Feminist Collections A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources Volume 18, No.4, Summer 1997 CONTENTS From the Editors Book Reviews The Hearts and Voices of Midwestern Prairie Women by Barbara Handy-Marchello Not Just White and Protestant: Midwestern Jewish Women by Susan Sessions Rugh Beyond Bars and Beds: Thriving Midwestern Queer Culture by Meg Kavanaugh Multiple Voices: Rewriting the West by Mary Neth The Many Meanings of Difference by Mary Murphy Riding Roughshod or Forging New Trails? Two Recent Works in Western U.S. Women's History by Katherine Benton Feminist Visions Flipping the Coin of Conquest: Ecofeminism and Paradigm Shifts by Deb Hoskins Feminist Publishing World Wide Web Review: Eating Disorders on the Web by Lucy Serpell Computer Talk Compiled by Linda Shult New Reference Works in Women's Studies Reviewed by Phyllis Holman Weisbard and others Periodical Notes Compiled by Linda Shult Items of Note Compiled by Amy Naughton Books Recently Received Supplement: Index to Volume 18 FROMTHE EDITORS: About the time we were noticing a lot of new book titles corning out about the history of women in the U.S. West and Midwest, a local planning committee for University of Wisconsin-Extension was starting to pull together a conference focusing on Midwest women's history. That conference took place in early June and included some really exciting research. There were sessions on the interactionslcultural exchange between missionary women and Dakota women in the Minnesota area; Illinois women in the legal profession around 1869; violations of class, race, and gender expectations by prostitutes in Mis- souri, Catholic Sisters teaching in public schools in 19th-century Wisconsin; Midwestern women's clubs; Hmong women's history and culture in the Mid- west; Twin Cities working women in the early 20th century; the world of Harriet and Dred Scott; and so much more territory was covered in this two-day get- together. Some sessions and general speakers gave further credence to the view that Midwestern women were actually among the leaders in the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the strongly evident newer currents in the history of both the midwestern and western United States is, of course, women's very significant role in both regions and the fact that including them means, once again, not just an "adding on to" but a transformation of the overall history of our nation as we have known it. Another transfiguring shift in our consciousness, however, involves understanding the part women of different cultures have played in our developing national identity, from the huge impact contact with white settlers had on American Indian women's lives and the changes in white culture wrought by that contact, to the two-way influence on and by Chinese women, Black women, Jewish women, Mexican women, and others of various ancestries who became part of the mix that evolved in this country. Lesbians and gays, too, of course, have been part of this history. The books reviewed in this issue examine that diversity; in some of them, the women speak in their own words. Our history continues to unfold, and as we move toward that day in the early part of the next century when people of NEXT ISSUE: color will become the majority in these United States, our national consciousness will of necessity continue to evolve. It's interesting to imagine what future Reviews on: historians will record of this era - will we have been able to enlarge our perspec- tive as a nation enough to transform the imagelstory into something broader and Contemporary women of Africa; more flexible than it has been? As they say, only time will tell. Meanwhile, we Women of twentieth-century hope you enjoy the reviews here as they nudge away at the edges (or cores) of our China; perceptions. Women 's guides to the Internet; Videos on women and science. ** P. H.W. andL.S. An article on using distance education in Women 's Studies. plus all the regular columns: New Reference Works, Com- puter Talk, Periodical Notes, Items of Note, and more. The Hearts and Voices of Midwestern Americans, European immigrants (who were carefully distinguished fiom Prairie Women "Americans"), and of men and boys. The perceptions of racial and gender boundaries were strong in some by Barbara Handy-Marchello women's minds, blurred in others. Some of the women defended and Glenda Riley, ed., PRAIRIE VOICES: I0WA 'S PIONEERING WOMEN. justified these boundaries, others Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1996. 300p. bibl. index. photogs. pap., challenged them, though their commu- $24.95, ISBN 0-8138-2595-4. nities did not offer much support for exceptional political positions. Whitney Scott, ed., PRAlRIE HEARTS: WOMEN VLEW THE MIDWEST. Crete, IL: Outrider Press, 1996. 