FUCK THE PATRIARCHY | The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

I do not recall exactly how I first learned of Mona Eltahawy. Somehow this video came across my Twitter feed and I was completely enthralled by what she was saying, by the power in her voice, her absolute certainty in what she was saying, all the words I have ever wanted to hear.

As a result of the discussion, ABC Australia removed this Q & A session from its website altogether but here is the banned episode in its entirety.

There is truly no way for me to "review" this book in the traditional sense. I originally checked it out from the library but it was clear within the first chapter that I would need my own copy, as my fingers were just itching to highlight and underline and scribbles notes to myself in the margins.

Even after I finished the book within a couple hours, I could not stop thinking about. I just sat there, clutching the book to my chest, knowing that finally FINALLY, here was someone telling me that my rage is righteous and justified. It's not in my head, I am not too much. I am here, I count, I am 100% unapologetically me.

"We must make patriarchy fear us. We must reject politeness; there is nothing polite about patriarchy. We must reject civility; there is nothing civil about racism or misogyny or transphobia. Warnings precede profanity, to protect the sensibility of the reader; where are the warnings that precede patriarchy to protect the lives of women and girls? Curse words are bleeped out of television and radio broadcasts; how to we bleep out patriarchy?" (pg 76)

Fuck anyone who doesn't like it. Fuck anyone who wants me to be nice, to be civil. FUCK YOU, PATRIARCHY.

I feel this book so deeply in my soul. The words have seeped into my skin, my bones, my very being. I have always considered myself a feminist, but after reading this brilliant work, I feel different. I feel more. I am radicalized. I can face patriarchy head-on and smash it into tiny fucking pieces, pieces so small that it can never even hope to put itself back together again.

Eltahawy is strong and brave and powerful. She has shown me I can be those things, too. I can raise Eleanor this way, to raise her fist, shout "FUCK THE PATRIARCHY" and to understand the weight of the words, to understand that she too is declaring war on a society not built for her. That she can bring that society down, and create a new one where all women are free.

I started reading various paragraphs out loud to Eleanor the night I bought my copy and found myself at a loss when she first asked what patriarchy meant. How do you explain systemic oppression of women and girls (don't forget to factor in that things get drastically worse when you also consider race and socioeconomic status of those women and girls) to a seven year old? Even a seven year old as intelligent and thoughtful and curious as mine?

Mona to the rescue! I tweeted this very predicament to her and she responded shortly with a video she had previously recorded doing just that, explaining what patriarchy means in as kid-friendly terms as you can get. Eleanor and I both appreciated this very much.

I don't know that I can ever truly convey what this book means to me. No words do it justice.

But I know what it means to patriarchy: your days are numbered.

Book Review | How Mamas Love Their Babies

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This book and what it attempts to do are both beautiful. Throughout the pages with simple text and captivating illustrations, we see the many ways that Mamas love their babies. Mamas love their babies by taking care of them physically, and working to support them. It also makes the message loud and clear: Mamas can have jobs that society looks down on (manual labor) or has hissy fits over (sex industry), and those Mamas love their babies just as much as Mamas in more 'normalized' job fields.

There are a few problematic things and I want to address them first. This book is beautifully diverse, but I question the choice to include the white mother and child with the 'We shall overcome' sign. I have taken Eleanor to a women's #BlackLivesMatter protest, but I would never have her holding a sign such as that. We are allies, there to support and uplift our Black and African-American Sisters, not to make it about us.

My other issue that I felt could have been explored is the idea of motherhood itself. The book starts off with describing how some mothers care for their babies inside their own bodies...and never comes back around to mothers who become mothers in other ways. Or who have children and are physically female, but do not identify as she/her. And honestly, that may have gone way over the heads of the age-range for this one, but everything else was made simple, and this could have been too.

Now, onto all the other reasons this one is still five stars even with my issues listed above.

