Page 36 RAIN Spring 1986 This Way Daybreak Comes: Women’s Values and the Future, by Annie Cheatham and Mary Clare Powell, 1986, 258 pp„ $12.95 from: New Society Publishers 4722 Baltimore Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19143 Whatever happened to the women's movement? Although we've heard much about the decline of feminism in recent years. This Way Daybreak Comes paints a very different picture. The book is not only a necessary up-date on the vitality of the women's movement, it is also an inspiration to everybody who wonders how women can have an impact on creating a more livable future. The book was written by Annie Cheatham, the former director of the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, and Mary Clare Powell, a writer and visual artist. The authors spent four years, traveling 30,000 miles, to find out what has become of women in the eighties. They interviewed 1,000 women throughout the U.S. and Canada—some well-known, some not so well-known —about their visions of the future and how they are working towards the realization of these visions. The result is a moving, hopeful documentary: women are becoming more and more active, though not necessarily in ways likely to make media headlines. The women described in the book— artists, mothers, teachers, poets, lesbians, doctors, wives, nuns, lawyers—enter every aspect of today's society and reclaim it as their own. They are taking charge of their lives, the planet, and the future. Not satisfied with merely equal pay and equal job opportunities, these women are actively seeking to change existing structures and to create a more wholistic approach to their life and work. Whether they design new architectural forms, build alternative teaching facilities, create new artistic expressions, fight against oppression and nuclear arms, or reconstruct their communities, these women are working towards a more, inclusive, more peaceful, more life-affirming future. The book is divided in three parts: “Women Relate,” “Women Create,” and “Women Heal.” The first part deals with the personal level, discussing women's spirituality, women's role as lovers, and women in family structures. The second part looks at women and their work, showing women's involvement in a ACCESS: Women variety of professions. Part three of the book takes on a more political tone, showing women working to protect the earth, fighting oppression and discrimination, and struggling for peace. The entire book is enriched by beautiful photoghraphs of women's artwork. This Way Daybreak Comes is a book about the future in that it looks at ways in which a new kind of society can be created. And it is a feminist book in that it portrays women as capabje builders of the future. In fact, the book began as “The Future is Female” project. It was so titled not because there is no room for men in the future, but because the authors believed that a shift toward more “female” values, such as nurturing, caring, and healing, is necessary if we are to have a future worth living in. This book belongs on the reading list of every feminist, humanist, futurist, and political activist. —Karin Herrmann Karin Herrmann is a graduate student in Women's Studies at Portland State University and a member of the Northwest Women's Spirituality Network. Educating for Peace: A Feminist Perspective, 1985, 175 pp., inquire for price from: Pergamon Press Maxwell House, Fairview Park Elmsford, NY 10523 Worldwide, women are victims of violence from war, but also from rape, battery, dowry murder, ritual genital mutilation, and so on. Direct violence against women exists in every “peaceful” nation, and structural violence such as food scarcity is statistically more pronounced against women. Addressing violence against individuals should be important to broad-thinking peace educators for its own sake, but the attitudes that produce this violence are also related to the war mentality between nations. The socialization of males and females throughout the world is geared toward producing a militaristic, male-dominant hierarchy. Boys are taught to identify with victors rather than to empathize with victims. They are more often physically punished than girls, and a correlation exists between adult aggression and childhood physical punishment. However, girls are much more strictly controlled (verbally) as far as the acceptability of showing aggression, or rebelling from their role of giving way to From This Way Day Break Comes. Blanche Derby. Herbalist Jacket. 1980. Silkscreen and Handpainting on Fabric. the desires of others. Girls consistently showed more likeliness to use cooperation or negotiation in their interrelations, and boys, aggression. Many studies and examples of militant male socialization are given. None of these ideas are revolutionary, but still are not widely addressed in mixed-sex peace organizations, including the United Nation's organization for which Birgit Brock-Utne's original paper was written. In educating for peace, a complete restructuring of our competitive educational system, would be required to bring about any major shift away from militant thinking. “Women's values” of nurturing and negotiating need to be offered as a model for both sexes. Women find that to fight militarism, they have to fight for their own right to be heard. Earlier feminist peace workers who made very significant contributions to world peace, but who have been made invisible by patriarchal histories, are cited. Descriptions of feminist peace movements around the world, from Japan to Australia are included. This book is not a major theoretical piece, but a useful background. —JM
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