All of Me

Description

With women’s anger, empowerment, and the critical importance of intersectional feminism taking center stage in much of the dialogue happening in feminist spaces right now, an anthology like this has never been more important. The voices in this collection of essays and interviews offer perspectives and experiences that help women find common ground, unity, and allyship.

Through personal essays and interviews about what it is like to live as a woman (cis + trans) in this modern world—with all of our love, anger, complexities, and desires for justice—All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body includes vulnerable, painful truths and bold inspiration.

This anthology is for seasoned feminists and young feminists alike—anyone looking to find inspiration in radical activism, creativity, healing, and more. This book covers topics of social and economic justice, creativity, racism, transgender perspectives, sexuality, sex work, addiction and recovery, reproductive rights, assault, relationship dynamics, families, fitting and not fitting in, radical self-care, witchcraft, and more.

If love and anger are two sides of the same coin, for women there are worlds to be explored with every flip of that coin. Readers will find a glimpse into those worlds in the pages of All of Me.

Contributors include Silvia Federici, Michelle Cruz Gonzales, Ariel Gore, Laurie Penny, Lidia Yuknavitch, Christine No, Kandis Williams, Vatan Doost, Deya, Phoenix LeFae, Anna Silastre, Michel Wing, Bethany Ridenour, Lorelle Saxena, Airial Clark, Patty Stonefish, Nayomi Munaweera, Melissa Madera, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Leilani Clark, Ariel Erskine, Wendy-O Matik, Kara Vernor, Starhawk, adrienne maree brown, Gerri Ravyn Stanfield, Sanam Mahloudji, Melissa Chadburn, Avery Erickson, and Milla Prince.

Sujets

• Gendér
• Reproductive rights
• Woman
• Misogyny
• Feminism
• Activism

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781629637693
• Langue: English

Extrait

All of Me celebrates rage as a way to reject a culture that isolates women from one another. Such a necessary read!
-Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women s Anger
All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body is not your typical feminist anthology, mostly because it busts open binaries, gender and otherwise, in brave and fierce ways. I have been thinking about the importance of feminism with regards to intimacy-in relation to ourselves, to our stories, to our work, to each other, and to the planet. This wide-ranging collection of stories and interviews is deeply intimate in all of these ways. All of Me brings you on a journey through people s lives, connecting you to each story. Whether the writers and storytellers are sharing personal narratives or ideas, they are told in intimate, courageous, and beautiful ways. Bravo to Dani Burlison for creating the space for all these diverse and inclusive stories to be shared. By the way, reading this book will crack you open toward feeling more compassion and love. Read it. Read it out loud. Buy it for everyone you know. And then read it again.
-carla bergman, coauthor, Joyful Militancy: Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times
Visceral, raw, and personal, All of Me is the barbaric yawp of womanhood unrestrained. Ranging from the confessional to the call to action, this collection of deeply personal writings tears back the veil of womanhood to show the glorious and gritty guts of it all. Unfiltered, unadulterated, open; witness the wounds and the wisdom of what it means to be a woman today.
-Lasara Firefox Allen, author of Jailbreaking the Goddess: A Radical Revisioning of Feminist Spirituality
These stories of resilience center the voices and experiences often overlooked and unheard. All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body is just what is needed in this time to balance the torrents of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and violence filling our everyday newsfeeds.
-Victoria Law, author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women
An incredible array of voices gather together in this tightly packed, raucous anthology. If ever you felt the need to focus feelings of deep anger, All of Me serves as an almost step-by-step manual of rage.
-Inga Muscio, author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence and Rose: Love in Violent Times .

