An Interview with Carol Anne Douglas: off our backs and Other Feminist Phenomena
Betty Jean Steinshouer and Carol Anne Douglas
A conversation between literary historian Betty Jean Steinshouer and writer Carol Anne Douglas, a long-time member of the collective that published the radical feminist newspaper off our backs from 1970 to 2008. She was on the collective from 1973 to 2008 and can be contacted through her website at CarolAnneDouglas.com.
Betty Jean: I want to thank Monica Casper, who invited us to have this conversation for Trivia after you served on her panel at the Publishing Feminisms Conference in Banff, back in May 2015. First, could you reflect on what it felt like to be at that conference, talking about off our backs, after so many years?
Carol Anne: I miss off our backs so much! It was wonderful to talk about it, but sad to think that it's in the past. I so appreciated that the conference brought academics and activists together.
Betty Jean: It was remarkable to see and hear the young feminist students and scholars, many of them Canadian, react to you as if you were a rock star of Second Wave Feminism. Is that a term that was used in off our backs? When did you know you were a Second Wave Feminist?
Carol Anne: Yes, we called ourselves Second Wave feminists. In fact, I worked for a few months in 1972 for a magazine called The Second Wave that was based in Cambridge, Mass. I loved it. I was getting ready to move to Washington, D.C., and people from the magazine suggested that I might want to work for off our backs. Some feminists have said that the term “Second Wave” was inappropriate because it is premised on the idea that there were no feminists after the “First Wave,” the suffragists. There were feminists both before and after the so-called First Wave.
Betty Jean: I’m showing my ignorance here. Although I used to volunteer for oob when I was a baby feminist living in D.C., circa 1978-87, I somehow had never heard “First Wave” and “Second Wave” until I was living in Florida and Alice Walker’s daughter Rebecca came to speak at Eckerd College and talked about the changing face of feminism. Can you share more history about feminism before and after “the so-called First Wave?”
Carol Anne: A few examples are Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, written in response to the French revolutionaries' Declaration of the Rights of Man and Harriet Martineau's 19th century books. I still don't know much about the '30s, '40s, and '50s, but there were women working for women's rights then, too, especially in the Labor Movement.
Betty Jean: Watching Monica and other college professors interact with their students, did it take you back to when you taught Women’s Studies at George Washington University? How have times changed, and how did you draw the line, from being an academic to an activist? Was it or is it possible to be both?
Carol Anne: Yes. I taught feminist theory primarily as a form of activism, to encourage students to understand feminism, especially radical feminism, which is often misconstrued in academia. I hoped to change lives, and I think I helped change a few. I also taught community classes, at Washington, D.C., Sojourner Truth Women's School, at the Washington Area Women's Center, and on my own after both of those closed. Sadly, after I began teaching at the university, I no longer had the energy to teach the community classes in addition to my full-time editing job and my work at off our backs. I don't think there should be a firm distinction between academics and activists, and I am very suspicious of academics who try to draw a line and who make feminism into an esoteric subject. But I know fine women's studies professors who encourage activism and give their students activist projects.
Betty Jean: Speaking of activist projects, does it now seem to you that off our backs was a major miracle that it ever got off the ground, let alone endured for so long? How in in the world did that happen, and did you really make decisions by consensus?
Carol Anne: off our backs was founded by women who used money that had been raised to pay for a coffee house where people could urge men not to enlist or to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. That was a good cause, but women on the Left realized that women's issues were being neglected – to put it mildly. The founders, like Marilyn Webb and Marlene Wicks, must have been able to get subscribers very quickly. Many women were eager to see news by and about women.
The original plan was for the newspaper (it became a magazine much later) to be published every other week, but the group quickly realized that that was too much and made it monthly, skipping one month in the summer. Yes, it is amazing that a journal that was published 11 times a year was able to survive so long though it was staffed almost entirely by volunteer labor. (During its last years, it was a quarterly.) I think that the first paid staff members, one or two at time, were paid around 1973, and their salaries were minimal. But everyone who could afford to do so was very eager to have the office job, though the work was mostly clerical. It was exciting to get in the subscriptions and contributions, and to talk on the phone with interested women and see their letters.