Mamas do whatever they have to in order to make sure their babies survive and thrive. This book is a celebration of all kinds of jobs that mothers do in order to make that happen. Not only are a variety of jobs depicted, but so are a variety of women. Mothers of all races, ages, and body types are found within these pages and I think that is truly amazing. There are young mamas, obese mamas, and YES, breastfeeding mamas. As a mama who could not breastfeed for long no matter how hard she tried, I love this inclusion and I am pretty much fed up with all y'all who think women need to cover up in public. Boobs are not for you, they are for nourishing babies, so stop staring like a moron. And if you don't like seeing them, don't look. Not too difficult.

All families deserve to feel validated and I have said time and time again that representation matters. Kids need to see themselves reflected back in the books they read. Can you imagine how far this would go in making families feel valued, especially those families where mama works a job or two that is not considered 'normal'? And I am not just talking about the mama who is a sex worker. I am talking about the mamas who work in fields all day, the mamas who clean homes and office buildings, poor mamas just trying to make ends meet, mamas who work just as hard as any other mama to provide for her children. We see mamas who stay home, mamas who are pilots, artists, office workers, and so much more.

I do want to specifically address the sex worker mama depicted here. She is included in the pages where it talks about the kind of uniforms that mamas can wear while working, and how some mamas 'wear special shoes'. Mamas deserve to be celebrated for being mamas, for working hard to provide for their families. I absolutely want this book in my school library, because even if the children do not know what their mama does for a living, imagine how she would feel seeing herself reflected in a book that her child has brought home from school? Sex worker mamas are mamas and if you have a problem with that, well, you are the problem.

The illustrations did take some getting used to for me, mainly because I think the 70s were weird and awkward so that vibe was not my most favorite. However, after reading through it a few times, I liked how it all flowed together. They are real photographs depicting mamas and their children, along with the effect of crayons over some of the photos.

This is a wonderful book and deserves a place in every library - whether public, school, or home. Kids need to see themselves in the stories they read and we need to include all families in those depictions as well.

Highly recommended.

Book Review | The Little Book of Feminist Saints

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I got this book from a good friend for Christmas and had every intention first of reading it to myself daily, a brief snippet about a strong, courageous, bad-ass woman who rightly deserves to have her story told. Instead, I read it in a couple hours. Oops.

I love the feel of the book, instead of a 'little book of saints' one might be given for First Communion or Confirmation, the book is an entirely secular look at women who have broken barriers, faced obstacles, and still succeeded - and should be rightly praised for such endeavors. To be clear, that is where the difference lies, as we are obviously not worshiping them or praying to them. Or, I guess some might, if feminism is their sole religion.

Much like a little book of saints book, there is a beautiful illustration of the woman discussed, and on the opposite page her name, what she is the 'matron saint' of, year/where she was born, and her feast day (birthday). There is also a quote by or about the saint, and a short paragraph or two. This summary is by no means meant to serve as even as the briefest of biographies, which the author states at the beginning of the book. Instead, we get bold anecdotes, brief but brilliant stories of what makes that particular woman so powerful, mighty, strong.

I feel like this was a really great mix of women from all walks of life. The women range from Italian artists and Japanese rebels, to Russian pilots and English geniuses. There are many women from the United States, but there are also women from a variety of countries. I assume the American influence is because the author is from the United States, which some reviewers found worthy of criticism. However, one also has to keep in mind the ease of access to certain information from countries that may not be all that anxious to share the successes and triumphs of women - especially women who work hard to smash the patriarchy. There are quite a few women here I had never heard of before, as well as the ones you would expect - Oprah, Steinem, Venus and Serena.

One of my favorite aspects of the book were the titles given to the women, the thing or idea they were the matron saint of. Here are a few that I especially loved:

Michelle Obama - Matron Saint of Ladies

Kanno Sugako - Matron Saint of Radicals

Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon - Matron Saints of Marriage

