Harvard University Press Blog

Speaking with SpeakOut Boston

We continue our celebration of Pride Month by talking with some of the speakers who volunteer with SpeakOUT Boston. They share their stories with a variety of audiences to foster a better understanding of the LGBTQ+ community, so we thought we’d ask them some questions of our own.

What does Pride mean to you?

My very first Pride celebration was in 2016. I had just come out (at almost 60 years old) and seeing thousands of others celebrating and living their truth was simply the most amazing feeling I had ever known. I was fortunate enough to march in three more Boston Pride Parades plus two in Portland, Maine. Seeing the streets filled with allies gave me hope that things are (even though slowly) getting better, but with a long way to go.

Which writers (including novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets)—working today do you admire most?

I have a few authors or reads that stand out to me. Amy Hoffman is a local author who lives in my neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. She features queer women and her stories make you feel you know these women. Her latest novel, Dot & Ralfie, features partners facing the fears of aging. I also loved Sarah McBride’s Tomorrow Will Be Different, her memoir. Though vastly different from my own story in areas like aging, it made me recall so many of my own feelings of growing up, coming out, and transitioning.

When and why did you decide to join SpeakOUT?

I joined SpeakOUT in 2017, encouraged by a friend. I was afraid (ok, terrified) of public speaking but needed to do it. Getting up to share honestly about who I was, and to hopefully answer questions to help others to understand who we are. Becoming a trainer and helping others to do the same is incredibly rewarding.

What has been your most positive experience working with SpeakOUT?

I often run into people who have attended an engagement where we spoke. They will share how much one of our engagements helped open their eyes about not just LGBTQIA people, but other marginalized communities.

What’s one thing from your talks that you wish was more widely known?

People who hear us speak and see us answer difficult questions often become great allies, but they also pay it forward and help others learn as well. My biggest surprise was learning so much more about myself.

Gabrielle “Gabi” Morgan (she/her) is a transgender woman who came out later in life and a Boston native from the Jamaica Plain neighborhood, where she now once again resides. Gabi hid her true gender identity and was totally closeted until finally revealing her authentic self in 2016, at almost 60 years old. She immediately became active in the transgender community, volunteering with SpeakOUT, among others. She recently joined The Fenway Institute’s LGBTQIA+ Aging Project as a transgender engagement specialist, where she continues her personal journey while working to improve conditions for older transgender and gender diverse persons.

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride to me is about recognizing, developing, and celebrating my own identity as well as celebrating other people’s identities. It’s important to recognize the whole person, not just their sexual and gender identities.

Which writers (including novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets)—working today do you admire most?

I appreciate the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose work in the arts brings modern characters to life in his plays and films. He was a co-writer of the film Moonlight, among other works.

When and why did you decide to join SpeakOUT?

I joined SpeakOUT in 2012 when I attended a SpeakOUT speaker training workshop. I was motivated to participate in the training because I was in pursuit of further developing my speaking skills when I saw an intersectional opportunity between my public speaking skills and nurturing my sexual identity.

What has been your most positive experience working with SpeakOUT?

My most positive experience working with SpeakOUT is being a trainer in our speaker trainings. After each and every opportunity I have to attend a SpeakOUT training, I experience positivity from the day.

What’s one thing from your talks that you wish was more widely known?

Recognizing and protecting everyone’s identities. It’s important to know that some of us have suffered and continue to suffer because of the ignorance and abuse of those who refuse to recognize and protect certain identities.

Michael Bookman (he/him) is a transplant from South Carolina who has settled into Boston over the years. He has been involved with SpeakOUT for ten years and is a past board president and long-time training team member. He is currently a member of the SpeakOUT in Color affinity group for speakers of color in the organization.

What does Pride mean to you?

Show up as you are, and just be Proud.

Which writers (including novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets)—working today do you admire most?

I greatly admire the work of Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle, who describe their own evolution as women-loving women in their own stories, irrespective of any label. I have come to believe that if we’re paying attention and listening to that still small voice inside ourselves that we will shift and change and grow again and again and again throughout our lifetimes. Perhaps we are more a kaleidoscope than a rainbow, letting the light shine through all the mosaic moments of our lives. To this day I feel more comfortable describing myself as the “+” in LGBTQ+, a fluid femme who continues to ebb and flow in my own personal journey.

When and why did you decide to join SpeakOUT?

I joined SpeakOUT in 2017 to help illustrate that while there are plenty of people that might look incredibly different from you or me in our beautiful rainbow community, there are also plenty that might look just like you and me but actually walk a very different path altogether. And I believe it is equally important that we accept and embrace our similarities as we do our differences.

What has been your most positive experience working with SpeakOUT?

I have always loved speaking at high schools with SpeakOUT. One incredibly memorable experience was when a female student approached me and told me that she was gay and was terrified to go home for break, as her parents did not accept her (she was staying with another family close to the school). By sharing my story, I gave this student a safe place to share hers, and we created a plan of self-care for her to follow through her most challenging times. Being able to help LGBTQ+ youth in this way is a true honor.

