Customer Reviews

To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism

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This book offers an incredible look at the issues that constantly face the younger generation of feminists, even those who are male. I think it has been a long time coming, even though she was much criticized for allowing so many voices that seem offbeat to fill the pages. I found, however, that those are the voices of many and they need to be heard. Thank you, Rebecca Walker for such an comforting look that my life is actually normal-my concerns are not only voiced by myself, but by thousand of other feminists across the nation. It is very important to keep the younger generation in print so we do not lose touch with the old school feminists who are dealing with issues that pertain to their ages. An excellent read for just that bridging of the generation gap.

I read this anthology after reading Gloria Steinem's Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions and another anthology that I think was called Voices From the Next Feminist Generation. Thank you thank you thank you Rebecca Walker for creating a forum for this incredibly diverse and colorful group of feminists who completely reshaped, juggled and challenged every "rule" about what it means to be a feminist. I treasure the knowledge and power I have accrued from reading the first two books and now, after reading Walker's book, I feel that my understanding of gender, race and class issues is even more rounded out. This is a critical book for any feminist and anyone who is willing to read about feminism,(probably to discover that they too, are feminists).

This morning I was sitting in the Laundromat down the street quietly reading Rebecca Walker's anthology of feminist essays, To Be Real. I was reading the line "in much of our understanding, power is equated with oppression: images of white supremacists dominating people of color, men dominating women, and the rich dominating the poor underline the histories of many cultures and societies," in an essay by Jason Schultz, when an ironic thing happened.

I heard pieces of a conversation between an older white man and a middle aged white woman that was going on the other side of the room. I heard words like, "nigger" and "lazy" within phrases like "all they do is make babies and live on food stamps." I couldn't hear whole sentences, and so I tried to shut them out and read my book. Another girl my age was not so lucky. She was waiting for her clothes to dry, just a few feet from the conversation. Just before leaving the scene, she approached the two and said "I'm sorry, but some of us are trying to do our laundry and we shouldn't have to listen to your racist conversations..." The old man threw up his hands, mocking her, and said, "Ok, we'll stop. Peace, man." She went on, and again I could only hear bits of her words, over the whining drone of washing machines. I heard her say, "the problem is your redneck mentality," and "educate yourself."

But her words fell on deaf ears. As she stormed out to her car, carrying load after load of laundry, the two small town residents mumbled about her things I could only imagine to be extremely offensive. I followed her out to her car to congratulate her. I told her that I agreed with everything she said and that she was a strong person to have done what she did. At the same time I felt immense guilt. Because I, the Feminist, did not get up and go over there to hear the conversation that I knew to be oppressive, and that I was not the one who said something. Here I was, reading a book about how Feminism needs to fight towards equality- not only between the sexes-but in terms of Race, Sexuality, and any form of difference. A book whose essays, compiled by the incredible Rebecca Walker, were personal confessions about times when each author was forced to question their own position in the feminist movement. I felt that I had just been tested, and failed. So I began to analyze the situation. Had I been standing closer to the conversation would I have responded as this other girl had? I would like to think so. If the target of oppression had been gays and lesbians instead of black folks, would I have responded? Most definitely, I don't think that I would've been able to help myself from attacking the attackers. So what does this say about me? That unless I, myself, am part of the group being oppressed I wouldn't get directly involved?

The point of these questions are exactly what Rebecca Walker is bringing up for discussion. We, as individuals, have to ask ourselves such things in order to determine who we are and what our place is within this Third Wave of Feminism. This Third Wave encompasses the notion that there is no one way to be a feminist, and that there is no betrayal in being yourself. As humans, we will fall short at times, and we will constantly surprise ourselves.

