Only White Women’s Wisdom?
Friday, July 6th, 2007A few weeks ago, I was in a new thrift shop in my neighborhood. I found their book section, which I was surprised to find was stocked with some really fantastic authors and titles. I was thrilled, because I seemed to have serendipitously stumbled upon the source of my summer reading—I was just finishing up my second year in graduate school and was more than eager to begin thinking about three upcoming months of pleasure reading. As I surveyed the titles and noticed what I was most interested in, I had a series of thoughts that affected how I chose which ones to put in my basket.
I remembered an idea that my friend, Teresa, had told me about. She had just finished reading Cunt by Inga Muscio, and she wrote to me, "[Muscio] suggests that everyone go through a year of only consuming art made by women. Only reading women's writing (magazines and news and books and poetry), only listening to music by women. If we did it, we could make a significant dent in the male-dominated economy. We'd also learn how difficult it is, and how rewarding, to seek out women's voices." I knew that I couldn't do this for an entire year, with required reading for graduate school coming up again in three months, but the idea of having an intentional focus to my summer reading, watching and listening intrigued me. In the middle of my thrift store search, then, I looked for books by women writers, and was happy to immediately find a book by Margaret Atwood. I also picked up two by Barbara Kingsolver that I'd read ten years ago, and was eager to meet those characters again.
Then, I realized something else: I was only finding books by white women. I'm a white woman myself, and had recently come to learn that the majority of the media I take in–from news, movies, television and books–comes from the perspective of white folks. Even (or, especially) the media and art that I, a self-proclaimed progressive white feminist, usually pay attention to is made by white journalists, directors, painters, writers, musicians, and the like. So, I immediately revised my challenge: to seek out the voices of women of color, and to learn, as Inga Muscio says, how difficult and rewarding this would be to.
I've realized that I can easily find music, books, magazines, and movies that reflect many of my experiences as a white person, but in mainstream media, women of color would be hard pressed to find those that reflect their own experiences. Think about it the next time you go to the movies: who are the people portrayed in the movie? Who is first, second, third billed (often it's white men)? In your favorite music, who is singing their stories to you? I don't want to tell you not to listen to your favorite music or not watch the movies you want to see. Sometimes it's hard enough to find movies directed by white women, for example. But maybe we can pay attention to what media we're taking in and think about other perspectives we might be missing.
I decided to to this because white folks' art and media have usually come to be understood as the "standard" for what's acceptable and/or profitable in those areas, and I simply want to widen my understanding of what is possible in these areas. Yet I don't want to be considered a "good" white person for doing this. Instead, I understand my task as an issue of the reality of my U.S.-American life: I, like many of us, live in communities made up of lots of different kinds of people, and I decided that want to get to know some of the perspectives that I don't readily or easily come in contact with, especially the voices of other women.
Needless to say, I put down the Kingsolver and Atwood. I actually walked out of the thrift store empty handed, despite the vast selection of books. None of the books there seemed to be by women who I could identify as Native American/Indigenous American, Asian American, Latina, African American, or any of the many multitudes of cultures besides European-North American.
I've had a good time so far in my task. I've read Sister of My Heart, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and am in the middle of The Autobiography of My Mother, by Jamaica Kincaid. I've watched the film Monsoon Wedding , directed by Mira Nair , and have listened over and over to Bahamadia 's album, Kollage. I was also really excited to get my latest issue of Bitch Magazine in the mail (which, if perhaps managed mostly by women who would identify as European American, strives to include material by and for women whose perspective gets lost in mainstream media).
If you have any suggestions of music, books, movies, photographs, magazines, for me and other readers, we'd love to hear them! Please leave them as a comment, below.
I'll write again with updates. Stay tuned!
Elizabeth