What’s one thing from your talks that you wish was more widely known?

As a feminine-presenting woman, the assumptions about me are endless. I must be straight, the ring on my finger must have been given to me by my husband, I must have carried our children. I “pass” so if I wanted to I could let the opportunity to educate pass on by just the same, but, for me, that has always felt like a disservice to the LGBTQ+ community. Because the truth is, while I might look like “most girls,” I am not straight. I am married to my dream wife, and together we have adopted and are raising our children as part of our blended family. I believe it’s critical that we challenge the views of what constitutes family norms and what configurations are acceptable and celebrated.

Dr. Jennelle Kariotis-Rice (she/her) is a psychologist by training and a relationship advisor and justice of the peace to the LGBTQ+ community by trade, as well as a part-time Psychology Professor at Bridgewater State University. Jennelle specializes in working with women who were previously in relationships with men and are now (or would like to be) in relationships with women and hosts a podcast and virtual community known as the Big Change of Heart. She lives in Pembroke with her wife and four children.

What does Pride mean to you?

Pride Month and many Pride events are opportunities for celebration, for finding and supporting all members of the LGBTQIA+ community, for honoring history and protecting the future, and for educating and including all types of people while keeping the focus on queer people and our lives. Pride is about survival, humor, creativity, strength, sadness, sexual and relational human rights, and speaking and being heard.

Which writers (including novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets)—working today do you admire most?

Alison Bechdel, Charles M. Blow, John Paul Brammer, Roxane Gay, Kieron Gillen, Edgar Gomez, Christopher Gonzalez, Tony Kushner, Alice Oseman, and Brandon Taylor.

When and why did you decide to join SpeakOUT?

Though I had been out as a bisexual/queer man to a small number of people since the mid-1990s, I didn’t come out to the rest of my family, nor widely and publicly, until May and June of 2014, when I marched in (and attended!) my first Boston Pride event. Having learned about SpeakOUT through Ellyn Ruthstrom and the Bisexual Resource Center, I attended my first board meeting in July that year and quickly became both a volunteer speaker and board member. I joined because I wanted to “make up for lost time” of having been mostly silent, realizing what a positive difference more stories from out bisexual men and other queer people would have made in my earlier life.

What has been your most positive experience working with SpeakOUT?

The reciprocal flow of strength and compassion between myself and audience members. SpeakOUT helped me find and take pride in my story, my voice, my history and identity—and I have heard from so many of our listeners that our stories have done so for them. It’s an amazingly energizing and uplifting dynamic.

What’s one thing from your talks that you wish was more widely known?

I do think we all have a lot of work to do on increasing bisexual and pansexual visibility, particularly for bi and pan men, who continue to face misunderstanding and discrimination both outside of and even within the LGBTQIA+ community.

George Grattan (he/him) has worked as a teacher, writer, editor, and marketing and communications expert in a wide range of settings, focusing on the higher education and sustainability sectors. He joined the board of SpeakOUT in 2014, and served as board chair for three years. A proud bisexual/queer man, he lives with his wife, Mary, in Gloucester, MA, where he advises the nonprofit Seaside Sustainability—and tries to swim at least nine months of the year.

50 Years of Sharing LGBTQ+ Stories

As we celebrate Pride Month, we decided to take the opportunity to invite a local LGBTQ+ organization to tell us about the important work they do. Ellyn Ruthstrom is the Executive Director of SpeakOUT Boston and has been involved with LGBTQ+ activism for thirty years. As a former president of the Bisexual Resource Center, Ruthstrom co-organized the first White House Roundtable on Bisexual Issues in 2013 during the Obama Administration.

On the oppressive summer night of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Rebellion started in New York City. Drag queens, trans women and men, gay and bisexual people all stood up together and said “No more!” when the police yet again raided the Stonewall Inn that night. Those first few days of the rebellion didn’t start the LGBTQ+ movement, but it did ignite the sparks that had already been smoldering, and it galvanized activists to organize in a more cohesive way to demand change and to fight the discrimination and stigma that the queer community experienced on a daily basis. The bravery of Stonewall inspires the LGBTQ+ community to march, protest, and celebrate every June for Pride Month.

And just three years after Stonewall, members of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Homophile Union of Boston (some of the earliest gay rights organizations) joined forces to create the Gay Speakers Bureau in Boston. Believing in the power of personal storytelling, the Gay Speakers Bureau trained its members to tell authentic, personal stories that debunked the harmful stereotypes of the “lavender menace.” The organization added other identities to its name as the movement expanded, but eventually we left behind the old name to instead emphasize the importance of what we do: speak out.

