Keepers of the culture1995

In Keepers of the Culture, Janet Mancini Billson brings new voices to the feminist debate-the seldom heard voices of women of color, Native women, and rural and immigrant women. Many live in small communities in social or geographic isolation from the middle class white North American mainstream that has until now dominated our perceptions of women's identity and relations between the sexes.Today's women face powerful challenges to break with the traditions of the past, coupled with a deep need and responsibility to preserve the strong and unique elements of their heritage. We all have much to gain from understanding women whose very definition of liberation and power may differ greatly from our own. Keepers of the Culture offers new insights into the questions of why some women embrace the ideals of the women's movement and others are hostile to it. By exploring women's lives in seven distinct cultural communities in Canada-Iroquois, Blood, Inuit, Mennonite, Jamaican, Chinese, and Ukrainian-Billson explores how their roles and the balance of power between men and women have shifted as their communities have moved from traditional to more contemporary life styles. In the course of her research, Billson lived among the women she interviewed and shared their daily lives, bringing richness and depth to the portraits of these women few of us know. Through their stories, Billson shows us the dilemmas all women face as they work to preserve the positive parts of their culture that provide identity and closeness among generations, while at the same time casting off the negative parts of their heritage that may hold them back. -- Publisher description