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E-book
Author Jolly, Margaretta

Title In love and struggle : letters in contemporary feminism / Margaretta Jolly
Published New York : Columbia University Press, ©2008

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Description 1 online resource (ix, 315 pages) : illustrations
Series Gender and culture
Gender and culture.
Contents Introduction: The feminist world of love and ritual -- Love letters to a new me -- Feminist epistolary romance -- Velvet boxing gloves -- Theorizing feminist letters -- Mothers and daughters in correspondence -- Writing the web : letters from the women's peace movement -- Do webs work? : letters and the clash of communities -- Care versus autonomy : the problem of (loving) men -- The paradox of care as a right -- How different is e-mail? -- Care ethics online -- On burning and saving letters -- Stealing letters : the ethics of epistolary research -- Conclusion
Summary Winner of the 2009 Feminist and Women's Studies Association Book Prize Do you think I can be a feminist mother? Did I make you and your kisses up in my mind? Will you join our military protest at the gate? Will you feed the kids when I'm in prison? Are you able to forgive me for breaking off this correspondence because you are a man?During the women's movement of the 1970s and 1980s, feminists in the United States and Britain reinvented the image of the woman letter writer. Symbolically tearing up the love letter to an absent man, they wrote passionate letters to one another, exploring questions of sexuality, separatism, and strategy. These texts speak of the new interest women began to feel in one another and the new demands-and disappointments-these relationships would create. Margaretta Jolly provides the first cultural study of these letters, charting the evolution of feminist political consciousness from the height of the women's movement to today's e-mail networks. Jolly uncovers the passionate, contradictory emotions of both politics and letter writing and sets out the theory behind them as a fragile yet persistent ideal of care ethics, women's love, and epistolary art. She follows several compelling feminist relationships sustained through writing and confronts the mixed messages of the "open letter," which complicated political relations between women (such as Audre Lorde's "Open Letter to Mary Daly," which called out white feminists for their implicit racism). Jolly recovers the unsung literature of lesbianism and feminist romance, examines the ambivalent feelings within mother-daughter correspondences, and considers letter-writing campaigns during the peace movement. She concludes with a discussion of the ethical dilemma surrounding care versus autonomy and the meaning behind the burning or saving of letters. Letters that chart love stories, letters stowed away in attics, letters burnt at the end of romances, bittersweet letters written but never sent ... this fascinating glimpse into women's intimate archives illuminates one of feminism's central concerns - that all relationships are political-and uniquely recasts a social movement in very emotional terms
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-290) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
In English
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
In Title is part of the collection: De Gruyter Rights, Action, and Social Responsibility
Subject Feminists -- Correspondence
Feminists -- Social networks
Feminism -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
Feminism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
Letter writing -- History -- 20th century
Letters -- Women authors -- History and criticism
Electronic mail messages -- Social aspects
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Feminism & Feminist Theory.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Women's Studies.
Feminism
Feminists
Letter writing
Letters -- Women authors
Feminismus
Brief
Feminism -- nätverk -- brev -- historia -- Storbritannien -- Förenta staterna -- 1900-talet.
Kvinnorörelsen.
Feminism -- historia -- 1900-talet.
Great Britain
United States
Großbritannien
USA
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Personal correspondence
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780231510752
0231510756
0231137931
9780231137935
1282872001
9781282872004
9786612872006
6612872004