SpeakOUT is a community of speakers working to create a world free of homo-bi-transphobia and other prejudice by telling the truths of LGBTQ+ lives. Sharing our stories and fostering a dialogue with a wide range of audiences—schools, colleges, businesses, faith communities, libraries—has always been at the core of SpeakOUT’s mission and work. After 50 years, you can imagine the thousands of stories we have shared! And now we are able to conduct our engagements in both in-person and online formats, reaching beyond the Greater Boston area.

SpeakOUT speakers shared their stories during the AIDS epidemic, the fight for marriage equality, the campaign against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and during the more recent fight for transgender civil rights. We will continue to speak out against the current backlash of laws that are targeting our schools, transgender youth, reproductive rights, and even marriage rights.

Forty or fifty years ago our members encountered a lot more hostility and resistance to what they shared with their audiences than we do now. At that time, audience members felt much more comfortable expressing anti-gay sentiments and our speakers were trained in how to defuse a situation, how to keep the discourse focused on personal experience, and how to use those points of conflict as teachable moments. Our training still includes those skills, even though it is much less likely now for our speakers to encounter extreme viewpoints. Not impossible, but less likely.

The biggest change from what was the Gay Speakers Bureau is the diverse range of identities that we represent. LGBTQ+ may seem like an unwieldy acronym, but it points to the complexity of both sexual orientation and gender identity. I have personally seen a huge change in our client’s willingness to discuss gender identity in just the last eight years when I came on as Executive Director. At that time there were still some clients that explicitly requested us not to send transgender speakers. Now, the majority of clients insist on having a transgender or nonbinary speaker on a panel and are eager to educate their constituencies about trans and nonbinary issues.

As part of our 50^th anniversary this year, we have just updated our logo to include the Progressive Pride flag colors, reflecting the organization’s commitment to the BIPOC and transgender communities. An affinity group called SpeakOUT in Color formed within the last two years to provide a social and support space for speakers of color. This group sparked more discussions within the organization to initiate a board-driven DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) committee that is centering racial diversity within our organization and will be a major focus for the organization going forward.

SpeakOUT’s personal storytelling continues to make a difference. I think of the year or so leading up to the anti-trans referendum in 2018 as being an example of when our format really helped to educate a lot of people out in the community to the importance of trans civil rights. I give props to our trans speakers who tirelessly spoke to faith communities, public forums at libraries, a lot of businesses, so many places. It took a statewide effort by many organizations and individuals and I’m very proud of the work that SpeakOUT did to help ensure the continued protections for our transgender citizens. A lot of our work goes under the radar—we don’t grab the headlines—but I believe the personal connections between our speakers and audience members makes for a meaningful change of attitudes that is an important part of larger social change.

“Everything I Wanted”: Black Women Listeners and the High Fidelity Culture of Taste-Making

Daphne A. Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, praises Hulu’s High Fidelity series, whose main characters are creative, intelligent Black women who are passionate about music and confident in their tastes and opinions. Where are the other shows like it?

Blink and you would’ve missed it. Last year’s short-lived Hulu reboot of High Fidelity, the upstart reimagining of Nick Hornby’s 1995 cult favorite novel and its subsequent year 2000 film adaptation emerged in mid-February 2020, that uncertain period when the whispers of a deadly virus were just beginning to gain traction in the U.S. media. Preoccupied with mourning NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s tragic death just a few weeks earlier, American culture turned its attention toward the winter awards season and then leaped into the tabloid eccentricities of Netflix’s Tiger King as a form of hearty streaming escape once the pandemic reared its head in full that March. Reviews of the remixed High Fidelity, a gender-inverted, millennial version of Hornby’s Gen-X record nerd, breakup-and-wake up adulting tale, arrived right in the run of this storm, and they were decidedly uneven in spite of a strong cast—Zoe Kravitz, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, David H. Holmes, and Kingsley Ben-Adir—anchoring an unprecedented TV series, one which featured, in part, Black women popular music wonks debating and pursuing the musical passions and tastes that rule their world.  Some feminist critics lamented what they read as the unreconstructed masculinist politics of the Fidelity narrative’s core dynamics involving dudes duking it out about the music that matters to them. Others bemoaned a plot structure that seemingly failed to “commit” to more nuanced character development. By summer, the show had been canceled.

I seem to be one of the few who lamented this turn of events as is evident by the fact that I’ve spent the past few months pitching a feature on the history-making elements of the next-generation High Fidelity to no avail. No one, it would seem, wants much to do with this show which is a shame since, in my mind, it brings to life the critical, cultural, and intellectual passions of two vastly different, wildly intelligent, curious, and artistically passionate Black women living by the creed of their nuanced and urgent convictions. No show before it has taken the tastes and opinions of Black women—young, old, of any age—so seriously and matter-of-factly and invites you to live in their universe. Co-produced by Kravitz, who took to Instagram last August to call out Hulu’s decision to cancel the series, particularly in light of its diversity-challenged programming, the series broke barriers by experimenting with a distaff scenario: what if Black women characters could inhabit the original’s white masculinist ideas about contemporary popular music culture and the semi-self-conscious “rock snobbery” sentiments of Hornby’s original novel as well as its slightly more expansive film (the casting of Kravitz’s mom, Lisa Bonet, had to mean something)?

