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Flowerence Howe Annotated Bibliography Books

In what now acts as a fascinating cultural artifact, Howe and Lauter here attempt to “[explain] a generation at war with its elders” over such issues as racism, the war and the draft in the Vietnam-era U.S. (4). They examine rebellious movements which the nation’s youth had organized for social change: the Mississippi “Freedom Summer” of 1964; draft resistance; etc., as well as service organizations such as the Peace Corps; and explore how the youth counterculture aimed to disrupt power relations in search for equality and choice.

Poems by such writers as Anne Sexton read by Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Henry Braun.

This revolutionary compilation that takes its title from the 1971 poem “The Poem as Mask” by Muriel Rukeyser (which serves as its epigraph) anthologizes women poets across a broad range of subjects. Florence Howe’s introduction to the volume brazenly and proudly declares that, “This is not the last word on women poets. Indeed, in some respects, it is more like the first word, since so little has been written about them as a group” (3). Howe proceeds to fill that gap by presenting poetry by women such as Margaret Atwood, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, and countless others. The anthology is dedicated “to our sisters/ in jail/ underground/ at war/ whose lives are their prisons.”

Howe writes that “[t]o look closely at any institution is to discover the power of men over the lives of women in and around that institution” (13). This book attempts to do just that, but combines it with “an intense desire to see feminism as powerful enough to overthrow the empire” (13). The text situates itself in an understanding of the university as a hegemonically controlling institution, as well as in an understanding of the university as “a male enclave that allows women to function only in closely restricted areas” (Howe, 11). Those factors combine to make the university a site where change needs to happen internally so that it can effect change externally. The four essays, written by Adrienne Rich, Arlie Russell, Aleta Wallech, and Howe herself, examine these issues in different higher-education settings, including Aleta Wallech’s specific examination of law school. In the Foreword, Clark Kerr calls this book “a collection of four personal accounts of struggle—out of which have also come visions for a future in which such struggles will no longer have to take place.” Howe’s provocative solution, in her title essay, is for women to gain power in the institution not by dispersing themselves across the curriculum in non-traditional “women’s fields” and becoming “tokens” in such departments. Instead, she argues that women will not be able to hold power and have “true participation” unless they first gather and grow in strength in the more traditional women’s fields, such as nursing, education, etc. (166). She justifies this argument by showing how minimally the percentage of women in non-traditional fields is expected to rise, writing, “Not only would there be no possibility for developing feminist leadership in those traditional male professions [if women simply remain with ‘token’ representation’]; there would be no base sizable enough from which to organize for change” (166). She sees the power in numbers, and concludes that the feminist movement should work to reclaim the power in fields which have been “demeaned” by the labels of “traditional” and “female” (169).

Howe’s Seven Years Later examined the state of fifteen women’s studies programs nationwide to examine their current states as well as their impacts and future needs. It was actually the very first federally financed report on the subject of women’s studies and explored such issues as funding, faculty, etc. (Impact iii). As a result of this study, the National Institute of Education commissioned a series of eight monographs, of which The Impact of Women’s Studies on the Campus and the Disciplines (cited in its proper section) was a part.

This collection provides readers with a look at thirty-four women writers’ experiences or tales about women’s work experiences in all different capacities. Writers include Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Tillie Olsen, Alice Walker, Sara Orne Jewett, and more.

This guide profiles 600 different colleges that responded to a questionnaire concerning different issues that would affect the growing amounts of women enrolling in college: racial/ethnic/gender breakdowns of student populations; faculty/student gender; the most popular majors for women; the percentage of women in nontraditional majors; the percentage of women on the faculty and among the administrators; the percentage of women students in leadership positions; amount of women in campus and intramural sports; campus safety; sexual harassment policies; childcare facilities; women’s centers, etc.