Many other journals, local and national, sprang up around the same time, but off our backs, which was national and international in its focus, was long-lived. I attribute that primarily to two factors: the fairly strict publishing schedule and the informal nature of the meetings. Having a tangible product is a great incentive. And laughter and personal interactions make doing the volunteer work satisfying.
It was extremely exciting to be in touch with other feminists, both in this country and in many others. Early on, off our backs decided that it could not be part of any other group, such as the local Women's Center, because that might constrain our journalistic freedom. We reported on other groups and developments in the movement, often angering the women involved. If we made a mistake, we put in a correction, and we always published letters that criticized us. But often we published both (or more) sides of a controversy, and women on both sides would be angry at us for publishing the other side's views. That convinced us that we were doing the right thing.
Consensus decision making seemed to be the fairest way to proceed. If a woman didn't state an opinion, we'd ask what it was. The objective was to come up with decisions that were acceptable to everyone. Yes, there was sometimes considerable pain in doing that, but we were generally satisfied with the result. There were only a few times that someone couldn't live with the decision or that taking the time to reach consensus was a problem. I think mostly of the time when we couldn't afford the office we were in and had to move to a less attractive basement space. We were going to go broke if we didn't move. It took time for everyone to understand the figures and accept that, and some of us worried that the cheaper space would be rented to someone else, but we finally did reach the decision and made the move.
I think consensus worked because we were a small (never more than about 15 members, and usually less) group of like-minded women. I would like to think it could work in larger groups, but that would be more difficult.
Lack of money finally did us in. Prices rose, but subscriptions diminished. Women had more ways of getting information and their lives changed. Many no longer cared about supporting alternative publications and bookstores. But we did keep an extremely loyal base, and when we had to ask readers for donations, they were generous. But ultimately there were too few of them. We tried to use mailings to expand our subscriber base, but they succeeded only to a limited extent. We were able to exist as long as we did because one woman whom we didn't know left us money in her will.
Betty Jean: Do you think off our backs could ever exist today?
Carol Anne: Fortunately, the best mainstream newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, publish much more international women's news and news about women's health issues than they did when we were one of few publications covering those subjects. They also cover news about lesbians, which is very different. But they don't provide much of a forum for women's voices, and they don't discuss what's happening within feminist institutions (to the extent that there are any). Publications like Sinister Wisdom and Rain and Thunder still exist in print, but with a smaller circulation than off our backs had at one time. There are also many online feminist journals, such as Trivia, and online feminist news services. Though I love print publications, I think the future of feminist publications in primarily online. Could something like off our backs exist today online? Yes. But I think that in-person meetings are an essential part of a political group, and I'd encourage women working on online publications to communicate in person when they can.
I think it is crucial that people realize that they can start groups. They aren't limited to working in existing institutions. And that, even though they have paying jobs, they can also do important volunteer work. Those realizations were how we started feminist institutions and kept them going as long as we did.
Betty Jean: If you could go back in time and talk with some of the feminists you interviewed for off our backs, who would you most wish to have another round, to either make up for things left unsaid, or to take back something harsh?
Carol Anne: That would have to be Mary Daly. I admired her work very much. There were some tensions between us, and she withdrew her interview. She feared that I would publish some off-the-cuff remarks of hers, which I never would have done. I have tried to promote her work. I'm so sorry that she died, and I hope that her work will live on.
Betty Jean: Is there anyone you would like to have interviewed for off our backs but missed the opportunity?
Carol Anne: Of course, Simone de Beauvoir. But I never had the chance because she died too soon. Of those possible, Kathleen Barry. I have reviewed her books, most recently in a blog on her book Unmaking War, Remaking Men, in which she tries to tell young men that going into military service is not in their best interest; they are being used and their personalities are being distorted.
Betty Jean: Of the hundreds of books you reviewed for off our backs, are there half a dozen that stand out as the most important?
Carol Anne: Oh, at least half a dozen. Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly; Are Women Human? by Catharine A. MacKinno; Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel and Women's Liberation by Andrea Dworkin; The Politics of Reality by Marilyn Frye; Susan B. Anthony: Biography of a Singular Feminist by Kathleen Barry; Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Values by Sarah Hoagland; and all other books by these authors. And of course many other books. Note that these do not include books by Women of Color because Women of Color reviewed them.