The High Fidelity motion picture starred John Cusack and Jack Black in his breakout role as Barry Judd, a full-on manifestation of record store denizen hyperbole and music wonk excess. As the gender-flipped leads, Ms. Kravitz and Ms. Randolph quietly made history, holding down a show that takes seriously the tastes and passions of their two Black women characters. Fandom matters in High Fidelity 2.0, just as it did in the original, but the fans are now Black women, vastly distinct from one another and yet both deeply invested in music as both a salve and a form of their felt and complicated self-making journeys. As Ms. Randolph put it in a phone interview last August, these “women are allowed to study with each other, to study culture and to have opinions and ideas and convictions about their beliefs about cultures.” The classically-trained vocalist and Yale School of Drama alum who boldly reinvented Black’s original character delivered one of the most ingenious and exhilarating small screen performances of 2020. And she clearly recognized the beautiful and pathbreaking complexities of what she and Ms. Kravitz were given the room to do on the show together. These “conversations about artistry” are vital, she suggested to me. “[W]hen that artist did this at that one part, and that bridge is killer. She’s learning. This is her education. This is her grad school.”

Her Cherise is a marvel of a character, a Black woman, Wesley Morris reminds, “with all of these opinions about art and taste and is conversant in all of these modes of being.” She is a fireball of eclectic pop music knowledge and obsessions and along with Ms. Kravitz’s “Rob,” the heartbroken record store owner who swoons over scoring a rare copy of David Bowie’s classic album, The Man Who Fell to Earth, they exist in a universe in which they each have to tolerate the casual ways in which they are not consistently seen, heard, or taken seriously as cultural intellectuals, and in the case of Cherise, as a real, bonafide, aspiring musician. [Spoiler alert] Rob’s reparative gesture, gifting Cherise with her dream guitar, a Daphne Blue Fender, in the wake of her spat with Cherise is the emotional denouement to a one-season show in which a pair of Black women music lovers, aficionados, critics, and record collectors reconnect with one another through the gift of being seen. “Someone invested” in her artistry, said Randolph, who grew up learning to play guitar by watching Lauren Hill on MTV’s Unplugged and India.Arie, and “it manifests within the guitar, but every time that girl sees that guitar, she knows that someone believes in her. And it urges her to keep on going.”

The capacious inner world of a character like Cherise’s (one that we who watched with great interest were longing to see more of on this show) is the beginning of a way to tell the story of Black women’s relationship to popular music culture from the ground up, and it is a reminder that Black women across the century have been having what artist Carrie Mae Weems describes as “endless conversations” with the music and not just churning it out for the industry Big Machine. High Fidelity joins with Empire’s not-yet-done final season (featuring Cookie and company’s Bossie record label female empowerment narrative and the 2020 Tracee Ellis Ross feature The High Note) in calling our attention to the variety of African American women’s roles, challenges, and ambitions in the business and culture of pop music today. More stories please….

Stop Blaming Feminists: The Feminist Movement We Should Remember

In Feminism’s Forgotten Fight: The Unfinished Struggle for Work and Family, a spirited defense of feminism, Kirsten Swinth argues that the lack of support for working mothers is less a failure of second-wave feminism than a rejection by reactionaries of the sweeping changes they campaigned for. Here, she dispels some common myths that plague the history of the feminist movement.

Feminism is cool in the age of Donald Trump. The movement is surging. #MeToo, women in Congress, and massive women’s marches are all signs of a new feminist moment. One would think we would be looking to feminist foremothers for inspiration. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Instead, pervasive, sometimes pernicious myths about the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s keep rearing their head.

For the feminist movement we need in the Trump era, these myths must be banished. Bad history blocks urgently needed gains. Today’s distorting myths systematically blame feminist foremothers, rather than their opponents or media misrepresentations, for the predicaments we face today. The facts tell a different story: of a diverse, progressive women’s movement, brimming with visionary solutions for the inequality women faced in workplaces as well as in intimate relationships. If we are to make progress on these issues, we need to hear their voices and take up the mantle of their struggles once again.

So let’s get the facts straight.

Fact #1: Feminists were horrified at the media invention of the liberated woman “having it all” by dint of efficient life management. In reality, feminists fought for changes in family and workplaces to make sure that having a family and having a job could be an option for every woman, just as it had been for men. They believed that society had to change the rules of the game in both workplace and family life in order for equality to truly exist. They demanded a national system of childcare and guaranteed incomes for mothers (especially poor mothers) to care for their children. They fought for equal childcare and housework with men, even writing “marriage contracts” to pin recalcitrant men down to their promises to share the load. Their vision was broad and deep—requiring society and systems to change as much as individuals.