Barbara Jordan - Matron Saint of the Constitution

Hypatia - Matron Saint of Scholars

Nelly Bly - Matron Saint of Journalists

Phillis Wheatley - Matron Saint of Readers

The Williams Sisters - Matron Saints of Athletes

Anne Frank - Matron Saint of Diarists

The Mirabel Sisters - Matron Saint of Rebels

Banazir Bhutto - Matron Saint of Democracy

Malala Yousafzai - Matron Saint of Students

Kasha Nabagesera - Matron Saint of Coming Out

Marsha P. Johnson - Matron Saint of Protest

Ruby Bridges - Matron Saint of First Steps

Junko Tabei - Matron Saint of Summits

Anna Politkovskaya - Matron Saint of the Brave

The Night Witches - Matron Saints of the Sky

Lise Meitner - Patron Saint of Discovery

Pussy Riot - Matron Saints of Punk

Juana Inés De La Cruz - Matron Saint of Intellectuals

Kara Walker - Matron Saint of Confronting History

Louisa May Alcott - Matron Saint of Scribblers

Shirley Chisolm - Matron Saint of Firsts

Grace Hopper - Matron Saint of Programmers

Faith Spotted Eagle - Matron Saint of Activists

Okay, I know I said a few but as I was going through the book I could not stop and well, here we are.

Eleanor and I have read both volumes of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, which is along the same lines, and loved them even if I find the title problematic (we shouldn't refer to the women in those books as rebels, because we need to normalize successful women, not make them exceptions to the rule). I plan to read this to her as well and give her the tools she needs to continue the work of smashing away at that glass ceiling and fucking up the patriarchy.

Book Review | The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Okay, so realistically, this is a five-star read, but it was truly so good that I could not stop myself from adding more stars. I was in the library hold line a long time for this one. It was absolutely worth the wait.

The Five has earned a place among my 'Best of 2019'. It's beautiful and brilliant and tragic and haunting, but it is more than anything a memorial to the women who have become but a footnote in their own lives, and deaths, cast aside for the thrill of trying to figure out who could have so brutally murdered them.

How many books have you read about their murderer? If the subject interests you, I can think of five or so off the top of my head who have attempted to shine a spotlight on a man who has for over a century eluded capture, and most likely always will. But how often are his victims in those works only mentioned in passing, gleefully describing his handiwork, often showing pictures of the women who were mutilated almost beyond recognition? We are told they were prostitutes, as if that statement alone tells us everything we ever need to know about them, implying that had they been moral, upstanding women, they would not have been so cruelly dispatched.

Guess what? Fuck that noise. Seriously.

I don't care if they all were prostitutes and honestly, that is the very last thing that should matter. Unfortunately in Victorian England and the world today, it still matters very much, thus the need for this book. It is frustrating that it even needed to be written, to show people that, "Hey, guess what, not all were prostitutes", but it is so important; it brings the women out of the shadows and shoves their killer back into the darkness where he belongs. It also shows just how misogynistic society continues to be to this day.

There is so much incredible detail here - so much of this was completely new to me. As the title suggests, this book only focuses on the women, each given her own chapter, in the order that their lives were brutally cut short. I could not believe just how much the author was able to uncover about these women, their places of birth, childhoods, and so on. There is some conjecture but for once this did not bother, as it was not rampant and was necessary to provide context and a fuller picture. For example, did you know that not all of the women were even English? One was from Sweden, and another was Welsh. I am trying to not give too much away, because this is something I want everyone to read, there is so much to discover. These women were so much more than the terrible endings they suffered.

One major difference you will notice in this text compared to others about the crime, is that there is almost no reference to the murderer himself. Nor does the author humiliate her subjects by recounting the horrific conditions he left their deceased bodies in. Throughout it all, she treats the women with the dignity and respect that they were denied in life. 

Not only did the author recreate the lives of these women, but she also placed them in their era with stunning imagery. I am usually not terribly interested in UK history much beyond the reign of Mary I, but for some reason, Victorian London is enthralling. Here the author describes the neighborhoods, slums, back alleys, doss houses, orphanages, and the people who walked those streets looking for work or drink. An incredibly vivid pictures seems to rise from the pages and you can practically see and smell and hear all there is to take in during that stretch of of time in 1888.