208p. pap., $14.95, ISBN 0-9621-0393-4. (104 Prairie Hearts is a contemporary East Steger Rd., Suite C-3, Crete, IL 604 17- 1362) collection of fiyr-nine poems, essays, and short stories. The writers are midwestem women, or women writing about the Midwest. Selections are Prairie Hearts and Prairie / advantages of good schools, medical arranged in alphabetical order by Voices assume the power of place in care, roads, and neighbors. The book authors' last names, so whatever con- shaping women's experience. Yet opens with the much anthologized tinuity of thought they may possess is place actually forms a minor link in the 1840s diary of IOtturah Penton up to the reader to determine. The creation of these collections of Belknap, whose skills, confidence, collection exhibits breadth in the social women's personal writings. Reading and spiritual peace can still serve as and political scope of modem mid- the two books in tandem provides an fundamental goals for modem western society: urban and rural; opportunity to assess hstorians' women. With simple material needs, Latina, Black, Asian, and white; rich assertion that gender is historically but few resources, she explaiis how and poor; old and young; educated and situated. Indeed, each book, blind to she completed necessary work in only barely so. Pieces about lesbians the other, comes near to boring the partnershp with her husband or are notably absent. reader by confming the selections to a neighboring women, how she earned While many of these writings seem geographic area. Considered together, money, and how she established a only accidentally connected to the Mid- the changes wrought in women's lives respected place for herself in the west, some of the best pieces con- by time's passage prove far more community. The book concludes with sciously evaluate life in the region as a interesting than the effects of place. Dr. Jennie McCowen's summary and geographical and climatic space. The Glenda Riley is a top-notch analysis of women's work in Iowa in best of these is "Dichotomy" by Joan historical researcher with years of 1880. Her list includes physicians, Shea O'Neal. To those who have lived experience researching Iowa women's librarians, scientists, professors, in the heart of the Midwest, her images history. Prairie Voices, her collection telephone operators, secretaries, of corn, cows, summer heat, and hu- of memoirs, diaries, and letters, farmers, and bankers. McCowen midity might bear down hard on the represents primarily educated whte notes that though many women spirit. But her well-crafted poem women of various levels of the middle worked in partnership with husbands concludes that better climates lack the class in the nineteenth century. and fathers and may not have been ancestral connections that keep her However, within this group is a great counted as employed persons in the rooted in place. variety of experience and perspective. census, they were nonetheless Other pieces present the Midwest Some of these women traveled to Iowa important to the state's economy. as culture. In "No Heartland Here," in wagons, lived in precarious situa- Between these two documents are Nancy Peiffer challenges the Mom-and- tions while "settling," and provided for fifteen other pieces. While the focus apple-pie~ - conception of life in mid- their families under difficult circurn- is on the lives of women writers, they western communities, a notion with stances. Others, second-generation occasionally reflect upon the experi- historical foundation in some of the descendants of the pioneers, had the ence of American Indians. Afncan more sentimental memoirs in Riley's Feminist Collections ~01.18,no.4 Summer 1997 1 collection. Peiffer recognizes that such uses the gender switch with its various Prairie Voices and on emotion in romanticism hides the "festering layers of meaning to reject the behav- Prairie Hearts. The pioneer women of boils," "hidden bruises," and "collec- ior of a nice young lady. She "sasses" Iowa were very successful in their tive anger" of ordinary families. her meddling aunt as an ill-behaved ability to support their families and Prairie Hearts, is uneven in quality boy might and thereby releases herself communities, but had little to say about of writing, but most disturbing is the and her mother from the aunt's love and loss. The women of Prairie weakness of so many of the female disapproval. Hearts, with modem women's greater characters. Too many give in to social economic security, dwell on emotion, expectations, to oppressive men and Though both collections include with little to say about bread-and-butter mothers, and to fear. For instance, an editor's introduction, neither issues. Time has also changed Marilyn Coffey's poem "The Men of provides a strong analysis linking the women's relationship to place. For Nebraska" and Marsha J. Stried's individual pieces or interpreting them nineteenth-century pioneers, tempera- "White Lady" tell of women who are for the reader.