Fact #2: Feminists of all stripes and backgrounds made universal, 24-hour, community-controlled childcare a rallying cry of the movement. The absence of a national childcare system today is often chalked up to feminists’ lack of interest in the issue. This is simply not true. In coalition with civil rights and labor groups, feminists nearly achieved a national childcare system in 1971, until conservatives persuaded Richard Nixon to veto legislation approved by Congress. Even then, that did not stop feminists. A grassroots do-it-yourself ethos spread across the country as feminists passed around tattered manuals on how to start your own daycare center, complete with designs for tot-sized furniture. Childcare centers grew by almost a third nationally between 1970 and 1976.

Fact #3: Feminists of color were leaders, indeed among the vanguard, on many feminist issues. African American feminists in the welfare-rights movement fought for a universal basic income so mothers could care for their children without being forced to work. Domestic workers, largely African American, led a feminist fight to recognize the value of household labor by demanding the minimum wage for nannies, house cleaners, and other household employees. Women of color were leaders in major national organizations like the National Organization for Women and the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), as well as of the National Black Feminist Organization and the Third World Women’s Alliance. Shirley Chisholm and LaDonna Harris were, for example, among the founders of the NWPC which pledged to fight “sexism, racism, institutional violence and poverty” at its founding in 1971. Well-justified frustrations at the insensitivity of many white feminists to the needs of women of color should not erase the leadership and critical contributions of feminists of color to a rich, varied movement.

Fact #4: Feminist activists of the 1960s and 1970s led creative, vibrant campaigns to value housework and caring for children. Feminists saw firsthand the vulnerability of homemakers all around them, particularly with skyrocketing divorce rates in the 1970s. Anti-feminists like Phyllis Schlafly attacked them for being anti-family and hating housewives, but her charge was unfounded. Women’s rights activists proposed steps still touted today as essential. They calculated the value of household labor and argued that it should count in the gross national product. Feminist legislators and lawyers fought to ensure homemakers had basic rights, like the security of an independent social security account for retirement and a fair share of family property at divorce. The National Organization for Women issued a Homemakers Bill of Rights.

Fact #5: Feminists did not fail and leave us in the pickle we live with today. They were defeated. What they dreamed of achieving was visionary, and ahead of its time. Their opponents found the changes women’s rights activists proposed threatening. If enacted, family relationships and workplace hierarchies would all be upended. These opponents therefore mobilized and successfully countered many feminist proposals. Yet when we look at what feminists really fought for, we see a road map for our own time—a comprehensive vision for changing home and workplace, for involving society in supporting childcare and guaranteeing parental time with children, while accommodating workers with family responsibilities (that is, all of us).

We have foremothers to turn to for inspiration. Edith Barksdale Sloan led domestic workers in their fight for higher wages and better working conditions. Members of the New York Wages for Housework Committee taught us that housework has economic value. Ida Phillips of Florida took her case all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right for mothers not to be denied a job simply because they had children.

By promoting pernicious myths about feminism that have no basis in fact, we do conservatives’ work for them. It’s time to stop blaming feminists and instead to pick up where they left off.

School Is Her Refuge

ref • uge
noun
A condition of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble.

If we want girls to succeed, we need to teach them the audacity to transgress. Through the lives of students at three very different schools, Sally A. Nuamah makes the case for “feminist schools” that orient girls toward a lifetime of achievement. In How Girls Achieve, Nuamah advocates for creating feminist schools that will actively teach girls how and when to challenge society’s norms and allow them to carve out their own paths to success. She says in the book, “The goal must be for girls everywhere to have the power to end up wherever it is that they want to be without bearing significantly different costs than their peers for doing so.”

 

 

 

 

 

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To show how educational institutions can make changes to help all students, regardless of their gender, Nuamah provides a feminist school tool kit:  

Feminist School Tool Kit

Is your school a gender-equitable institution? Assess your school’s policies and practices using this checklist. If you find that you are saying “no” to some of these, then your school may be engaging in biased gender practices. Work with your students to become a feminist school!

Physical Environment

• Does your school have flush toilets?
• Are there separate bathroom facilities, and are they open to students based on their preferred gender identification?
• Are there gender-neutral bathrooms?
• Do you provide free sanitary pads?
• Does your school maintain its supplies of toilet paper?

Classroom Instruction

• Do you ask students what pronoun they identify with?
• Do your textbook examples defy gender-based stereotypes?
• Are girls and boys grouped together on projects?
• During gym or dance class are gender-neutral roles promoted?
• Do you ensure that girls and boys are participating in class at similar levels?
• Do you openly talk about menstruation and puberty in sex-education courses?
• Do you teach students to recognize abuse and give them the resources to respond?

