Customer Reviews

Sisters in Spirit: Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I strongly disagree with the reviewer who gives Wagner's book only 1 star. While the book is by no means flawless, it also has important strengths. Wagner offers an accessible history of one small portion of feminism and corrects the mistaken assumption that feminism is a "white women's" idea and movement.

While I found this book offputting at times, with its hardly subtle bashing of Christians and the church, I still think that it is a useful text because it covers subjects that we all too often forget. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) were here first.... the European pioneers, and we their descendants, did not create our society ex nihilo, out of nothing, by our own genius. Our forefathers borrowed heavily from the Five Nations, as we are reminded in this book, and it is to our detriment, and that of our society, that we have forgotten that and grown so far away from it.

Just as Dr. Wagner plays up the good and the genius of her main feminists, so she conveniently leaves out the good works of the church. Thus I feel that there are likely other areas where she has exhibited extreme bias. However, this book is very easy to read (accessible) and thought-provoking. If you live in the New York State area or find yourself in the Adirondacks, I highly, Highly recommend that you visit the Six Nations Indian Museum in Onchiota, New York. It has limited hours, but is still run by the Fadden familiy, who are familiar with this material and also offer a nice selection of related titles, such as "White Roots of Peace: The Iroquois Book of Life."

I would also very highly recommend going on from this book to read more about the Haudenosaunee, and about native agriculture, and going out to plant the Three Sisters (corn, squash and beans) in your own garden. Go forth and do good in the world.

Great Book. A must read for every feminist and American!I got this for school (text book) but I will keep it long after this semster is over.

An interesting look at how the Native American culture affected the women's movement in the US.

Keeping Heart On Pine Ridge is an impressively engaging anthology of real-life stories in which Vic Glover reveals the challenges, history, bonds, and rich traditions that infuse and reflect the stark realities of life on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. One of the very poorest Native American reservations in North America today, these are stories of the authors' family and friends, an enduring native American warrior culture, commodity foods, "rez dogs", harsh winters, and neighbors, as well as the social and political forces that shape the Pine Ridge native american community. Keeping Heart On Pine Ridge is especially recommended reading for students of 20th Century Native American Studies, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in contemporary indian life and culture on an American reservation.

Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner is nationally regarded as a leading figure in women's history. During my undergraduate education, I was honored to attend her lecture on women's history struggles.

Thus, imagine my suprise upon seeing this book would be used for a graduate Women's Studies clas, much less, in conjuction with an academic's name. I simply could not believe this was the same person from whom I had heard an authoritative, professionally delievered lecture.

Both in length, layout, and depth, the work easily resembles junior high school offerings. That a Phd could produce such harried work in 2001, and pass it off as excellent scholarship is a sad testament to remaining difficulties 'enlightened' white feminists have attempting to study 'other' women. Claiming to "celebrate diversity", her heavily edited history just happens to present sanitized multicultural interactions as the idealized norm. No where in the book does it mention the complicity the afforementioned women (or other white feminists--including those who admired the power structures) exhibited in the eventual destruction of tribal culture and people.

However inspired early feminists may have been by Haudenosaunee society, this inspiration clearly had limits, as the American women's movement demonstrated susceptibility to racist and ethnocetric ideologies. Roesch Wagner's failure providing critical examination of 'first wave' feminists ulterior motives undercuts what could have been a very interesting read. No, Stanton's later comments (ommitted from this book for whatever reason) disparaging men of color for receving suffrage while white women lacked the ballot are not 'nice', 'progressive', or 'enlightened' but they do show history as it actually happened, and would paradoxically provide a 'road map' for today's feminists so we can self-identify and stop making the same old mistakes.

Just because it is a project involving 'women of color' does not excuse Roesch Wagner from meticulous research. Ironically, it demands far more because of exclusionary traditions that made histories about women of color the least known.

Failing to show history in it's full complexity is grossly irresponsible. As a professional whose work has built on publicizing the lives of traditionally subordinated (and silenced) groups, Roesch Wagner owes society an enormous appology. While she claims the book was produced with full tribal cooperation, I highly doubt it.