Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies

Additional Book Details

<p>Case study of the life of a feminist organization in a changing political and funding climate.</p><p>Winner of the 2010 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award presented by The Coalition of Women Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition </p><p>This book explores the rise and fall of a grassroots, girl-centered organization, GirlZone, which sought to make social change on a local level. Whether skateboarding or designing Web pages, celebrating in weekend "GrrrlFests" or producing a biweekly RadioGirl program, participants in GirlZone came to understand themselves as competent actors in a variety of activities they had previously thought were closed off to them. Drawing on six years of fieldwork examining GirlZone from its inception until its demise, Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau offers insights on the current state of and study of literacy in the extracurriculum. She addresses how girls have become cultural flashpoints reflecting societal-and particularly feminist-anxieties and hopes about the present and the future. Sheridan-Rabideau does more than chronicle the pressure girls face; she offers advice on how feminists, cultural critics, and activists can effect social change on local levels, even in today's increasingly globalized contexts.</p>