School Policies

• Is there a specific place for students to report sexual abuse or misconduct?
• Are students reprimanded for reporting what happened to them?
• Are girls and boys able to wear the school uniform option that is most comfortable to them?
• Are girls and boys held to the same standard in terms of their body language?
• Do your curricula and policies account for those who may be differently abled, trans, queer, or gender-fluid?

Research and Data

• Do you ask students about their needs annually?
• Do you make this data available to all stakeholders—parents, teachers, community partners?
• Do you regularly assess your policies and design interventions to respond to them?

Let’s continue to build this assessment together. Send your ideas to [email protected].

 

Rights, Action, and Social Responsibility

Earlier this month, De Gruyter and a number of its partner presses—of which we’re one—launched a portal to provide educational institutions with free access to a collection of books and articles across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Dubbed “Rights, Action, and Social Responsibility,” the initiative is intended to help combat false news sources, to support reflection on the nature of truth and ethics, and to encourage understanding of the struggles facing all members of society.

“Public debates surrounding immigration policy, climate change, international relations, and constitutional and human rights are currently at the forefront of the national discourse, especially, but not only, in the United States. Together, De Gruyter and its partners are keen to support a thoughtful and informed debate on these sensitive and serious issues,” said Steve Fallon, Director of De Gruyter’s Publishing Partner Program.

The collection groups resources into eight topical areas:

• Constitutional History
• Dissent, Truth & Ethics
• Environmental Studies
• Gender Studies
• Geopolitics
• Human Rights
• Immigration & Urbanism
• Islamic Studies

The content includes more than 500 books and selected journal articles from HUP, Columbia University Press, Cornell University Press, Princeton University Press, University of Pennsylvania Press, Transcript-Verlag, and De Gruyter. HUP titles on offer include Jeremy Waldron’s The Harm in Hate Speech, Lila Abu-Lughod’s Do Muslim Women Need Saving?, Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming, and Robert Wald Sussman’s The Myth of Race, among dozens more.

Register with De Gruyter to provide access for your library.

International Women’s Day: A Reading List

January 21st saw millions of people around the world gather together in the Women’s March in support of women’s rights, social justice, and gender equality. With reproductive rights, the accessibility and affordability of health care, gender inequality, and the gender pay gap in headlines daily, it’s of course clear that the issues highlighted by International Women’s Day are ever-present and always demanding of our vigilance and action—actions like this year’s global general strike, “A Day Without a Woman.” In support of such action, and towards that vigilance, we’ve put together a short list of recent books by and about women in politics, history, law, and literature.

“I went to law school because I wanted to change the world for women.”
So said Catharine MacKinnon in a talk at a Women and the Law conference at the University of Minnesota Law School in 1980. Fast-forward to 2017, and the publication of Butterfly Politics, which MacKinnon dedicates to “the last woman I talked with and the next baby girl born.” Providing a new perspective on an incredible career as a pioneer of legal theory and practice, and an activist for women’s rights, Butterfly Politics is a collection of addresses, arguments, and essays, many of which—such as that talk from 1980—were previously unpublished. Its central concerns of gender inequality, sexual harassment, rape, pornography, and prostitution have defined MacKinnon’s intellectual, legal, and political pursuits for over forty years, and have changed the world for women today.

A powerful woman who did what was necessary to maintain the independence of her lands
Though largely unknown in the Western world, the seventeenth-century African queen Njinga was one of the most multifaceted rulers in history, a woman who rivaled Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great in political cunning and military prowess. In a world where women were subjugated by men, she repeatedly outmaneuvered her male competitors and flouted gender norms. Today, Njinga is revered in Angola as a national heroine and honored in folk religions, and her complex legacy continues to resonate, forming a crucial part of the collective memory of the Afro-Atlantic world. In Njinga of Angola, Linda Heywood offers the first full-length study in English of Queen Njinga’s long life and political influence, revealing how this Cleopatra of central Africa skillfully navigated—and ultimately transcended—the ruthless, male-dominated power struggles of her time. “Njinga no longer represents the other, but a powerful woman with few contemporary equals who did what was necessary to maintain the independence of her lands,” writes Heywood. “She served as an inspiration for her people during her life and for Angolans and Brazilians centuries after her death. Njinga demands to be presented as the complex human being that she was, and given her rightful place in world history.”

More than two hundred women have sought, been nominated, or received votes for the office of president
In The Highest Glass Ceiling, historian Ellen Fitzpatrick tells the story of three remarkable women who set their sights on the American presidency. Victoria Woodhull (1872), Margaret Chase Smith (1964), and Shirley Chisholm (1972) each challenged persistent barriers confronted by women presidential candidates. As Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign reveals, women’s pursuit of the Oval Office, then and now, has involved myriad forms of influence, opposition, and intrigue.

