The Sleeping Lionesses Awake...

That's the way it feels to me lately. The issue of gender in librarianship, especially as it relates to those of us who work in youth librarianship, has been sleepily in the background for a long time.

A number of issues that have cropped up recently have brought the subject back to the forefront and women and men are standing up and saying, "Whoa! Wait! Stop!" "Let's back up here and get real again!". It feels as if powerful people who have long been sleeping are once again awakening and looking around - and want to claim -or reclaim -some power that has long been lost or trivialized.

Part of the discussion has been in the blogosophere; part on twitter and part on a librarian group on Facebook, Think Tank. What started in a somewhat rancorous way is building to something slightly different - an open and honest exploration of the roots of discourse on gender in librarianship. People are talking, exploring and sharing.

Kate Kosturski over at Librarian Kate blog has written two posts in the last few days tracing the scholarly research on gender and librarianship (here and here) and they are fascinating.  Her part 3 will be on youth librarianship as it relates to gender issues.  Please read the posts and consider sharing your experiences of gender bias in youth work with her at librariankate7578 at gmail dot com. I think we need to read more.

I can imagine the research is might thin on this topic. Other than recent blog posts , some of which I cited in my last post,  I have seldom read of youth librarianship and bias issues in my almost 40 years in the business. What there is probably was published in small presses and gathered in the marvelous Alternative Library Literature anthologies (edited by Jim Danky and Sandy Berman) of the '80s through early part of this century.

I, for one, am glad we're waking up to have this discussion.

Image: 'Open wide.....'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/66164549@N00/2884630721 Found on flickrcc.net

Women and Youth Librarianship

On this the first day of Women's History month, the issues of gender and power are much on my mind.

Hi Miss Julie just wrote one of the most powerful posts I have read on the issue of the politics of this power and how woman are pushed towards silence. She turns a burning light on this in particular in her own life and then in relation to the world of children's work within librarianship.

This post links directly with her earlier post on recognition and youth work. For those in youth work who read this earlier post's comments section, it was stunning how utterly and completely some of the comments missed and blew past the point of her post. Dear Abby advice on how to "put yourself out there" wasn't where Julie's post was going. My read was she was calling out the larger world of librarianship for the disregard and disrespect for the marvelous and powerful work youth librarians are doing (although one commenter insisted that youth librarians don't really do anything innovative...oh, why yes, that *is* the sound of my teeth grinding).

There have been some ugly bullying of women bloggers, FBers and tweeters in the recent past - most swirl around the picayune-ness; the paltry-ness; the unimportance of our concerns - from Arcgate to our observations on how we appropriate cultural touchpoints. It's ok to provide book recommendations for another librarian's offspring but shut-up will you in the world of politics and opinion. Smile and be nice.

It is the subtle and not so subtle pushing women back and down - and in youth work, where our clientele is devalued because of their powerlessness in the larger society, we work under the burden of powerlessness by association in the eyes of some in our profession. Is it reflective of the larger society that so devalues women by insisting our little minds can't handle our own decisions on our lady parts? That continues to put roadblocks to upward mobility and insists that we need to be uber people that parent, work, achieve, clean, and look fetching and smile, smile , smile all the time? Um, yes.


The discussions on blogs and twitter have been painful and eye-opening. Here are some of the links that have particularly made me think deeply and know I - and many other women and youth library workers - are not entirely nuts in thinking "What the deuce is going on with our colleagues?" I thank Kelly Jensen and Sophie Brookover for some of these links.

Kelly over at Stacked
Kristin at Action Librarian
Ingrid at Magpie Librarian
Nicolas at information.games 
Jacob at Beerbrarian
Me (I know this is so self-regarding)

There are more posts out there on the issues of women and librarianship, power and gender. Please share and let's keep this conversation going. These are issues of long standing, my friends, and battles that have been going on since long before I was a SLIS student and young librarian decades ago (I'll share those stories another day). I am just discouraged that 40 years later, we see the same poor behaviors.

Gender matters. Being supportive matters. Making sure there is an interlocutor between brain and mouth or fingertips matters. Let's get started on supporting each other and celebrating the work we all do on behalf of varied clienteles. Nobody is better than anybody. We are all in this together. Like that.

Image: 'The Hidden Beauty!'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/44345361@N06/5929570738 Found on flickrcc.net

Two More Best Lists

While all the more well-known youth awards are coming out of Midwinter, two of my personal favorite lists are also being discussed and decided on:

The Rainbow List highlights noteworthy GLBTRT for youth. Thanks to 2011-12 Rainbow Project jury  Francesca Burgess, Jane L. Cothron, Christie L. R. Gibrich (incoming chair, 2014), Christine Jenkins, Adela Peskorz, Victor Lynn Schill, and Anna C. White.

The Amelia Bloomer Project Top 10 list focuses on books with significant positive impact of women. Thanks to Amelia Bloomer Project committee members: Jennie Law (co-chair), Angela Semifero (co-chair), Ann Bever, Betsy Miguez, Katie Mitchell, Lalitha Nataraj, Linda Parsons, Kelly Rottmund, April Witteveen, and Joy Worland.

