falk@sun.uucp (Ed Falk) (02/24/86)
Oops, forgot a couple of good books: "Female Eunich" by Germaine Greer (sp?). Light reading, but still gets the point across very well. It's a little dated (All the really good feminist books seem to come from the 70's), but very good. I'd reccomend it as the second book for a beginner to read after the "Feminine Mystique". If your're into autobiography, I would reccomend: "Powerplay" by Mary Cunningham. Mary Cunningham, as you may recall, was the bright up-and-coming female executive who was trashed by the media and the upper echelons at Bendix. She was accused of sleeping with her boss, Bill Agee and eventually had to resign her job. "Powerplay" is her version of the story. Apparently, she was a victim of the combined forces of a yellow press and some top-level power struggles by people who were trying to hurt Agee through her. My only problem with the book is the last chapters, where she starts explaining things. She claims that she and Agee didn't start seeing each other until after she had lost her job, and that he slept on the couch all the times he spent the night, and that it was only a coincidence that they both divorced their spouses at the same time and that Agee's wife was just venting her anger at Agee when she went to the press with all her accusations etc. etc. Actually though, having read her book, I believe her. "Never Guilty, Never Free" by Ginny Foat. Ginny Foat was another victim of other people's powerplays. She started out as a good catholic girl suffering from a wrecked marriage. She spent a few years traveling with a man named Jack Sidote who could only be described as the definitive scumbag. They travelled/lived together for several years doing odd jobs to support themselves while Jack beat Ginny constantly and mercilessly for the entire time -- she was the classic victim of the battered wife syndrome. Finally, Sidote was sent to jail for manslaughter and Ginny started to piece her life back together again. After many years, she joined N.O.W. and rose to a position of considerable power in the organization. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, she was arrested on murder charges pending against her in Nevada and Louisianna (sp?). It seems that Jack Sidote had turned state's evidence against her on a couple of unsolved murders in exchange for immunity himself. This was a double gambit in Sidote's part -- to avoid prosecution for the crimes himself and to get revenge on Ginny for leaving him. The charges were so obviously trumped up and the case so pathetically weak, that Ginny could not help but feel that only her fame in the feminist movement could be the motivation for the authorities to follow up on it. She was cleared in Nevada, and Louisianna decided not to extradite her (although the warrent for her arrest was never withdrawn). Many years later, she rose to such a position in N.O.W. that she was actually being considered as a canditate for the next N.O.W. presidential election. What happened then, was that she got into a political infight with another N.O.W. politco named Shelley Mandel, who stormed out of the room saying "I'll show you who has the real power around here". Mandell then wrote a letter to the Louisianna sherriff's dept. in the county where Foat was wanted, and told them Foat's current name (the warrent was under her maiden name) and address. This may class as the worst case of trashing in the feminist movement. Anyway, by now Foat was such a famous person, that when the police arrested her the second time, she rated about a dozen police cars and a helicopter -- everything but a swat team. She wound up spending another six months in jail or awaiting trial while the gears of justice turned again. She was cleared easily (of course) but by now her political career had practically been destroyed. She spends the last chapters of the book exploring the reasons why the authorities had decided to pursue her on such a flimsy charge and on the actions of the feminist movement during that time (The upper echelons of N.O.W. became divided into pro-Foat and anti-Foat factions, and many of her friends in the movement were trashed because of their support of her). I appologise if I got any of the details wrong (names, places etc.), but both autobiographies make very good reading. Now for a question: can anybody reccomend a good book on Margaret Sanger? -ed falk, sun microsystems