This is an IMPORTANT book to read if you want to understand feminism.

books:


	• The Dance of the Dissident Daughter Sue Monk Kidd HarperSanFrancisco, 1996 - 238 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A voice from the wilderness

Sue Monk Kidd's journey resonates for me as I have long struggled with the way we tend to ignore or excuse the masculine priority that surrounds women's lives. Ms. Monk explores and ennunciates the "stacked deck" of everything from language and religion to the ingrained assumptions of women's secondary status in the world. True the balance has shifted somewhat, but as long as there are places where men have a "right" to beat their wives, where it is against the law for women to be educated, where it's a BIG DEAL to have a woman run for president, where we criticize a woman for being today's connotation of the word FEMINIST for speaking simple truths; we have a problem. Not one to be trivialized or ignored. Can you imagine the hue and cry that would erupt were we to refer to all humanity as "whitekind"? Ms. Monk is shining a light on the endemic prejudice women live with every day of their lives by sharing her journey, her questions, her fears, and confusion with us. I am grateful to her. I don't feel so alone.

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This is an IMPORTANT book to read if you want to understand feminism.

Sue Monk Kidd captures the reader with her openness about how she became a feminist, almost by accident. This is a very personal account describing her experience of moving from accepted Christianity to feminism. I found the story fascinating and finished it in only 3 days. For the most part, the author simply told her story and how she interpreted the events she faced along the way. However, at various places in the book she began to generalize her experiences to all women, which made me agree with the reviewer who said her journey is not my journey.

What I found a bit disconcerting is that the author states that she made a living as a writer for Christian and inspirational magazines and yet on page 83 says that she suddenly realized that the Bible focuses primarily on masculine rather than feminine attributes of God. Actually, the primary message throughout the Bible is that the God who created the universe wants to have a personal relationship with his creatures, both female and male, and how that is achieved. Even the author would classify relationships as a domain which is more in the feminine rather than mascuine realm. Likewise, the majority of the 10 Commandments deal with relationships and in Matthew 22:36-39 Jesus said the 2 most important commands were loving God and loving your neighbor. I don't see how anyone can miss these more feminine qualities of God.

Maybe the fact that America is a much more egalitarian society than when the book was written in 1996, and maybe some of the recent books that I've read, like The Female Brain, which highlights some of the hormonal and internal changes that women undergo explain why I disagree with the author and don't view the elements of patriarchy in society as something that needs to be attacked. Also, Kidd identifies many identity issues as struggles for girls and women, which I believe are universal struggles regardless of one's gender.

However, even with these complaints I believe the book is important to read if one wants to understand and interact knowledgably with a feminist.

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Read this book!

I have read many of the reviews of this book, and I noticed the variety of opinions Dance of the Dissident Daughter has inspired.

Each of us has an opinion of this story based on our personal experiences, and my spiritual experience is quite similar to Kidd's.

I can relate to the phases she had to go through in order to find peace with her path; I honor and respect her journey.

Read this book with an open heart. I did not believe that she was bashing men or Christianity; she had to set the programming of the church aside and find her own truth. This is what she inspires all women to do for themselves.

We all search for our individual spirituality...our meaning...and I feel that this book gives a beautiful example of one woman's search for her truth.

May you find yours as well.

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An Authentic Journey

I picked up this title as one it was a woman's spiritual journey and two I like the author for her other two books - secret life of bees and mermaid chair. I am not a christian woman, and my religion does have a feminine version of God. But no woman is really spared the overwhelming experience of patriarchy in one form or the other. Sue's experience seems to come from an authentic place of pain and genuine need to explore, quite unlike Liz Gilbert or other self pitying women. She is obviously well read in theology of her own religion and has put great effort into understanding the 'song' as she calls it, the spiritual calling behind the practice of the religion. She is lucky to have had the resources to explore the pain she experienced and kind and generous to share it with the world. Some reviewers have written that being from an orthodox background she feels discrimination more than they do. Regardless of how you feel it it is very much present and will take centuries to go away. Sue's story is an inspiring call to women to reexamine the roots of their faith and their history in various forms, and simply put to be inspired to do our own dance, as opposed to dancing to others tunes.

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Excellent Story and Resource

Sue Monk Kidd expertly and openly shares her most intimate experience in finding the Divine in this well written and referenced personal account.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The acclaimed spiritual memoir from the author of The Secret Life of Bees

I was amazed to find that I had no idea how to unfold my spiritual life in a feminine way. I was surprised and, in fact, a little terrified when I found myself in the middle of a feminist spiritual reawakening.

Sue Monk was a "conventionally religious, churchgoing woman, a traditional wife and mother" with a thriving career as a Christian writer until she began to question her role as a woman in her culture, her family, and her church. From a jarring encounter with sexism in a suburban drugstore to monastery retreats and rituals in the caves of Crete, Kidd takes readers through the fear, anger, healing, and transformation of her awakening. Retaining a meaningful connection "with the deep song of Christianity," she opens the door for traditional Christian women to discover a spirituality that speaks directly to them and provides inspiring wisdom for all who struggle to embrace their full humanity.

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