Post #7 – Women’s Memoirs, Potpourri – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Yesterday, March 8, 2009, was the commemoration of International Women’s Day. Events were held around the world to celebrate the achievements of women and the advances that have taken place. If you would like to learn more about IWD, visit the official website here.
When I was growing up, I never knew about International Women’s Day, even though it was first celebrated in the US 100 years ago. My early, impressionable years were woven into the backdrop of the 1950s. Women’s rights, women’s issues, and feminism were not part of my personal lexicon or awareness. Then the 60s and I came of age at the same moment. A heady time indeed.
The tributaries to my life are many. I value the stories that have helped shape me, the stories that even led to the research and writing of our award-winning collective memoir: Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story.
As I think back over the lives, the stories, of women past and present, I vow to continue to do what I can to ensure that women have the opportunity to tell their stories and have them valued. Our life stories are our legacy. We hope you’ll make the commitment to begin your memoir this month.
Soon, we will be announcing a new project called Rosie’s Legacy. We will be collecting and publishing the stories, the mini-memoir vignettes, of women who worked as well as volunteered during World War II. The women on the Home Front made the difference. Known collectively as Rosie the Riveter, these women are often the unsung heros who helped America win the war. Their words, their lessons, their spirit are relevant to the Rosie the Riveters of today — women in all occupations, especially women entrepreneurs who will help us grow tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of new companies that will help America win the economic battle we are now facing.
If you know women who worked during World War II, if you mother, grandmother or aunt worked, if you have a family friend, we’d like to get their stories. Send us an email if you’d like to be on our list to receive information about recording these stories and getting them published.
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What would you think of a book between my Chinese student writing from China about how we met and influenced each other through our friendship when I was teaching in China and me writing a part of the book about my perspective on our friendship and her struggle in life and with education? I’m now writing from the U.S. and she’s writing from China. We think our lives are interwoven with similar goals and now interwoven in Christ too. Can a memoir be between two people in two different countries that once were on the same college campus in China? Or should I just write a book about her life for an American audience?