Betty Jean: Only women of color reviewed books by women of color? That was the policy at off our backs?
Carol Anne: Usually, because that was what many Women of Color said they wanted. I reviewed a book by Mohawk writer Beth Brant, who gave me permission to do so, and certainly books by women from other countries. Unfortunately, we had few members who were Women of Color, but we asked Women of Color to work with us and to write for us. In the late '70s, several Women of Color, angry that we had wanted to edit an article by a Native American woman, demanded that we publish an issue by and about Women of Color, and of course we agreed. We had hoped that some of them would later join our collective, but they didn't. Certainly the small number of Women of Color on our staff was one of our major failings.
Betty Jean: How would you define radical feminism? What sets it apart? Can a man be a radical feminist?
Carol Anne: I would say that radical feminism is set apart by its focus both on the oppression of women as a key to unraveling oppression and on the belief that no woman is free until all women are free. I would say that John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man, may be a radical feminist, but few men are.
Betty Jean: Has the U.S., or any country, ever elected a feminist president? Do you think that will happen in the 2016 elections?
Carol Anne: I think President Michele Bachelet of Chile is a feminist. I know that some presidents of the Nordic countries and Iceland have been feminists. I think Mary Robinson, who was president of Ireland, was a feminist. There may be others.
Perhaps you are asking whether I think President Obama is a feminist. I think he is certainly supportive of women, but I think humanist might be a more accurate term. I admire and love him. I think Hillary Clinton is a feminist. I think there's a good chance she'll be elected in 2016, but you never know in politics.
Betty Jean: You have a two-volume novel coming out this fall and winter. Would you call it feminist in nature or philosophy?
Carol Anne: I have written a two-volume novel, Lancelot: Her Story and Lancelot and Guinevere. Yes, I think the two books are feminist because they show how women are trapped in patriarchy and how corrupting war is. In these books, Lancelot is a woman and a lesbian. Guinevere is a more conscious lesbian and a more conscious feminist. They are both forced to make compromises that no one should have to make. Guinevere is a willful virgin in the sense that Marilyn Frye has described; that is, Guinevere never submits to a patriarchal way of thinking and resists being a wife in the ways that she can. Lancelot is damaged, physically and morally, by war, but with the help of Guinevere and others she is able to restore herself as much as possible.
Betty Jean: What gives you hope that younger generations will continue to embrace feminism?
Carol Anne: My wonderful honorary nieces, Nell and Meg Quinn-Gibney, and my wonderful almost niece, Sophie Marney-Dejanikus. Actually, many young women are activists in many women's organizations. And many who aren't activists have an understanding of feminism.
I also want to say something about international feminism, one of my passions. It is deeply inspiring that women in almost every country are taking action to liberate themselves and other women. Just look at the example of Malala, who survived being shot for promoting girls' education and has become a worldwide symbol of resistance. But there are many others, from Pussy Riot in Russia to women in Egypt working against female genital mutilation, from girls studying women's studies in Nigeria to women in Afghanistan protesting the murder of a woman who was falsely accused of burning a Qu'ran. There are feminists in Palestine and in Israel, and there is at least a little communication between them. The recent example of women in China who have been arrested for protesting harassment is particularly striking.
Facebook is a wonderful tool for connecting with feminists in other countries; using it for that purpose enlightens and delights me.
Betty Jean: Just one last question, kind of an oddball one. I know that during many of the years that you were working as a devoted volunteer on the off our backs collective, you made your living as an editor and journalist on a tax magazine. That’s something you have in common with two MacArthur Grant winners: David Foster Wallace and Edward P. Jones. David’s last novel, The Pale King, was about working in an IRS office, something he did even after he got a “genius grant.” I know you and Edward enjoyed working together in the tax field and have stayed friends. Do you think either of you will ever write a tax novel?
Carol Anne: I'd be willing to bet that Edward won't. As for myself, who knows? I strongly recommend Edward's prize-winning short story collections, Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar's Children, both of which are about the African-American community in Washington, D.C., and his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World, about an African-American man who owned slaves.
