{"id":2013,"date":"2021-12-09T17:15:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T22:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=2013"},"modified":"2021-12-15T12:33:13","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T17:33:13","slug":"periodicals-as-a-locale-of-connection-rural-women-and-the-construction-of-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/chambers\/periodicals-as-a-locale-of-connection-rural-women-and-the-construction-of-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Periodicals as a Locale of Connection: Rural Women and the Construction of Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

Carol Bellhouse, a rural woman, wrote into Off Our Backs: A Women\u2019s Liberation Newspaper<\/em> in January of 1971 with a letter entitled \u201cHooray for Women\u2019s Liberation!\u201d, expressing a keen interest in receiving more feminist periodical material.<\/p><\/div>\n

Letters written to feminist publications from women in the country make incredibly clear their earnest interest in feminism both as a concept and in practice. Feminist periodicals, especially those like Country Women<\/em> that are attuned to the specific oppressions and needs of rural women, play an essential role in disseminating feminist ideology in the countryside. They allow for women to connect with feminist ideas when people in their community may not be doing that work. They allow for rural women to express themselves in the form of art, poetry, and the circulation of how-to articles for other rural women looking to hone their crafts. One woman from a \u201csmall town\u201d derides the traditional feminine lifestyle that she encounters around her, stating that the main objective of the \u201cnice, decent girl[s] in her town is to get married and have 44 kids.\u201d She writes to Off Our Backs<\/em>, a newspaper of the Women\u2019s Liberation Movement, requesting more materials from the newspaper (Bellhouse 5). This is just one example of a woman in the countryside that is hungry for feminist literature and to engage with the movement. Though it is just one woman, coupling this with the many women that write in and contribute to Country Women<\/em>, the feminist presence in the countryside cannot and must not be discounted. The letter of a feminist collective in Alberta, Canada, to Country Women<\/em> is another testament to this hunger, a representative stating that they all \u201cleaped at the literature and ideas of the [feminist] movement, convinced that it was valuable to us\u201d (Slim 4). Rural women were actively engaging with the feminist thought of the time, seeking out this material and often discussing it in groups. Feminist publications are especially \u201cvaluable\u201d to country women, who may not have a women\u2019s resource center or consciousness-raising group located in their area.<\/p>\n

\"A

A letter from a women\u2019s collective in Canada, published in the 8th issuing of Country Women<\/em> in 1973, commenting on the profound importance that feminist literature and periodicals have for isolated rural women. A picture of a woman feeding her chickens appears alongside the letter.<\/p><\/div>\n

Another woman writing to Country Women<\/em> expresses not only a lack of feminist resources in her area but an outright lack of support for and acceptance of female farmers, expressing that she \u201chad to draw support from women through publications\u201d (Slim 4). It is easy to see how a publication like Country Women<\/em> would be instrumental in the lives of many farming women looking to find a community within what could have been an, at times, hostile rural environment. These publications allow for rural women to feel supported and tapped into the national Second Wave feminist movement occurring at the time. Perhaps Country Women<\/em> shouldered the burden of this job connecting rural women even more than other periodicals, with a reflection on their printing holding that \u201cbecause many women who read Country Women<\/em> see no other feminist publication, we discovered the important role we play in introducing the women\u2019s movement to our more isolated sisters\u201d (Bye 60). Even though these women are isolated and it is likely difficult for them to access feminist print material, issues like Country Women<\/em> still circulated widely and truly did allow for some manifestation of connection to form among farming women across North America. Feminist periodicals are an avenue for connection among remote rural women and were critical in shaping the Second Wave feminist movement in the country.<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Bellhouse, Carol. \u201cHooray for Women\u2019s Liberation!\u201d Off Our Backs<\/em>, vol. 1, no. 16, off\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0our backs, inc., 21 Jan. 1971, p. 5.<\/p>\n

Bye, Harriet. \u201cCountry Women<\/em> in Print.\u201d Country Women<\/em>, no. 22, Country Women\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Editorial Collective, 01 Dec. 1976, pp. 60-61.<\/p>\n

Slim. \u201cLetters to Country Women<\/em>.\u201d Country Women<\/em>, no. 8, Country Women Editorial\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Collective, 01 Oct. 1973, pp. 2-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letters written to feminist publications from women in the country make incredibly clear their earnest interest in feminism both as a concept and in practice. Feminist periodicals, especially those like Country Women that are attuned to the specific oppressions and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2646,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chambers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2013"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3109,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013\/revisions\/3109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}