Instead of all being strung together with the prostitute label, what better suits the group's characteristics is that all struggled with addiction to alcohol. Most of the women were born to working-class families, where life was tough from the start and the deck was already stacked against them. But they fought hard just to survive their childhoods, and most went on to marry and start families. For various reasons that the author describes, all became stuck in the grasp of alcoholism. If you think the social stigma placed on people struggling with addiction today is bad, rest (not so) assured that it was even worse for people in the 19th century, and worst of all for women. If you were a woman without a family to care for, and a man to care for you, you had no value. You were broken, You had failed at the one thing expected of you in life, regardless of station. And that is one of the many reasons that no one thought twice about lumping all of these women together in one heap, newspapers gleefully showing off the horrible photos of the women, who would not be afforded dignity or privacy even in death. There killer knew this, knew that these were women no one would miss, that they were viewed as deserving what happened to them because they chose to live outside society's expectations of them.

These women were poor and homeless, and contrary to popular belief, the author comes to an obvious conclusion when taking all of this into consideration: The women were not murdered by an all-but-invisible fiend who killed them as they plied their trade on the street. They were, in fact, murdered as they slept. All but one (Mary Jane Kelly) had been "sleeping rough", the term used when one was not able to secure enough money for lodging that night and instead had to find somewhere out of the way to try and catch a few hours' sleep. Survival was difficult, and was day-to-day when you made ends meet however you could, but still needed to dull the pain of losing your family, your home, your children was the alcohol which all relied on. Yet, all five women were described best by those who knew them, that they were kind and gentle - when not drunk.

Much like our media has only recently started to do when a terrible crime has been committed, the author asks you to remember not the name of the murderer, but the women who lost their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols

Annie Chapman

Elisabeth Stride

Catherine Eddowes

Mary Jane Kelly

"It is only by bringing these women back to life that we can silence the Ripper and what he represents. By permitting them to speak, by attempting to understand their experiences and see their humanity, we can restore to them the respect and compassion to which they are entitled. The victims of Jack the Ripper were never 'just prostitutes'; they were women. They were human beings, and surely that in itself is enough" (page 295)

Meticulous research of both the women and the period. Incredibly thorough notes and references. Highly, highly recommended.

Dead Feminists: Historic Heroines in Living Color

Rating: 4 Stars

First I am going to say what every other reviewer has also probably said and that is this book is fucking beautiful.

The broadsides are amazing and so intricately detailed that you can view them multiple times and always find something you missed before. I would love to see them in real-life and not just reprinted for this book. The colors are so vibrant and at times seem to leap right off the page; I can only imagine what seeing an original must be like, and perhaps I will be lucky enough to own one some day.

This book is not in-depth, if that is what you are looking for, so it is best to temper those expectations right away. And so many of the women featured here have (in some cases, multiple) full length biographies already dedicated to them, that too much detailed information is almost moot. Each of the twenty seven women featured are given a brief biography (2-3 pages) and interspersed are additional photos of the creators at work, the women themselves, and/or other relevant information, as well as important quotes from the text. Each broadside has its own full page, and each then each also has its own little biography, giving information about what number it was in the series, which cause it supported (money from the sale of each broadside was donated to that cause/organization), why the fonts, symbols, and colors were chosen, details of the creating, and so on. I like that the biographies focused on what makes these women feminist icons, and did not get bogged down with too much backstory. In other books that would be an issue, but for something like this where the broadside featuring that feminist is the focal point, that other information is simply not necessary. And the reader more than likely already knows a good deal about many of the women featured. You will find some women you are familiar with, especially the suffragettes, but also women from a wide variety of other fields - scientists, royalty, writers, educators, and so on. Each made important contributions to equal rights simply by being themselves and doing what they knew in their hearts to be right - even if it meant obliterating social norms of their time.

I really appreciated the wide variety of cultures and time periods that these women represented. We all know that representation matters, and when people see themselves reflected in what they are fighting for, it gives a much-needed morale boost when things get really tough. We can not just continue to focus on young white women as the only demographic which feminism represents. There are so many powerful stories from women of color, young and older alike. All of these stories matter, and all deserve to not just be told, but to be heard. We are stronger together and we must remember that every time they try to divide us.

Advice: Get a physical copy to browse through. The feel of the book, and the thickness of the paper give it that feel that for a moment you can think you are looking at an original and not a reproduction for the book. Definitely avoid e-readers for this one!

So if the news of the day has you feeling rundown and exhausted because this shit is seriously so tiring and you just want to curl up in a ball, pick this book up and remind yourself that yes indeed, you can change the world for the better.

