Women Unbound Reading Challenge

I decided long ago, that I wasn’t going to participate in any challenges any more, because they aren’t my thing. But the Women Unbound Challenge is one I cannot not join! The challenge has officially already started, but you can join in whenever you want. From the Women Unbound Challenge blog:

The challenge runs from November 1, 2009-November 30, 2010, but you may join in the fun whenever you wish! Participants are encouraged to read nonfiction and fiction books related to the rather broad idea of ‘women’s studies.’ The definition according to Merriam-Webster:

“the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender.”

For nonfiction, this would include books on feminism, history books focused on women, biographies of women, memoirs (or travelogues) by women, essays by women and cultural books focused on women (body image, motherhood, etc.). The topics I’ve listed aren’t mean to be exhaustive; if you come across a nonfiction book whose subject is female-related, it counts![...]

It’s trickier to say what is applicable as fiction. Obviously, any classic fiction written by a feminist is applicable. But where do we go from there? To speak generally, if the book takes a thoughtful look at the place of women in society, it will probably count. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to explain in your review why you chose this for the challenge and its connection to women’s studies.

There are three levels to choose from:
Philogynist: read at least two books, including at least one nonfiction one.
Bluestocking: read at least five books, including at least two nonfiction ones.
Suffragette: read at least eight books, including at least three nonfiction ones.

I’ll pick my books from this list (these are all books I already have on my shelves, but haven’t read yet):
Fiction:
Virginia Woolf – Mrs. Dalloway
Willa Cather – O Pioneers!
Jane Austen – Mansfield Park
Jane Austen – Emma
Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin
Harper Lee – To Kill a Mocking Bird
Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Joyce Carol Oates – The Gravedigger’s Daughter
Ahdaf Soueif – The Map of Love

Nonfiction:
Virginia Woolf – A Room of One’s Own
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn – Half the Sky
Virginia Nicholson – Singled Out
Tina Chanter – Gender: Key Concepts in philosophy
Alice Sebold – Lucky
Mary Wollstonecraft – The Rights of Woman
Naomi Wolf – Promiscuities

I am not sure all of the books listed under fiction are suitable for the challenge (some definitely are). I might end up reading one from the list and afterwards decide that it doesn’t fit the challenge rules after all, then I obviously won’t count it. But even so, I still have plenty of books that do fit. It won’t be much of a surprise that I chose the Suffragette-level, so I’m planning to read at least eight books from this list.

The blog for the reading challenge is here.

Just like I am no fan of challenges, neither do I like memes. But I’ll be a good sport and answer the three questions to the Women Unbound Start of Challenge meme.

1. What does feminism mean to you? Does it have to do with the work sphere? The social sphere? How you dress? How you act?
For me feminism is about having a choice and, even more than that, having the freedom to choose: to marry or not to marry, to have children or not to have children, to work or not to work, to have sex before marriage or not, to dress the way you want, to study what you want to study. In short, the freedom to make life choices: the freedom and the opportunity to live and arrange your life the way you want to, not the way others (family, friends, husband/boyfriend, society) want you to live your life.

2. Do you consider yourself a feminist? Why or why not?
Yes. I guess I have been a feminist as long as I can remember. I am not sure I can even answer why, it is so much part of who I am, what is important to me and what I stand for. I guess I was raised a feminist, even though it was not labeled explicitly. But since I moved to Armenia, my feelings on the issue have definitely become more pronounced and explicit.

3. What do you consider the biggest obstacle women face in the world today? Has that obstacle changed over time, or does it basically remain the same?
I don’t know if there is one biggest obstacle women worldwide face. I think in general there are a couple of large obstacles, but the size of them varies by society, by country, by social layer. I can speak for the society I live in (and I am sure that it is similar in many other societies).

In Armenia I think that one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest, women face is the pressure of society to fit in, not to be different. This pressure comes from society as a whole, so from both men and women in that society, and it also applies to both sexes. In this society women (and men) are allowed to have a limited set of roles. These roles are not only continued, taught and propagated by men, but also by women themselves (and in large part, though not exclusively, by the mothers-in-law – but that’s a digressing storyline) in the way they raise their children. A huge importance is given to the opinion of others (“What will my family/neighbors/classmates/colleagues/… think of us/my daughter/wife/sister when I/she do(es) this or that?”).

In my life, I never felt judged differently or that people had different expectations of me because I am a woman. I always felt a human being first, and maybe a woman second. Until I came to Armenia almost ten years ago. In Armenia almost without exception I am judged as a woman first and only then as a human being, by strangers for sure, but also by many people who know me. Armenia is a very traditional, patriarchal society where women are not supposed to have sex before marriage (but men are), where unmarried women live with their parents and are not supposed to be out after dark (worst case) or after midnight (best case), where “what the neighbors say” is more important than whether you or your own child is happy, where women are judged first and foremost as wives and mothers, where getting married and having children is about the highest goal for women and where working and having a career as a way of self-development or gaining economic independence are not very much accepted for women.

I do not fit the set of roles women are supposed to fulfill in Armenian society: I am in my mid-thirties, unmarried (and not planning to any time soon) and single, it is highly unlikely I will ever have children, I have lived on my own for almost half my life and I moved on my own to a different country. Some people in Armenia probably think I am weird, but I also know that I am a role model for many younger women around me. That is something that scares me (I am who I am, I am just living my life as I see fit and I am not perfect), but I am also proud of that. It is one of the reasons I continue to live in Armenia.