Betty Jean: I want to thank Monica Casper, who invited us to have this conversation for Trivia after you served on her panel at the Publishing Feminisms Conference in Banff, back in May 2015. First, could you reflect on what it felt like to be at that conference, talking about off our backs, after so many years?
Carol Anne: I miss off our backs so much! It was wonderful to talk about it, but sad to think that it's in the past. I so appreciated that the conference brought academics and activists together.
Betty Jean: It was remarkable to see and hear the young feminist students and scholars, many of them Canadian, react to you as if you were a rock star of Second Wave Feminism. Is that a term that was used in off our backs? When did you know you were a Second Wave Feminist?
Carol Anne: Yes, we called ourselves Second Wave feminists. In fact, I worked for a few months in 1972 for a magazine called The Second Wave that was based in Cambridge, Mass. I loved it. I was getting ready to move to Washington, D.C., and people from the magazine suggested that I might want to work for off our backs. Some feminists have said that the term “Second Wave” was inappropriate because it is premised on the idea that there were no feminists after the “First Wave,” the suffragists. There were feminists both before and after the so-called First Wave.
Betty Jean: I’m showing my ignorance here. Although I used to volunteer for oob when I was a baby feminist living in D.C., circa 1978-87, I somehow had never heard “First Wave” and “Second Wave” until I was living in Florida and Alice Walker’s daughter Rebecca came to speak at Eckerd College and talked about the changing face of feminism. Can you share more history about feminism before and after “the so-called First Wave?”
Carol Anne: A few examples are Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, written in response to the French revolutionaries' Declaration of the Rights of Man and Harriet Martineau's 19th century books. I still don't know much about the '30s, '40s, and '50s, but there were women working for women's rights then, too, especially in the Labor Movement.
Betty Jean: Watching Monica and other college professors interact with their students, did it take you back to when you taught Women’s Studies at George Washington University? How have times changed, and how did you draw the line, from being an academic to an activist? Was it or is it possible to be both?
Carol Anne: Yes. I taught feminist theory primarily as a form of activism, to encourage students to understand feminism, especially radical feminism, which is often misconstrued in academia. I hoped to change lives, and I think I helped change a few. I also taught community classes, at Washington, D.C., Sojourner Truth Women's School, at the Washington Area Women's Center, and on my own after both of those closed. Sadly, after I began teaching at the university, I no longer had the energy to teach the community classes in addition to my full-time editing job and my work at off our backs. I don't think there should be a firm distinction between academics and activists, and I am very suspicious of academics who try to draw a line and who make feminism into an esoteric subject. But I know fine women's studies professors who encourage activism and give their students activist projects.
Betty Jean: Speaking of activist projects, does it now seem to you that off our backs was a major miracle that it ever got off the ground, let alone endured for so long? How in in the world did that happen, and did you really make decisions by consensus?
Carol Anne: off our backs was founded by women who used money that had been raised to pay for a coffee house where people could urge men not to enlist or to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. That was a good cause, but women on the Left realized that women's issues were being neglected – to put it mildly. The founders, like Marilyn Webb and Marlene Wicks, must have been able to get subscribers very quickly. Many women were eager to see news by and about women.
The original plan was for the newspaper (it became a magazine much later) to be published every other week, but the group quickly realized that that was too much and made it monthly, skipping one month in the summer. Yes, it is amazing that a journal that was published 11 times a year was able to survive so long though it was staffed almost entirely by volunteer labor. (During its last years, it was a quarterly.) I think that the first paid staff members, one or two at time, were paid around 1973, and their salaries were minimal. But everyone who could afford to do so was very eager to have the office job, though the work was mostly clerical. It was exciting to get in the subscriptions and contributions, and to talk on the phone with interested women and see their letters.
Many other journals, local and national, sprang up around the same time, but off our backs, which was national and international in its focus, was long-lived. I attribute that primarily to two factors: the fairly strict publishing schedule and the informal nature of the meetings. Having a tangible product is a great incentive. And laughter and personal interactions make doing the volunteer work satisfying.
