 focuses on the positive consequences of abortions for women’s mental health and explodes the post abortion syndrome myth. Citing the results of research conducted by the former U.S. Surgeon General and interviews with over 100 women she found that the vast majority of women had feelings of relief and a sense of control of their lives after having an abortion whether it was months or years ago. Chapters 7 and 8 discuss family planing and abortion and make two very important points: (a) half of the women who had abortions were using contraception that failed; and (b) a major theme in interviews with women who had abortions was that they felt a strong sense of responsibility towards having healthy and stable families for their future children; since they could not provide that option at that point in time they sought an abortion. Chapter 9 focuses on education and careers as the two most given reasons for why women were not yet ready to have an unplanned child. Chapter 10 makes a compelling case for social support for women seeking or who have had abortions. Women interviewed by the author share their experiences of having achieved improved relationships with important people in their lives after they have broken the bonds of silence and secrecy regarding their own abortions. Chapter II describes the work and experiences of three abortion providersan administrator, doctor, and nurse, with the hope that sharing their experience will recruit new workers to the field. Hopefully, the author’s uniquely positive approach to this vitally important topic will be only the first of many more. COLLEENDONALDSON STATEUNIVERSITYOFNEWYORKCOLLECEAT BROCKPORT BROCKPORT,NY, USA
YOURS IN STRUGGLE:THREE FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON ANTI-SEMITISM ANDRACISM, by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, 230 pages. Firebrand Books, Ithaca, NY, 1984, US $8.95.