It's great to live in a world of outstanding books for youth!

Women and Girls - Power or Not?

Kelly over at Stacked just wrote a powerful post on being a woman and speaking your mind. If you haven't already, head right over and read it. I'll wait for you. *quietly scrolling through tweets*

Ah, good. You're back. Kelly has a couple of, oh, ten or twenty cogent points, eh?  She is speaking truth to power - and to us.

The issues of gender and power, girls and power and the destructive subtlety of people speaking and working against women who wish to be themselves and self-directed has been a lifelong concern of mine. As a young fire-brand librarian I was active in Women Library Workers, a feminist library network and support group that now is in an embers stage of it's existence. I have stood down from much of my active work but I have never believed for a nano-second that we are in a "post-feminist" age.

My partner is a guy with a voice pitch that is slightly higher than encountered in most guys. He has spent considerable time on the phone in his jobs. When men on the other end of the phone mistakenly think they are talking to a women, to a man, they are patronizing, dismissive, abrupt and sassy. When the person on the other end thinks my partner is a man, he is treated completely differently.  This has been a conversational topic between us for over thirty years. "Post-feminist age," my eye.

When Kelly talks about the expectations that men and women have for women and girls I hear her talking. As I commented on her blogpost: "I was reminded of a photo going around FB where Jada Pinkett Smith was asked why she let her daughter shave her head. Pinkett Smith wrote, 'The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don't belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power, or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit, and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It's also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother's deepest insecurities, hopes, and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be.' "

This spring I attended a wonderful and empowering unconference at UW-Milwaukee called "Out of the Attic and into the Stacks: Feminism and LIS". Lots of students and lots of old-guard feminist librarians. It was great to be around that living timeline of  feminist librarians. One question that came up from the students to the vets was, "How do you bring feminism into your work?"

This is what I said: You bring feminism into your work every day in every way. By making sure that you purchase and display materials that highlight strong women and gentle men; that open up the hidden contributions of women and that highlight girls as strong and not just frilly.  You do programs that empower girls but also don't shut out either gender. When girls come in to your library, you compliment not their hair or clothes but tell them they are looking strong or tall or smart today. The messages that we give - no matter how small - matter.

We need to stand strong together on these issues of women and girls and power. It does make a difference and will make a difference for decades to come. But we have to commit to doing the support every day in every way.

Image: 'Superhero'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/51336161@N02/5416260011 Found on flickrcc.net

Girl Power

Given the state of our country and the strong negative messages being given to women and girls by politicians and legislators, this website came to my attention at a perfect time.  It is full of great suggestions for books and movies that show strong female role models. I also stumbled on Wollstonecraft thanks to the Hedgehog and this children's ebook project looks particularly exciting for girls.

Last month I attended a national unconference on feminism in librarianship, Out of the Attic and Into the Stacks.  One of the discussion points was how to pursue feminism within your library work.  To my way of thinking, it's every day and every way.  I compliment girls on how strong or smart they are.  I encourage women on staff and in the profession to reach higher and look for ways to open leadership doors for them.  I make sure books with positive, strong images of girls get plenty of face-out display (and I am not talking about bitchy images or princessy-simpering). 

Sometimes small steps accumulate into a powerful march. And we can do it every day.

Amelia Bloomer Awards Announced

From the ALA press release:

DALLAS – The Amelia Bloomer Project, a product of the ALA Social Responsibilities Round Table’s (SRRT) Feminist Taskforce, announced the 2012 Amelia Bloomer List at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, held Jan. 20-23, 2012.

The bibliography consists of well written and illustrated books with significant feminist content, intended for young readers from birth to 18 years old. This year’s list includes 78 titles published between July 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2011.

Named for Amelia Bloomer, a pioneering 19th century newspaper editor, feminist thinker, public speaker and suffragist, the list features books about girls and women that spur the imagination while confronting traditional female stereotypes.

The bibliography is intended to aid children and teens in selecting high-quality books released over the past 18 months and may be used for a recommended reading list for youth and those who interact with them and as a collection development or reader’s advisory tool for interested librarians. Find the top 10 titles of the 2012 Amelia Bloomer List here.

Rainbows and Bloomers

Two of my favorite recommended booklists have just hit the press. The Rainbow Project, a joint committee of ALA's SRRT and GLBTRT looks at books for kids birth through age 18 that have significant authentic GLBTQ content and publishes an annual list. I am truly pleased to see the robustness of the list. Every child needs to find themselves in books and this list will help all of us grow our collections for the rainbow of children who use our libraries.

And the Amelia Bloomer Project from ALA's Feminist Task Force of SRRT has come out with their list of recommmended feminist literature for kids birth through age 18 as well. It is another rich list that has content that celebrates strong women and girls as well as highlighting the struggles women have had and continue to have.

Thanks to library.groupie@gmail.com for the heads up!

Image: Glass Paperweight http://www.flickr.com/photos/48600090482@N01/5143288