An Active Life
Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism, by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards
Reviewed by Corrie Pikul
The Brooklyn Rail, March 2005

Two thousand four was a delicious pie in the face to those who thought activism was dead. In April, 1,150,000 people participated in the March for Women’s Lives, making the official crowd count the largest ever for a women’s rights rally in Washington, D.C. On the eve of the Republican National Convention in late August, an estimated 500,000 antiwar protesters took to the streets of New York City (this tally was double what the protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, had predicted). The weeks leading up to the election showed an unprecedented number of new activists swarming the swing states, making phone calls and circulating petitions. And throughout the year, groups kept coming up with more creative and over-the-top agitprop (“Lick Bush” panties, anyone?).

Last year proved that people of all ages, political parties, and ethnicities could be mobilized to get up off their apathetic butts and do something if they thought it would effect change. That’s why November 3 was such a debilitating letdown. But for those whose activist appetites have been whetted and are now salivating for a new project to sink their teeth into, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism couldn’t have come along at a better time.

Grassroots is the joint project of outspoken feminists Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards. Their homey definition of activism is “consistently expressing one’s values with the goal of making the world more just,” and an activist is “anyone who accesses the resources that he or she has as an individual for the benefit of the common good.” In additions to dozens of stories from the authors’ own lives, the book is brimming with case studies of people like Emily, a college freshman who was disappointed in the weak branch of the Women’s Caucus at her school, so she collaborated with other campus organizations and took on specific campaigns to completely reenergize the group. Then there’s Jane Lockett, the owner of a UPS store in California who was looking for a way to “give back to the community.” She got together with a friend to brainstorm ideas and eventually decided that the most effective service she could offer was not to donate money or toys to a local charity drive (although she did that too) but to host a post-office box and mail services for the women at a local shelter.

Through their work for various feminist foundations (Richards is also an advice columnist for Feminist.com), the authors have seen hundreds of requests from people who want to get involved. The authors believe that the reason for the gap of inactivity between those who want to help and those who actually do lies in the way the ubiquitous question, “What can I do?” is answered. “Too often the response is what we’ve labeled The Generic Three: ‘call your politicians, donate money and volunteer,’ “ they write. “We believe that in order to maximize this passion, we must have better, more specific and active answers to [that] question.”

The authors take a bottom-up view of activism, urging readers to assess their own lives and focus on their own personal resources (their job, their social network, their talents and skills), instead of depending upon established groups. Volunteering and donating are great, the author say, but these types of contributions create a “one-sided relationship that encourages passivity in the would-be activists.” That’s also why Grassroots doesn’t devote much space to traditional activist tactics like marches, phone banking, sit-ins or boycotts, although they’re all explained in a handy—if overly simplistic—glossary at the back of the book.
The authors eat, breathe, and sleep activism (this is not conjecture: both provide sample daily “To-Do Lists” at the back of the book that consist of notes like “write article for Roe v. Wade anniversary” and “Third Wave Foundation conference call”). But the whole point of Grassroots is that living and breathing activism, making it a part of one’s daily life and not a whole other job, is the best and most realistic way to get anything done.

Grassroots is organized to follow the trajectory of Baumgardner’s and Richards’s lives, starting with their activist urges in high school and continuing through their various fumbles and successes at college, in their first jobs, and in the working world in general. In an attempt to charm and inspire, they also admit to their own mistakes, misunderstandings, and regrets.

Through their own confessions, the authors remind us that our ideas and opinions will change over time, so there’s no use feeling embarrassed about that time we chained ourselves to the tree in our back yard to save it, or for mocking the “Take Back the Night” marches in college, or for not recycling for most of the 1980s. Presented by Baumgardner and Richards, activism is a constantly evolving process.

It’s hard to reconcile personal growth and public actions, so it makes sense that the authors urge would-be activists to make the personal political, instead of vice versa. If you’re always acting on behalf of yourself, there is room for change and maturity. We have almost three and a half years before the canvassing and politicking will start up again in earnest, and there’s a lot of organizing, brainstorming, and action that can take place before then.

http://www.thebrooklynrail.org/books/march05/offtheshelves.html

Copyright 2005 Brooklyn Rail