The first anthology of women’s literature in the world
Composed over two millennia ago, and now translated into English as part of the Murty Classical Library of India, the Therīgāthā is an anthology of poems in Pali by and about the first Buddhist women. The poems they left behind are among the most ancient examples of women’s writing in the world and they are unmatched for their quality of personal expression and the extraordinary insight they offer into the lives of women in the ancient Indian past—and indeed, into the lives of women as such. In the introduction, translator Charles Hallisey writes: “The world of the ordained women in the Therīgāthā is one of sexual equality, in stark contrast to the social inequalities between men and women in lay life. It is a keen insistence on the possibility of freedom for women as well as for men.” Many of the poems in the Therīgāthā recount the social suffering endured by women at the time, but there are also poems emphasizing the importance of freedom and female friendship. Although written so long ago, the poems’ themes still have resonance in today’s society, and “can speak to us about the present and about the future, sharing with us their news that has stayed news.”

The story of the Hello Girls completes the picture of how women around the globe demanded the vote
The Hello Girls by Elizabeth Cobbs tells the story of how America’s first women soldiers helped win World War I, earned the vote, and fought the U.S. Army. In the book, she writes: “The story of the women’s Signal Corps unit allows us to look through the eyes of Woodrow Wilson and leaders in other democracies—new, old, and about to be demolished—and observe what they saw. The pioneers who served ‘upon the very skirts’ of the battle help set a new standard of citizenship for women. They accepted the harshest responsibility of democracy: placing one’s life in danger when necessary to defend the country. Their story, like a missing puzzle piece, completes the picture of how women around the globe not only demanded but also earned the vote.”

Public Syllabi

Two days after nine African Americans were murdered in Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June of last year, #Charlestonsyllabus started trending on Twitter, with thousands of people using the hashtag to share resources they found helpful in understanding such a horrific event. As Chad Williams, a Professor of African and Afro-American Studies who sparked the exchange later made clear, he was following the example of Georgetown historian Marcia Chatelain, who created the #FergusonSyllabus as a way for educators to share ideas on how to talk about Ferguson in their classrooms.

#Charlestonsyllabus was widely embraced, and from the loose list of works shared on social media there soon emerged an organized and cohesive syllabus, posted online by the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). The thoughtful curating that took the materials from a firehose of inspiration to a deliberately constructed learning plan is of course the work academics have always done for their courses, but there was something remarkably open and democratic about doing it in public and online. As Williams has noted, the syllabus is more than a list; “It is a community of people committed to critical thinking, truth telling and social transformation.” It’s also now a book available from the University of Georgia Press.

It’s been heartening to see this model of communal thought take hold over the past year, with academics sharing a lead in bringing context and rigor to a public discourse disfigured by news cycles. The Public Books site has been particularly active on this front. In the wake of a Chronicle of Higher Education Trump 101 syllabus that lacked a diversity of voices, Public Books shared Trump Syllabus 2.0, assembled by historians N. D. B. Connolly and Keisha N. Blain. Then, after the Trump Access Hollywood video surfaced in October, making sexual assault and its denial central to the presidential contest, Public Books posted a Rape Culture Syllabus. In introducing it, Laura Ciolkowski made its purpose clear:

Scholars and activists, poets and playwrights have been writing about rape for centuries. What would the conversation around sexual assault, police bias, and the legal system look like if investigators, police officers, and judges read deeply into the literature on sexuality, racial justice, violence, and power? It is in view of this question that the following syllabus is offered as a scholarly resource—and object of critical discussion and debate—on “rape culture” in the 21st century.

Also this fall, the NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective produced a Standing Rock Syllabus in solidarity with those working to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. They write:

The different sections and articles place what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries. This syllabus brings together the work of Indigenous and allied activists and scholars: anthropologists, historians, environmental scientists, and legal scholars, all of whom contribute important insights into the conflicts between Indigenous sovereignty and resource extraction. While our primary goal is to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, we recognize that Standing Rock is one frontline of many around the world. This syllabus can be a tool to access research usually kept behind paywalls, or a resource package for those unfamiliar with Indigenous histories and politics.

And just this week, a team of historians offered a Prison Abolition Syllabus at AAIHS. Noting the nationwide prison strike, the prominence of Ava DuVernay’s new documentary on the 13th Amendment, and the surging stock prices for corrections-related companies after Trump’s election, the organizers write that the Prison Abolition Syllabus “seeks to contextualize and highlight prison organizing and prison abolitionist efforts from the 13th Amendment’s rearticulation of slavery to current resistance to mass incarceration, solitary confinement, and prison labor exploitation.”

There are other examples (such as the Anna Julia Cooper Center’s Welfare Reform Syllabus), and there are surely more to come. We’re of course happy to see many HUP books and authors listed among the recommended: Crystal Feimster, Estelle Freedman, and Catharine MacKinnon appear on the Rape Culture Syllabus; Ned Blackhawk and Aziz Rana on Trump Syllabus 2.0; Ira Berlin, Stephanie Smallwood, Walter Johnson, and many others on the Charleston Syllabus; and Elizabeth Hinton and Khalil Gibran Muhammad each on more than one. But beyond the satisfaction of seeing these particular books embraced in the public sphere, it’s both gratifying and invigorating to see serious works of scholarship upheld as integral to, as Williams wrote, “critical thinking, truth telling and social transformation.”

