Emerson College Library: Women's History Month: Women Who Tell Our Stories (2023 Theme)

2023 Theme

The theme for 2023, as announced by the National Women's History Alliance, is "Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories". When describing the theme the NWHA states:

"From the earliest storytellers through pioneering journalists, our experiences have been captured by a wide variety of artists and teachers. These include authors, songwriters, scholars, playwrights, performers, and grandmothers throughout time. Women have long been instrumental in passing on our heritage in word and in print to communicate the lessons of those who came before us. Women’s stories, and the larger human story, expand our understanding and strengthen our connections with each other."

Learn more here.

Highlighting Emerson Alumni

Telling Their and Our Stories

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
The autobiography of Gertrude Stein written by herself as though it were the autobiography of her secretary, Alice B. Toklas. This is Stein's most famous work; one of the richest and most irreverent biographies ever written.
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel's own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother--to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
In her award-winning book The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston created an entirely new form--an exhilarating blend of autobiography and mythology, of world and self, of hot rage and cool analysis. First published in 1976, it has become a classic in its innovative portrayal of multiple and intersecting identities--immigrant, female, Chinese, American. A warrior of words, she forges fractured myths and memories into an incandescent whole, achieving a new understanding of her family's past and her own present
I'm Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
A powerful meditation on the damaging effects of masculinity from a trans girl--a writer with celebrated indie roots and a knack for dismantling assumptions and challenging the status quo.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other is a celebration of the diversity of Black British experience. Moving, hopeful, and inventive, this extraordinary novel is a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950 by Rodger Streitmatter
During a time when female reporters were almost always relegated to the society and women's pages of the newspapers, a few hundred notable women broke barriers and wrote their way onto the front pages of metropolitan newspapers. Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920-1950 takes a look at the lives and careers of women who worked successfully in this male-dominated profession. The women viewed themselves as path-breakers, although they rarely openly acknowledged it. Between the lines, however, they suggested that they understood how important their success was to future generations of women.
There's No Crying In Newsrooms by Kristin Grady Gilger and Julia Wallace
Navigating the workplace, especially in the highly visible world of news media, is more confusing and challenging for women than ever before. There's No Crying in Newsrooms tells the stories of women who have made it to the top of the nation's news organizations and describes what it takes to be a leader - and what it costs.
A Woman in the Crossfire by Samar Yazbek; Max Weiss (Translator)
A well-known novelist and journalist from the coastal city of Jableh, Samar Yazbek witnessed the beginning four months of the uprising first-hand and actively participated in a variety of public actions and budding social movements. Filled with snapshots of exhilarating hope and horrifying atrocities, she offers us a wholly unique perspective on the Syrian uprising. Hers is a modest yet powerful testament to the strength and commitment of countless unnamed Syrians who have united to fight for their freedom. These diaries will inspire all those who read them, and challenge the world to look anew at the trials and tribulations of the Syrian uprising.
Writing the Wrongs by Elizabeth Faue
Eva McDonald Valesh was one of the Progressive Era's foremost labor publicists. Challenging the narrow confines placed on women, Valesh became a successful investigative journalist, organizer, and public speaker for labor reform. Elizabeth Faue lays bare the underside of social reform and reveals how front-line workers in labor's political culture reporters, investigators, and lecturers provoked and informed American society by writing about social wrongs. Writing the Wrongs is a window on the Progressive Era, on social history and the new journalism, and on women's lives and the meanings of class and gender.

Storytelling through Film

Reel Wāhine of Hawaiʻi
Reel Wāhine of Hawaiʻi active filmmakers and focuses on the changing world of media and the role women play in expanding Hawaiʻi's industry in innovative ways. Reel Wāhine of Hawaiʻi results from an intergenerational collaboration between young women graduates of Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking programs and a veteran team of filmmakers, eager to share their experience and expertise. The films will preserve the untold stories of Hawaiʻi women filmmakers in their own words and in all their diversity to inspire the storytellers and leaders of tomorrow.
Seeing is Believing: Women Direct
Focusing on inspiring and uplifting young female storytellers through the mentorship and leadership of four diverse directors, Seeing Is Believing: Women Direct opens the conversation up to ask "What is the broader role of storytelling in our society and how can women use filmed media as a unique opportunity to catalyze progress?" The film is additionally bolstered by important insights from male and female-identifying filmmakers to show how collaboration, rather than oppression, can incentivize all genders to connect to our shared human experience.

Jovita Idar – Voice of the People
Imagine throwing shade at a politician online and police showed up to arrest you! It would be un-American, right? In this video, we’ll explain the story of Jovita Idar, a Mexican-American journalist who refused to be silenced!
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise
This film celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exuberant life during some of America's most defining moments. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X to her inaugural speech for President Bill Clinton, the film takes us on an incredible journey through the life of a true American icon.
Playing with Fire : Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting
The documentary film follows Grammy-winning conductor Jeannette Sorrell - one of today's most interesting conductors and a vivid interpreter of baroque and classical music. Sorrell, told by the Juilliard School and The Cleveland Orchestra that no one will hire a woman conductor, forms her own Baroque orchestra, Apollo's Fire, to immediate acclaim. The role of the conductor as storyteller emerges as Miller pursues the secrets of a conductor's art.
The Stories of Maxine Hong Kingston
In this program with Bill Moyers, Kingston discusses new images of America as a "melting pot" where the dutiful notions of the Puritans blend with the Chinese Monkey Spirit to produce a new American consciousness.
Thunderbird Woman: Winona LaDuke
This is an inspiring portrait of Winona La Duke, a unique and dynamic activist and member of the Anishinaabe tribe from the White Earth reservation in Northern Minnesota. Winona organized resistance against uranium and coal mining on reservation lands. Nicknamed "No Nukes la Duke," in the 1980s she used the slogan "No Nukes" to united the Indian Movement with anti-nuclear protests. A published author, she was named one of America s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age by Time Magazine.
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
An artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the acclaimed novelist. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to '70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature.

Lady Bird
Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson is a high school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks." She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. LADY BIRD follows the title character's senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college.

Women's History Month

Journals and Databases

2023 Theme

Highlighting Emerson Alumni

I Shimmer Sometimes, Too

Blowout

To Create

Live Nude Girl

Telling Their and Our Stories

Storytelling through Film