All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body
Edited by Dani Burlison
2019 the respective authors
This edition 2019 PM Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-705-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933011
Cover by Mikayla Butchart
Interior design by briandesign
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
This edition first published in Canada in 2019 by Between the Lines
401 Richmond Street West, Studio 281, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8, Canada
1-800-718-7201
www.btlbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be photocopied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher or (for photocopying in Canada only) Access Copyright www.accesscopyright.ca .
Canadian cataloguing information is available from Library and Archives Canada.
ISBN 978-1-77113-466-8 All of Me paperback
ISBN 978-1-77113-467-5 All of Me epub
ISBN 978-1-77113-468-2 All of Me pdf
Printed in the USA.
Contents
Introduction Dani Burlison
Chama Christine No
Explicit Violence Lidia Yuknavitch
Grab My Pussy, I Dare You Michelle Cruz Gonzales
On Anger and the Black Female Body an interview with Artist Kandis Williams
Tales of a Culture-Straddling Resident Alien Vatan Doost
Fear, Safety, and the Realities of an Undocumented Student in a Border State an interview with Deya
I m a Hysterical Woman Phoenix LeFae
How the European Witch Hunts Continue to Influence Violence against Women around the World an interview with Silvia Federici
Dear Man with the Indigo Cardigan Anna Silastre
Fire and Ice Dani Burlison
Fear, Anger, and Hexing the Patriarchy an interview with Ariel Gore
Ink Michel Wing
Merging Sacred and Mundane Bethany Ridenour
Notes on Racism, Trauma, and Self-Care from a Woman of Color an interview with acupuncturist Lorelle Saxena
Locking Doors Airial Clark
Violence, Generational Trauma, and Women s Empowerment in Indigenous Communities an interview with Patty Stonefish of Arming Sisters
Thoughts on Mother s Day Nayomi Munaweera
On Sharing Our Stories an interview with Melissa Madera of The Abortion Diary Podcast
In the Belly of Fuckability Margaret Elysia Garcia
Last Drink Leilani Clark
How to Be A Genderqueer Feminist Laurie Penny
Coming Out as Trans in a Small Hometown an interview with artist Ariel Erskine
Origin Wendy-O Matik
Fucking Patriarchy through Radical Relationships Wendy-O Matik
What s Money Got to Do, Got to Do with It? Kara Vernor
Demystifying Sex Work an interview with P.A.
Auntie Starhawk s Sex Advice for Troubled Times Starhawk
Love as Political Resistance: Lessons from Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler adrienne maree brown
Burnout, Sacred Leadership, and Finding Balance an interview with Gerri Ravyn Stanfield
What Is a Home? Sanam Mahloudji
Discovering the Radical Possibility of Love Melissa Chadburn
Desert Rain Avery Erickson
Transmigration Milla Prince
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CONTRIBUTORS
Introduction
Dani Burlison
Dear Reader,
Thank you for opening this book. In it, I hope you will find stories that resonate with you and inform your work in the world. Inspired by my two-volume zine Lady Parts , my intention with this collection of essays and interviews is to provide a space for the gritty and honest reality of living as a woman in these times; a time when binary gender lines are gorgeously blurred and embraced, where the voices of queer women, poor women, and women of color are being amplified and where women-the whole warrior lot of us-can share our pain and joy and revel in the strength that comes with being survivors.
When the Lady Parts zine was first created in 2015, I was preparing for and recovering from a hysterectomy. Having my uterus removed led me to reflect on all of the things women s bodies go through, like complicated relationships with menstruation, reproductive issues like abortion and infertility, body dysmorphia, childbirth, gender confirmation surgeries, and more. I also thought about the various traumas women experience from the outside world, the physical and emotional violence and violation we carry in our bodies, and how voicing our feelings of anger about these traumas is often unwelcome in the world and frequently met with dismissal; we are seen as nothing more than Angry Feminists. We need to calm down. We need to tone police ourselves and each other. We need to remember our place.
As if we have nothing to be angry about.
Naturally, this pisses me off. So I put together a second zine, focusing entirely on anger.
Working on that issue was eye-opening. At the time, the only resources I could find about women and anger were workbooks for women about how to banish anger from our lives. There were few similar resources for men, though I did find a handful of books marketed toward men about how to tame the lady rage (funny to note that as I write this, times are changing: I know of at least two books about women and anger recently published by amazing feminist writers).
Upon completion of a year of writing and collecting tales of women s anger for that project, I immediately felt a knee-jerk response to wash over the rage in those stories with a follow-up zine all about love; there remains some uncomfortable knot in the depths of my nervous system about the stigma that comes with being a woman expressing anger and the societally ingrained need to suture that bad emotion and to soothe it with a sweet healing salve. We read account after account of women being raked across the proverbial coals for calling out abuse and injustice, yet very few accounts of that same criticism for the abuser or the act of injustice itself. Dylan Farrow was often called out as simply wanting to ruin the career of her abusive father Woody Allen. Why wouldn t I want to take him down? she asked in a televised interview. Why shouldn t I be angry? On another point in the spectrum, international media spent weeks critiquing tennis goddess Serena Williams after she confronted an umpire during the 2018 U.S. Open (and much of it was fueled by racism), yet her male counterparts have historically lost their shit on the court with not so much as the bat of an eye from the media. And the world watched as Trump dismissed the rage of anti-Kavanaugh activists as they confronted Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator; Trump claimed they were paid actors. And the most frustrating part of this is that much of the critique comes from other women, even self-proclaimed feminists. It feels unsafe to be a woman with anger, yet I feel it is a necessary emotion that can create amazing things if channeled effectively. As I wrote in the introduction to Lady Parts no. 2:
We need more outlets. We need each other. We need the more privileged in our communities to step up and help unload some of the burden of the folks who are struggling or targeted or living in fear because of the anger of dominant culture. And most of all, in my opinion, we