Gender Equality by Design

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day with the publication of Iris Bohnet’s What Works: Gender Equality by Design. Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, and co-chair of the Behavioral Insights Group, told us early on that she had three goals for the book.

First, she wanted to convince readers that we all have implicit biases that the best of intentions can’t override and that a world of workshops can’t undo. These biases are a major problem, keeping us from valuing people for who they are.

Second, she hoped to communicate that this problem is costly—not just for the affected individuals, but for society at large. This is especially so in the stubborn case of gender, where biases can lead us to overlook fully half of the talent pool, at potentially great cost to our families, organizations, and economies.

Thirdly, she wanted the book to show that we can do better. We can design environments that help biased people get it right. We can move the needle towards more equality and better performance, and we can start right now.

Bohnet’s invitation to readers is to become behavioral designers, employing the research evidence presented throughout the book to change the environments in which we live, learn, and work. Small changes can have surprising effects, and opportunities are everywhere. We constantly make choices about how to present and evaluate information, how to structure interviews and create teams, whom to hire and promote. There is no design-free world. Why not design a bit more thoughtfully?

 

What Works for Our Shared Shelf

On January 6^th the actor and activist Emma Watson tweeted her desire to start a feminist book club.

Hi Team, ❤️ I want to start a feminist book club but so far have only brainstormed ‘Feminist Book Club’ and ‘Emma Watson Book Club’.

— Emma Watson (@EmWatson) January 6, 2016

By January 7^th the group had a name, “Our Shared Shelf,” and its first selection, Gloria Steinem’s My Life on the Road. On the group’s Goodreads page, Watson outlines the idea:

As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading as many books and essays about equality as I can get my hands on. There is so much amazing stuff out there! Funny, inspiring, sad, thought-provoking, empowering! I’ve been discovering so much that, at times, I’ve felt like my head was about to explode… I decided to start a Feminist book club, as I want to share what I’m learning and hear your thoughts too.

The plan is to select and read a book every month, then discuss the work during the month’s last week (to give everyone time to read it!). I will post some questions/quotes to get things started, but I would love for this to grow into an open discussion with and between you all. Whenever possible I hope to have the author, or another prominent voice on the subject, join the conversation.

If you fancy it, please join up and participate. Everyone is welcome. I would be honoured!

The page for the group, which is already approaching 100,000 members, also hosts an active discussion board, where tens of thousands of people have suggested books to turn to next. Here at HUP we’re soon to publish a title we hope they’ll consider.

What Works: Gender Equality by Design, is by Iris Bohnet, a behavioral economist and Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program. As research has repeatedly shown, and as resources like Project Implicit help to demonstrate, humans have biases related to characteristic like race, gender, and sexual orientation that the best of training and the purest of intentions can’t easily override. With What Works, Bohnet presents a relentlessly practical but determinedly optimistic guide to straightforward behavioral interventions that overcome gender bias by limiting opportunities for its intrusion.

Bohnet often introduces the notion of designing for gender equality by pointing to the simple but illustrative case of orchestras. From the book:

As late as 1970, only 5 percent of musicians performing in the top five orchestras in the United States were women. Today, women compose more than 35 percent of the most acclaimed orchestras, and they play great music. This did not happen by chance. Rather, it required the introduction of blind auditions. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was the first to ask musicians to audition behind a screen, and in the 1970s and 1980s most other major orchestras followed suit. When they did so, usually in preliminary rounds, it raised the likelihood that a female musician would advance by 50 percent and substantially increased the proportion of women hired.

Addressing the disparity, as Bohnet writes, required only “awareness, a curtain, and a decision. Or, more precisely, a design decision.” The blind assessment practiced by orchestras isn’t always feasible, but the approach—a focus on de-biasing systems rather than people—is an enormously useful tool for moving the needle towards equality.

What’s critical to recognize in the orchestra example is that the result isn’t just more female musicians: it’s also better music. Even if the gatekeepers and string-pullers of the world can’t be made to prioritize gender equality, rare are those who’d ignore proven strategies for improved performance. And yet, even as Bohnet emphasizes the business benefits of designing around biases, those gains cannot be the foundation for the changes we need:

While the macro- and the micro-evidence hold the promise of a business case, gender equality is not a magic bullet automatically leading to economic progress. This is why, at the end of the day, the case of gender equality must rest on a moral argument. It just is the right thing to do. Full stop. We cannot afford to get it wrong.

Certainly wonkier than a Gloria Steinem memoir, but What Works explains how, using behavioral insights, we can collapse gender inequality within our lifetime. A fitting book for Our Shared Shelf.