The EQUIP 2009/10 book list

The EQUIP 2009/10 book list is now out. So take a look and see if you would like to follow along for any of the titles. I’ll be doing Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley this year, which is how it turned out as we worked through the book list and the contributors. In some ways this is an interesting choice for me. I haven’t ever considered myself as any kind of feminist. Growing up in an all-female, single-parent household, from somewhere I absorbed the idea that the greatest thing that could ever happen, for all of us, would be for there to be a man as part of the family. (When you have to fill all of a man’s jobs/roles, because there is no-one else to do them, it all soon loses its appeal.) I also went to a church that I think consciously taught and modelled the biblical concept of gender well. I remember doing a Sunday afternoon training course for a few weeks on “Being Male and Female” (I still have the notes, and they are still good notes).

But I also realise that I have never really been tested on some fronts. No-one tried to stop me going off to University to do a male-dominated degree. No-one tried to prevent me doing further study, or then having a rather crazy kind of job out in the bush, or subsequently working in fields that were male-dominated. I haven't experienced the frustrations that come from being at home all day with small children (that wasn't my choice, but it's how my life panned out). Nothing and no one has ever really gotten in the way of me doing just what I wanted to do. So, that is one of the strengths of Radical Womanhood I think, in showing us how feminist assumptions (the good and the bad) have permeated the air we breathe, whether or not we are actually aware of it.