I'm a sociologist who is currently teaching an intriguing course on Feminist Thought. I adopted this book as a required text and told my class on the first day that this will be the best and most important text we will read. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the essays in this book. Its most important contribution is to present issues that third-wave feminists are concerned about. I really enjoyed Manifesta and other books on third-wave feminism but To Be Real is definitely the best. Walker is an incredible editor and her introduction is fantastic. Angela Davis does a great job at the end of delineating this book's important contributions. If you have any interest in understanding contemporary feminist issues then I beseech you to read this book! Just to let you know, the author is Alice Walker's daughter and is a very very important thought-leader in contemporary feminist thought. I hope to meet her one day and convey how much I gained from reading this seminal (I mean ovarian) work.

I have to admitt, at times, I was shocked by the honesty of some of the pieces in this book. The information shared was very personal but made the experience that much more personal and eye opening. I found myself relating to women and men on issues I had never given much thought.

I particularly enjoyed Jason Shultz's "Getting off on Feminism" and Naomi Wolf's "Brideland." Interestingly, they both involve weddings--Shutlz deals with a feminist bachelor party and Wolf deals with the lure of weddings.

Overall, it was a great book. I highly recommend it. Even if you wouldn't consider yourself a feminist, read it, and you may find out some interesting things about yourself.

Just finished reading this evocative book and I am compelled to share that it imparts many views [on feminism] that I hadn't even considered. Most certainly, it brings to the fore new/revised theories of "WHAT is feminism and how is it manifest in my life?" From one essay to the next, substantive content reached out and informed on meaningful levels. Frequently I'd pause, consider, read on and take in the many experiences shared. Very well represented in terms of breadth, scope, aesthetic perspectives. A visionary work. This book doesn't compete with the established feminist focus; rather it seeks to make it more practical in the here and now, where feminism's [shifting]relevance and relativity are being addressed both collectively and individually. It gives voice to those women and men who desire to genuinely, fully harmonize/actualize in the world they've inherited from the perpectives they reflect. Definitely worth exploring.

This book includes Naomi Wolf and bell hooks. How are these women supposed to be the voices of a new generation? Of third-wave feminism? They simply are not. They have contributed enormously to women's political voice, and we thank them for it. But writing this review as a woman in her 20s, they are not my generation and they are not the voices of my generation. We have new battles and choices to make, and we have to respond or uphold to the old ones in our own "new" way as well. Not theirs.

Having read this book for my feminist theories class, I was shocked at the celebrity afterward from Angela Davis, which admitted she hadn't initially thought our generation of feminist theorists was important enough to read for their own sakes.

Because Davis had once pointedly lectured both the women's movement and mainstream society about the dangers of making presumptions (and subsequently allowing those preconcieved notions to guide your own politics) I had hoped she (more than any other second waver name-dropped in this project) would also be aware of the dangers from ageism.

My heart consequently fell as I realizes she was never actually interested in 'bridging' or mentoring with my generation of feminist activist/theorists, but simply touting her own horn about how great she was, and how by implication we would somehow never be able to match up. Ironically, the multipronged social justice strategies she freely champions in other settings become impossible with her own condescending view of 'feminist activism' since a single generation of activists will not live forever, and younger ones might provide critical insights for victory (that is assuming they were allowed to speak in meaningful ways, and were listened to).

No, Davis might not like everything in exactly the format that is said by the newer theorists, but then the proverbial million dollar question begs: Why lend your name and words to something you don't particularly care for at all anyways?

Editor Walker (daughter of Alice Walker) bears some responsibilty for this literary mess since she seems to have culled 'famous feminists' from her mother's rolodex without pondering if they would actually treat herself or the audience as whole people, instead of annoying interlopers who are threatining 'other's' feminist movement.

Such, a shame too because this book really could have been a huge breakthrough with the correct editing.

I think this book is great and it has some of the most interesting stories I've read about modern feminism to date. There is a wide variety of essays ranging from militant feminism to black feminism to male feminism to a supermodel's opinions on being feminist. The only gripe I would have about this book is the fact that several of the articles seemed to escape the issue of feminism and dwell entirely on racial and anti-white issues. Overall though, the context of the well-written essays far outweighed the poorly-written ones.