It was extremely exciting to be in touch with other feminists, both in this country and in many others. Early on, off our backs decided that it could not be part of any other group, such as the local Women's Center, because that might constrain our journalistic freedom. We reported on other groups and developments in the movement, often angering the women involved. If we made a mistake, we put in a correction, and we always published letters that criticized us. But often we published both (or more) sides of a controversy, and women on both sides would be angry at us for publishing the other side's views. That convinced us that we were doing the right thing.
Consensus decision making seemed to be the fairest way to proceed. If a woman didn't state an opinion, we'd ask what it was. The objective was to come up with decisions that were acceptable to everyone. Yes, there was sometimes considerable pain in doing that, but we were generally satisfied with the result. There were only a few times that someone couldn't live with the decision or that taking the time to reach consensus was a problem. I think mostly of the time when we couldn't afford the office we were in and had to move to a less attractive basement space. We were going to go broke if we didn't move. It took time for everyone to understand the figures and accept that, and some of us worried that the cheaper space would be rented to someone else, but we finally did reach the decision and made the move.
I think consensus worked because we were a small (never more than about 15 members, and usually less) group of like-minded women. I would like to think it could work in larger groups, but that would be more difficult.
Lack of money finally did us in. Prices rose, but subscriptions diminished. Women had more ways of getting information and their lives changed. Many no longer cared about supporting alternative publications and bookstores. But we did keep an extremely loyal base, and when we had to ask readers for donations, they were generous. But ultimately there were too few of them. We tried to use mailings to expand our subscriber base, but they succeeded only to a limited extent. We were able to exist as long as we did because one woman whom we didn't know left us money in her will.
Betty Jean: Do you think off our backs could ever exist today?
Carol Anne: Fortunately, the best mainstream newspapers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, publish much more international women's news and news about women's health issues than they did when we were one of few publications covering those subjects. They also cover news about lesbians, which is very different. But they don't provide much of a forum for women's voices, and they don't discuss what's happening within feminist institutions (to the extent that there are any). Publications like Sinister Wisdom and Rain and Thunder still exist in print, but with a smaller circulation than off our backs had at one time. There are also many online feminist journals, such as Trivia, and online feminist news services. Though I love print publications, I think the future of feminist publications in primarily online. Could something like off our backs exist today online? Yes. But I think that in-person meetings are an essential part of a political group, and I'd encourage women working on online publications to communicate in person when they can.
I think it is crucial that people realize that they can start groups. They aren't limited to working in existing institutions. And that, even though they have paying jobs, they can also do important volunteer work. Those realizations were how we started feminist institutions and kept them going as long as we did.
Betty Jean: If you could go back in time and talk with some of the feminists you interviewed for off our backs, who would you most wish to have another round, to either make up for things left unsaid, or to take back something harsh?
Carol Anne: That would have to be Mary Daly. I admired her work very much. There were some tensions between us, and she withdrew her interview. She feared that I would publish some off-the-cuff remarks of hers, which I never would have done. I have tried to promote her work. I'm so sorry that she died, and I hope that her work will live on.
Betty Jean: Is there anyone you would like to have interviewed for off our backs but missed the opportunity?
Carol Anne: Of course, Simone de Beauvoir. But I never had the chance because she died too soon. Of those possible, Kathleen Barry. I have reviewed her books, most recently in a blog on her book Unmaking War, Remaking Men, in which she tries to tell young men that going into military service is not in their best interest; they are being used and their personalities are being distorted.
Betty Jean: Of the hundreds of books you reviewed for off our backs, are there half a dozen that stand out as the most important?
Carol Anne: Oh, at least half a dozen. Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly; Are Women Human? by Catharine A. MacKinno; Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel and Women's Liberation by Andrea Dworkin; The Politics of Reality by Marilyn Frye; Susan B. Anthony: Biography of a Singular Feminist by Kathleen Barry; Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Values by Sarah Hoagland; and all other books by these authors. And of course many other books. Note that these do not include books by Women of Color because Women of Color reviewed them.
Betty Jean: Only women of color reviewed books by women of color? That was the policy at off our backs?