After all...

Highly recommended.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 2

Rating: 5 Stars

Okay, so I STILL find the title problematic, but I gave this one five stars anyway, just like I did the first one, because the stories truly are what matter. For me the title is an issue because, if we want to normalize the success of women (for fuck's sake, it is 2019 and we still have to work at this shit!), we can't refer to these successful and brave women as rebels - and the little girls who read the stories as rebels also. I understand that yes, we are rebelling against the patriarchy and in that sense the title works. But I dream of the day when my daughter won't be thought of as a rebel or an anomaly because she does something fucking amazing for the betterment of humanity. Even so, I hope they continue the series, because there are so many women who I am learning about, and Eleanor has taken such an interest in so many of them.

One new feature that Eleanor and I especially liked about this book is that it included a world map to show where each woman was from. Eleanor loved finding the name and number each time we read, and always had to make sure she had found the location before we began reading. This gave me a great opportunity before or after to them discuss the place that woman was from, and their place in the world as a whole, and compared to where we are located. I hope future editions continue to include a map.

There were more contemporary women in this volume, which I appreciated because it gives Eleanor a sense of, these women are alive now, I can look up more information about them and continue to learn about them as they achieve even greater heights. One drawback to the book and the inclusion of 100 women per book is that their lives have to be carved down to one page for text, with the opposite page for a likeness of the woman. This means that sometimes it makes these accomplishments that are so great, seem as though they were achieved with little difficulty. However, this is not too big of an issue for Eleanor and I personally, because even though she is only five, once she is interested in someone or something, we find many books about that topic/person. As she grows, she will have the opportunity to read of these mighty girls in more details. For now, these bite-sized morsels are perfect.

Highly recommended.

Review Bomb: Buffy

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the greatest show ever. If you don't think so, we can't be friends.

 3 Stars

I always appreciate when Buffy is taken seriously as one of the greatest shows worthy of our continued interest and discussion, because it truly is one of the most simply complex shows ever. Joss is a genius. (Though, I will never forgive him for 'I Will Remember You'. It hurt TOO MUCH.)

This Buffy book (and there are TONS), looks at the show itself, the scripts, as the primary text and what we can learn from them in that way. That the show is something special can not be denied, even though I am constantly reminding people (It's been gone so long...I worry that Eleanor will grow up somehow not loving it as much as I do.) A wide variety of authors take on a number of subjects, including sisterhood, redemption, folklore, education, patriarchy, and so much more. For the most part I enjoyed the essays, though there were about a handful in particular I could not do more with than skim. And you must know, if an academic Buffy work makes ME skim...it isn't good. Not at all. BUT, I do not want my own personal opinion to color some else's so I have chosen to not share which essays they were.

The essays are divided into four different sections: Power and the Buffy Canon, Buffy Meets the Classics, Buffy, the Scoobies, and Beyond, and Buffy and the Classroom. Some sections were stronger than others, but it was still an interesting read overall. One of the things that is most important to me about Buffy is the idea of what is considered 'canon'. It frustrates me to no end that the comics are considered canon, and I refuse to read them. Once Angel went off the air, their lives have been paused and I wait hopefully that maybe just once, we could get a glimpse into their lives after it all ended.

Anyway.

I think the argument between scripts being canon, vs the actual episode that aired being canon is a really interesting argument. For me personally, I would actually consider the DVDs to be as such. Much like with Friends, there is always something more to those episodes in the unrestricted DVD format, as opposed to reruns or Netflix, where they only air the show as it was shown originally. I can see the argument for the scripts, but to a limited extent. As the show was filming throughout the week, Joss and Company saw what worked and what didn't, and revised from there. I would actually place the scripts as the lowest on the canon totem pole, with second place going to the aired version, and first place going to the DVD version.

