Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology [Paperback]

Robin Morgan (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

   Sisterhood Is Global has been revered as the essential feminist text on the international women's movement since its first appearance, when it was hailed as "a historic publishing event." The anthology features original essays Morgan commissioned from a deliberately eclectic mix of women both famous and less known-grass-roots activisits, politicians, scholars, querillas, novelists, social scientists, and journalists-representing 70 countries, from every region and political system, with particular emphasis on the Global South. These truth-telling, impassioned essays celebrate the diversity as well as the similarity of women's experience; they also reveal shared female rage, vision, and pragmatic strategies for worldwide feminist solidarity and political transformation.

   Each country's essay is preceded by a statistical preface containing carefully researched and referenced data on the status of women, including: population, birth rate, infant mortality, life expectancy, contraception and abortion (both laws and practices); percentage of women in education, government, and labor force; laws and practices regarding women's religious, secular, educational, and employment rights (including marriage, divorce, motherhood, custody, sexual preference, welfare, prostitution, rape, battery, sexual harrasment, and traditional/cultural practices); "herstory"; "mythography"; and more. Despite dramatic geopolitical changes since the book's first publication, much of the data on women remains virtually the same.

   The first such international collection, Sisterhood Is Global became an instant classic and remains unequalled in its breadth and comprehensiveness. The book covers Afghanistan to Zimbabwe (as well as the status of women in the United Nations itself), and includes moving essays from such distinguished writers as Marjorie Agosin (Chile), Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana), Shulamit Aloni (Israel), Peggy Antrobus (Caribbean), Simone de Beauvoir (France), Lidia Falcon (Spain), Hema Goonatilake (Sri Lanka), Fatima Mernessi (Morocco), Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt), Ana Titkow (Poland), Marilyn Waring (New Zealand), and Xiao Lu (China).

Editorial Reviews

Review

A new preface by Morgan graces the latest edition of this classic covering international women's movement issues. Most women's movement coverages tend to be national in scope, so it's especially important to see the continued updating of an essay anthology which mixes women's opinions from around the world; especially the 'Global South'. From personal 'herstories' to data on women, this promises something for everyone. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 832 pages
• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558611606
• ISBN-13: 978-1558611603
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,026,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Facts and Good Opinions Too, May 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (Paperback)

I disagree with the reader-reviewer from Pittsburgh. If Morgan was an unobjective "female supremacist" then she wouldn't have assembled such a massive copilation of plain hard FACTS. This book exposes worldwide patriarchal systems--including but not limited to organized religions. It's like an encyclopedia on women internationally. I thought it was terrrific, and it changed my outlook on the globe forever. I still dip into it regularly, for reference--and certainly whenever I travel abroad. It's like a Fodor for feminists.

5.0 out of 5 stars A FASCINATING COLLECTION OF FEMINIST VOICES FROM (nearly!) THE ENTIRE WORLD, September 14, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (Paperback)

Robin Morgan (born 1941) is a former child actor turned American feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor (Ms. Magazine editor-in-chief from 1989-1993). She was a founding member of New York Radical Women and W.I.T.C.H., and also founded the Women's Media Center. She has written/edited books such as Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement, Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium, The Burning Time, Saturday's Child: A Memoir, etc.

This book contains contributions from 68 nations. Morgan wrote in the 'Prefatory Note' to this 1984 collection, "The women whose articles appear ... are a deliberately eclectic mix: grass-roots organizers, members of parliaments, novelists, scientists, journalists, guerrillas, scholars, poets, former heads of states, women in exile or underground, public feminist spokespersons and 'closet feminists' in international diplomatic circles, activists and theorists, women never before heard from and women already known worldwide. The political spectrum embraces radical feminist, moderate/reform feminist, and socialist feminist, to show as wide as possible a world view of women's activism."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"Not only are females most of the poor, the starving, and the illiterate, but women and children constitute more than 90 percent of all refugee populations." (Pg. 2)
"It is hardly surprising that, country after country, education emerges as the first step in the long journey toward women's freedom." (Pg. 31)
"Feminism was thought to be a Western phenomenon. But an idea's origins, it was agreed, ought not to be the main consideration in one's judgment of its validity." (Pg. 331)
"The greatest enemy of any enlightened society and of freedom for all uman beings---and especially women---is the organized clergy." (Pg. 363)
"...feminism also meets up with an economic and social reality so dramatic that, ironically, it does not allow women from the poorer classes to recognize that they are oppressed AS WOMEN." (Pg. 553)
"The mere fact that feminism appears to have originated in 'developed capitalistic countries' is taken as a main argument against it. It seems that certain ideas are good only because they came from certain parts of the world." (Pg. 736)
"Women, like men, are just ordinary human beings subject to the same temptations when in the position of power." (Pg. 743)

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice facts, bad opinion-shoving, October 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sisterhood is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology (Paperback)

This was a very good source of facts about the situation of women in different countries around the world. It effectively shows how women have it badly in all countries and is a good source for comparative studies. Unfortunately, all the political commentary is tinged by Morgan's extremist anti-religion (except religion placing women first) view. Morgan is the anti-chauvinist, the female supremacist. Buy it for the facts, be wary of the opinions.