Myths of Coeducation is a perfect starting point to a study of Florence Howe as it chronicles her journey as a teacher through important essays she published from 1964 to 1983. The essays, cited individually below, include: “Mississippi’s Freedom Schools: The Politics of Education” (originally published in 1964); “Why Educate Women?” (1968); “Identity and Expression: A Writing Course for Women” (1970); “Teaching in the Modern Languages” (1970); “Feminism, Fiction, and the Classroom” (1970); “Women’s Studies and Social Change” (1972); “Literacy and Literature” (1973); “The Future of Women’s Colleges” (1974); “Women and the Power to Change” (1973–4); “Feminism and the Education of Women” (1975); “Feminism and the Study of Literature” (1976); “Myths of Coeducation” (1978); “Breaking the Disciplines: In the Nineteenth Century and Today” (1978); “The Past Ten Years: A Critical Retrospective” (1979); “The Power of Education: Change in the Eighties” (1980); “Why Educate Women? – The Responses of Wellesley and Stanford” (1981); “Feminist Scholarship: The Extent of the Revolution” (1981–2); and “American Literature and Women’s Lives” (1983). Each essay is introduced with a prefatory paragraph, and the entire collection begins with an introduction that addresses how the essays follow her progress in the “development of [her] consciousness and knowledge as a literary scholar, historian, feminist teacher” (ix) and how that entwines with the consciousness of a nation and a profession at large.

This anthology of works (a result of collaboration between the Feminist Press and the Boston Self-Help Center) by thirty women with disabilities aims to achieve five objectives, which it details in the preface. Those objectives, in the words of the editors, are:

1.To combat educational discrimination, both sexist and ‘able-bodiest,’ against disabled women and girls, by providing a fine literary volume that presents and celebrates the talent, strengths, and creative abilities of this group, until now virtually ignored as a group;

2.To enhance the self-esteem of disabled women and girls by presenting positive role models of the disabled female as literary artist, communicator, and leader of her own movement;

3.To provide a literary forum for the exploration of the experiences of disabled women, white or members of minority groups, heterosexual or lesbian, and of different social classes;

4.To challenge the literary community to follow suit by recognizing works by disabled women, and;

5.To create a literary volume that encourages readers to confront their own feelings about physical limitations, appearance, and standards of beauty, about dependence and vulnerability. (vii)

The three parts of the collection are divided thematically: Part One, “Living in These Bodies, These Minds;” Part Two, “Seeking Help and Love;” and Part Three, “Transcendence;” and feature works by such writers as Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Vassar Miller, and others.

This second edition of the 1973 anthology expands to include more poets and more subjects.

Almost Touching the Skies, compiled in honor of The Feminist Press’ twenty-year anniversary, provides two dozen coming-of-age stories by writers published by The Feminist Press. From Kate Chopin’s tale of an 1890’s New Orleans girl to Zora Neale Hurston’s recollections of her mother’s death, this collection focuses on the theme of becoming a woman, how that happens, and what that means. Other authors from various backgrounds, cultures, and generations included in the volume include Alice Walker, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Estella Conwill Májozo, Paule Marshall, Louise Meriwether, Jo Sinclair, and more.

Howe edited this collection of personal essays by women who took part in the grassroots effort of the beginning of the feminist movement of women’s studies in higher education. Howe states that these narratives reflect “accounts of agents of social change, who, in the space of a single decade, transformed consciousness on college and university campuses” (xi). She continues, showing how they achieved this not by numerous marches and sit-ins, but instead in various ways which “organized collective feminist power on campuses” (xi). The book opens with an exploration of the advent of women’s studies, and in many ways answers Howe’s 1975 Women and the Power to Change. However, here, the writers are able to look to the past and tell the stories that the 1975 text was hoping for. Some of the “founders” included are Mary Anne Ferguson, Barbara Smith, Annette Kolodny, and others (including Sue-Ellen Jacobs with her very tellingly-titled “Has It Really Been Thirty Years?”). Howe contributes the Preface (“Everyone a Heroine”) as well as the very first essay, “Learning From Teaching.”

MONOGRAPHS EDITED:

MONOGRAPHS WRITTEN:

Howe and Paul Lauter collaborated on this monograph as a result of Howe’s investigational report Seven Years Later, aiming to study the impact of women’s studies in colleges and universities revealed by a look at 119 women’s studies programs and 57 professional societies nationwide (vii).