One of my most favorite essays came from the second section about Buffy and the Classics. I really liked the essay by Elizabeth Bridges, entitled "Grimm Realities: Buffy and the Use of Folklore". This idea of folklore and fairy tales permeates the show (and one fairy tale reference often gets ignored - the line in Nightmares when the Master says, "A dream is a wish your heart makes" is totally from Cinderella and always seems to get left out. Just needed to point this out). So many people will point to Hush as one of Buffy's finest episodes of the whole series, and good Lord it is. When it first aired, I was in shock over how amazing it was. Even today, I still know the words by heart..."Can't even shout, can't even cry, the Gentlemen are coming by. Looking in windows, knocking on doors, they need to take seven and they might take yours. Can't call for mom, can't say a word, you're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard"...I still get a shudder down my spine when I hear it. This essay was just a really well-thought out response to the show's approach to using folklore throughout the series. And personally, I liked Killed By Death.


 3 Stars

When I first finished this one, I was not quite sure how I felt about it. I initially rated it four stars, but after nearly six months away from it, I feel three stars is sufficient. I disagreed quite strongly with some of the assessments, particularly where Angel was concerned (don't come at me with any Spike nonsense. Buffy and Angel belong together, period). The author approached the show from a "feminist cultural studies" stand point (taken from the book summary), and I feel like a feminist point of view is a given when talking about Buffy. But, it is not only the female characters who are feminists, but the men in their lives as well. (Not the baddies like Caleb, of course.)

One of my biggest issues with this one is that it is the first Buffy book I have ever read that did not totally have my attention for the majority of the time. I still read it all, word for word, but it was simply not like so many of the other academics works I have read. I don't know, perhaps I was not in the right frame of mind to read it and was simply a little burned out, as I received many Buffy books around the same time, and if I were to go back with fresh eyes, things might look a bit differently to me. I don't want to say boring, really truly I don't. Buffy is anything but boring. So, a new look it shall have in the near-future.

Another issue I took related directly to this idea of gender binaries, and how this looked far different on Buffy. I took a lot of issue with the author's idea of New men being fake/pretend men. For me, Buffy has always been about completely dismantling of the outdated notions that a woman must be either feminine or feminist, that males are the only ones who are strong, and that emotion is almost wholly female. Time and again Buffy represented complete gender reversals and that was one of its strengths, the whole premise that the show was built on.

As the book went on I also found that the listing of even minor-minor characters in these various gender groups grew tiresome. it became less about analyzing how each character fit into a specific role, and about how many characters the author could find to prove her point.

Even though the book says it is a primer, I don't know that a casual Buffy fan would enjoy this much at all. And as I also disagree with some assessments, I don't know that I would recommend for anyone but the most loyal and intense of fans.


 3 Stars

If physics had been taught solely like this, I might have actually taken the class in high school. But it wasn't, and I didn't, so, bummer for me.

The author uses, of course, multiple examples from Buffy and Angel to explain various scientific concepts. The only problem here is that you lean closer to the science side of things and farther from the Buffy side, the examples may not appear to make sense all the time. And vice versa if you are like me, and don't really have an interest in science, you might still struggle to understand bits and pieces. Nothing is so complex that I skipped over any parts, but a healthy balance between the two within a reader would not be terrible.

By far the section that interested me the most had to do with any apocalypse we might have approaching. It gave me a healthy fear of how terrible this will actually be when it does happen, and no amount of Big Bads that Joss can create could be scarier than the real thing.

Dust Bowl Girls: The Inspiring Story of the Team That Barnstormed Its Way to Basketball Glory

I received this free ARC via NetGalley from Algonquin Books in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5 Stars

2017 was terrible for me in getting my NetGalley ARCs read. Since February I have been working on my own book and I just did not review nearly as much as I wanted to. My galleys in particular were set to the side and one of resolutions for 2018 is to get them all read and reviewed properly.

As soon as I saw Dust Bowl Girls, I knew I had to request it. My reasoning was two-fold, and I suspect that there are many who may have requested it for the same reasons I did:

1. I love basketball and played for years. March Madness is the greatest time of year.

2. A League of Their Own is one of my favorite movies and this seemed to be in a similar vein

I was not disappointed. Once I started reading, I could not stop. I only wish I had read this one a year ago, back when I first got it.

