Category Archives: events

Reading Group to Meet This Friday

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Note from Feminist Reading Group facilitator Ellen Miller:

Just a reminder that our next meeting will be Friday, February 7, starting at 5:15 p.m. at the West Tisbury Free Public Library in the program room.

We will continue our discussion of the three books we are reading on suffrage:  The Women’s Suffrage Movement by Sally Roesch Wagner, Why They Marched by Susan Ware, and The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss, as well as short reports from members on topics of interest in regards to the suffrage movement.

P.S. from website admin Susanna J. Sturgis:

I reviewed both Woman’s Hour and Why They Marched on Goodreads and highly recommend them both. I’ve also been reading up on Matilda Joslyn Gage, a 19th-century suffragist whose writings – notably her Woman, Church & State – piqued my interest decades ago. The first general-interest (as opposed to scholarly) biography of her, Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist, appeared only in 2018. I reviewed that too. (Click the links to see the reviews.)

2020 is the centennial not only of the 19th Amendment but of the League of Women Voters. There are plans afoot to commemorate these events all year long. So watch this space for updates!

Reading Group to Focus on Suffrage

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From Feminist Reading Group leader Ellen Miller:

There has been some confusion over how we pick books and what the purpose of the group is.  As an offshoot of the Women’s Committee of We Stand Together, our purpose is to inform ourselves about women’s issues and how to best effect change.  Members of this group choose topics for discussion and then determine which books are available on each subject both in the CLAMS system and for purchase before choosing which books we will be reading and discussing.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the US in 1920, we will take the next few months to learn the history of the women’s suffrage movement. Our first meeting of the centennial will be on Friday, January 3, at 5:15 p.m. at the West Tisbury library. Here is a short list of the books we recommend on this subject:

Our main selection is The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, by Elaine Weiss, which traces 70 years of legal battles culminating in the passage of the 19th Amendment.  There are many copies of this book in the CLAMS system (both in regular and large print format), and it is also available from local and online booksellers.

We also strongly recommend Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote, by Susan Ware; and The Women’s Suffrage Movement, edited by Sally Roesch Wagner, with a foreword by Gloria Steinem, which presents two centuries of original historical texts with a focus on diversity and commentary by the editor. There are five copies of each of these in the CLAMS system, so reserve one now if you are interested.

Also recommended (but not as easily found) are Alice Paul: Claiming Power by J. D. Zahniser and Amelia Fry; Century of Struggle, by Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick;  and All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African-American Public Culture, 1830–1900, by Martha S. Jones.

In view of the coming holidays and the fact that The Woman’s Hour is over 400 pages long, I would expect that we will not all be able to finish reading it by our next meeting, which is on January 3.  But let’s start, and begin our discussion of the suffrage movement next month, and plan to continue in February.

Meanwhile wishing each of you and your loved ones a very happy holiday season, and a healthy and productive new year,

Women in Film Festival

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The M.V. Film Society hosting a Women in Film Festival from Friday, October 25, to Sunday, October 27, at the M.V. Film Center in Vineyard Haven. It looks great!

The festival features six films made between 2017 and 2019, directed by and/or produced by women filmmakers and featuring women’s perspectives on an array of issues. For more information about the films, including trailers, click here. Festival passes are $60 ($50 for Film Society members), and can be bought here. Tickets are also available for individual films.

I Am Not a Witch (Friday, Oct. 25, 4 p.m.) is a magical-realist satire about a young girl sentenced to a state-run witch camp. Young star Margaret Mulubwa has received rave reviews for her performance.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (Friday, Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m.) marks the rediscovery of a pioneer filmmaker who had faded from sight by 1919 and has been largely forgotten. Writer-director-producer Pamela Green will be on hand for a Q&A after the film.

Sensitivity Training (Saturday, Oct. 26, 6 p.m.). Rude, crude, and unapologetic microbiologist Dr. Serena Wolfe is ordered to undergo an attitude adjustment courtesy of perpetually chipper sensitivity coach Caroline. The  two develop an unexpected bond in this “fresh and welcome spin on the classic buddy comedy.”

Paradise Hills (Saturday, Oct. 26, 8:15 p.m.). Paradise Hills is a facility, run by the mysterious Duchess, where high-class families send their daughters to become perfect versions of themselves. “With exquisite sets and costumes and a bounty of strong actresses, Paradise Hills is a fantasy confection with a dark horror center.”

A Fine Line (Sunday, Oct. 27, 4 p.m.). A behind-the-scenes look at restaurant culture with women at the helm, exploring why fewer than 7% of head chefs and restaurant owners are women. A conversation after the film will be led by Jan Buhrman of the Vineyard’s Kitchen Porch.

Atlantique [Atlantics] (Sunday, Oct. 27, 7:30 p.m.) This drama about young lovers separated by circumstance in Senegal won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Says BBC.com: “Dreamy yet sensual, fantastical yet rooted in uncomfortable facts, [Mati] Diop’s beguiling film may even have reinvented a genre.”

Feminist Book Group to Meet Nov. 1

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book coverFor the November 1 meeting the first book we will be discussing is Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist.  By the historian and author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Kendi’s new book offers specific suggestions and strategies for how to start to fix this scourge of American daily life.

The second book is Jen Deaderick’s She the People: A Graphic History of Uprisings, Breakdowns, Setbacks, Revolts, and Enduring Hope on the Unfinished Road to Women’s Equality. This is an illustrated, accurate, and sometimes tongue-in-cheeky overview of U.S. women’s history since 1776.  As the publisher notes, the book “highlight[s] changes in the legal status of women alongside the significant cultural and social influences of the time, so women’s history is revealed as an integral part of U.S. history, and not a tangential sideline.”

Both books are available through the CLAMS regional library network (there are only a few copies of She the People, however). They can be bought through online retailers or local bookstores.

We will continue to meet in the program room at the West Tisbury Public Library at 5:15 on the first Friday of every month. If you get to the library after they close at 5 p.m., come around to the porch in back on the right side and knock on the program room door. Refreshments will be served, and you are welcome to bring something to share.

Future meetings will continue to explore feminist topics through a variety of suggested readings so that you can choose which books interest you.  Feel free to leave your suggestions here in the comments section or use the handy comment form.

Hope to see you on November 1!

Ellen Miller, book group moderator

The Feminist Book Group Is Back!

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From Feminist Book Group coordinator Ellen Miller:

September has flown by! Our October meeting will be on Friday, October 4, 2019, at the West Tisbury Free Public Library in the main floor program room starting at 5:15 p.m. If you get to the library after they close at 5 p.m., come around the building on the right and come in the door from the porch. Snacks will be provided, and you are welcome to bring something to share.

Please bring your suggestions for nonfiction books we can read together. Several of us want to explore racism in further depth. In addition to the books we have read and/or recommended so far, two works to consider are Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America and How to Be an AntiRacist, both by Ibram X. Kendi.