Reading for March: Women in the World Claiming Power

Throughout history women have found ways to achieve power even when that power was not granted directly, often finding notoriety, fame, or historic precedence by navigating and negotiating from the limited options available. Women also claimed power through individual resistance, thereby redefining power in roles traditionally and narrowly viewed as the collective actions of men. Including the voices and perspectives of women writers has unquestionably expanded definition of power and Brooklyn Public Library has a wealth of books which explore the dynamics of this experience among women. The following list of titles is a tiny sample of those voices raised in memoir and fiction exploring that experience:

Just Kids by Patti Smith is a memoir illustrating the idea of an artist crafting her own spiritual definition of the ‘starving artist’ into a tangible reality. Through her homage to both artistic collaboration generally and her dear friend Robert Maplethorpe specifically, the reader experiences gritty New York during the 1960’s and 70’s. Significant scenes take place at the Chelsea Hotel populated by a parade of then incubating and now famous cultural icons.  Originally published in 2010 and a winner of National Book Award for nonfiction, it is having another vault as one of the titles shortlisted for the 2019 One Book, One New York campaign.

Becoming by Michelle Obama is a memoir embodying American values of hard work, perseverance, tenacity, resilience, and the power of education. Obama’s story is a that of a woman challenging her insecurities while being a “first” or an “only” (Princeton campus, the corporate law world, the White House), while searching  for balance in work, love and family. She embodies grace, resilience, and strength while frequently acknowledging the power of the team that supports her. From her perspective as First Lady, Obama provides insights into the machine and the bubble that is the office of the presidency. Through her eyes we see how that office constrains the individual while also providing an unequaled platform to launch favored causes. Becoming is the story of an individual reacting to historical messages of limitations, breaking through those limitations, and using what she learned to inspire others.

Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London by Lauren Elkin is a memoir/essay collection that is part travelogue, part historic parade, part document of the intimate, incidental experiences of everyday women in public spaces walking for the sake of walking.  Elkin grew up in New York, lived in the cities mentioned in the title, and now resides in Paris. With Flaneuse she shares anecdotes about Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Jean Rhys, and George Sand among others  while reflecting the experience of everyday women testing, navigating, and assuming a right of place in a manner distinctly their own.

Love and Ruin by Paula McLain is a fictionalized account of the life of Martha Gellhorn, a newspaper correspondent reporting on the Spanish Civil in 1937. As a woman writer in a male dominated field of war reporting, Gellhorn is drawn beyond the horrors of war atrocities to the stories of everyday people caught up in the devastation, proving herself by adding a her unique viewpoint to the coverage. Along the way she falls in love with Ernest Hemingway who is on the verge of professional acclaim for the publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Their romance is undermined in part by Hemingway’s success and in part by the difference in their vision of the world as ultimately Gellhorn diverts her attention from Hemingway, thereby discovering herself as both individual and writer.