Dust Bowl Girls tells the story of the women's basketball team from Oklahoma Presbyterian College in Durant, Oklahoma in 1931. We learn about Sam Babb, their coach, who traveled back and forth all over Oklahoma to recruit women to play for OPC. The women were given the opportunity to not only play the sport they loved, but do also get a college education - something of high value in the midst of terrible suffering with farmers losing harvests, banks closing down, and families barely making ends met. He offered these young women a chance to change their fate and many took him up on the chance. Before Babb came into their lives, most of the girls were working on their family farms, playing basketball on make-shift dirt courts, helping out their family any way they could. College was certainly out of the question for most, as there was no money to pay for such a luxury - especially in a time where so many farms were struggling as it was and the loss of crops in one season could mean losing everything else as a result. There were several girls though, who despite taking the chance, were simply not up to the challenge once they arrived on campus and practice started. One of the star players made an interesting observation about why she thought this was so.

"In fact, after much thought about the issue of so many girls quitting the team and going home, Lucille had decided the poorer the girl, the harder she worked. All the poorest girls were still there" (38%).

The author, Lydia Reeder, is the perfect person to write such a book, as she is the great niece of head coach Sam Babb. Her writing style is smooth and engaging, and if you are one who enjoys their non-fiction to read like fiction, you may enjoy this. It is rare for me to get caught up in such non-fiction usually, because I am very much a "just the facts" person who does not like a lot of supposition. There were times for me when this was off-putting, especially when she was describing a daily run by one of the players. There is simply no way the thoughts and details could have been recorded anywhere or in such detail. There will be times of dramatic flair added, but not in a way that distracts from the actual story, or embellishes any of the accomplishments of this talented teams. And Reeder not only had access to stories passed down in her family, but scrapbooks, newspapers, interviews with the players, etc to rely on to paint a very vivid portrait of life for these young women. In fact some of those 'extras' that can make a book so special found their way into the pages - tons of team photos, newspaper articles about the season, and even a photo of a ticket stub from one of the games. Those kinds of artifacts are wonderful additions and enhance the text. At the end the author also provides extensive notes explaining how she came by the information and how it all worked to bring this story to life.

In addition to the story of the 1931 team and their undefeated season, we are given information about the history of women's basketball in general, as well as certain aspects of Oklahoma's history - not least of which is the terrible legacy of the treatment of Native Americans there. The players, who several themselves had Native American ancestry in the not-so-distant past, were given the task of teaching younger Indian students table manners during meals.

While the story of this team and the many women who played for many different teams was enchanting, that was not the case for the entire country - including First Lady Lou Henry Hoover. I myself played basketball for many years, am still a fierce competitor in nearly every aspect of my life (truly, I can make almost anything into a competition). Hearing stories from my grandma about how in the 50s when she was in middle school and high school, the girls could only play half-court basketball because they weren't strong enough to play full-court baffled and angered me. Then to see that and more in this book, while I logically knew there were many who thought was an acceptable and appropriate way to think of women and sports, made me even angrier. Basketball was not considered an acceptable sport for young women to play. They were not physically, emotionally, mentally tough enough to do so. Malarkey, I say. They were instead encouraged to play tennis or golf - yawn. Instead of having competitive varsity teams, many schools basically had what amounted to play dates with other schools, which concluded with sharing milk and cookies. I mean, seriously? Give me a break. It was okay for young women to learn some athletic sills, but never to get too good at any single sport. I know of course that those attitudes today do not exist on the large scale they did then, but the backwardness of it all really grated on my nerves. Authorities at the time were so afraid that too much physical activity would eventually cause the young women to "turn into men". No joke, when it was discovered that more active women did not have regular menstrual cycles, there was a fear that the uterus would wither away altogether. The "Women's Division" was a massively annoying group of women, including the aforementioned Hoover, who were incredibly anti-feminist women who set the rules and if the AAU wanted to continued having female athletes, they had to compromise sometimes. This gaggle of women were so sure that the young ladies would not be able to stand the pressure of competition and the ones that did not would somehow become tomboys who lost their ability to be "ladylike".

All in all, this was such a wonderful read, even when I was shaking my fist at those who tried to limit or prohibit altogether women from playing basketball. I am forever grateful to these pioneering women who forged this path, allowing generations after them to come to know and love this game so dearly. Fantastic read, highly recommended.