Carol Anne: Usually, because that was what many Women of Color said they wanted. I reviewed a book by Mohawk writer Beth Brant, who gave me permission to do so, and certainly books by women from other countries. Unfortunately, we had few members who were Women of Color, but we asked Women of Color to work with us and to write for us. In the late '70s, several Women of Color, angry that we had wanted to edit an article by a Native American woman, demanded that we publish an issue by and about Women of Color, and of course we agreed. We had hoped that some of them would later join our collective, but they didn't. Certainly the small number of Women of Color on our staff was one of our major failings.
Betty Jean: How would you define radical feminism? What sets it apart? Can a man be a radical feminist?
Carol Anne: I would say that radical feminism is set apart by its focus both on the oppression of women as a key to unraveling oppression and on the belief that no woman is free until all women are free. I would say that John Stoltenberg, author of Refusing to Be a Man, may be a radical feminist, but few men are.
Betty Jean: Has the U.S., or any country, ever elected a feminist president? Do you think that will happen in the 2016 elections?
Carol Anne: I think President Michele Bachelet of Chile is a feminist. I know that some presidents of the Nordic countries and Iceland have been feminists. I think Mary Robinson, who was president of Ireland, was a feminist. There may be others.
Perhaps you are asking whether I think President Obama is a feminist. I think he is certainly supportive of women, but I think humanist might be a more accurate term. I admire and love him. I think Hillary Clinton is a feminist. I think there's a good chance she'll be elected in 2016, but you never know in politics.
Betty Jean: You have a two-volume novel coming out this fall and winter. Would you call it feminist in nature or philosophy?
Carol Anne: I have written a two-volume novel, Lancelot: Her Story and Lancelot and Guinevere. Yes, I think the two books are feminist because they show how women are trapped in patriarchy and how corrupting war is. In these books, Lancelot is a woman and a lesbian. Guinevere is a more conscious lesbian and a more conscious feminist. They are both forced to make compromises that no one should have to make. Guinevere is a willful virgin in the sense that Marilyn Frye has described; that is, Guinevere never submits to a patriarchal way of thinking and resists being a wife in the ways that she can. Lancelot is damaged, physically and morally, by war, but with the help of Guinevere and others she is able to restore herself as much as possible.
Betty Jean: What gives you hope that younger generations will continue to embrace feminism?
Carol Anne: My wonderful honorary nieces, Nell and Meg Quinn-Gibney, and my wonderful almost niece, Sophie Marney-Dejanikus. Actually, many young women are activists in many women's organizations. And many who aren't activists have an understanding of feminism.
I also want to say something about international feminism, one of my passions. It is deeply inspiring that women in almost every country are taking action to liberate themselves and other women. Just look at the example of Malala, who survived being shot for promoting girls' education and has become a worldwide symbol of resistance. But there are many others, from Pussy Riot in Russia to women in Egypt working against female genital mutilation, from girls studying women's studies in Nigeria to women in Afghanistan protesting the murder of a woman who was falsely accused of burning a Qu'ran. There are feminists in Palestine and in Israel, and there is at least a little communication between them. The recent example of women in China who have been arrested for protesting harassment is particularly striking.
Facebook is a wonderful tool for connecting with feminists in other countries; using it for that purpose enlightens and delights me.
Betty Jean: Just one last question, kind of an oddball one. I know that during many of the years that you were working as a devoted volunteer on the off our backs collective, you made your living as an editor and journalist on a tax magazine. That’s something you have in common with two MacArthur Grant winners: David Foster Wallace and Edward P. Jones. David’s last novel, The Pale King, was about working in an IRS office, something he did even after he got a “genius grant.” I know you and Edward enjoyed working together in the tax field and have stayed friends. Do you think either of you will ever write a tax novel?
Carol Anne: I'd be willing to bet that Edward won't. As for myself, who knows? I strongly recommend Edward's prize-winning short story collections, Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar's Children, both of which are about the African-American community in Washington, D.C., and his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World, about an African-American man who owned slaves.
About the authors
Carol Anne Douglas worked on the editorial collective of off our backs: a women's news journal from 1973 to 2008, when the last issue was published. She wrote more than 200 book reviews, reported on feminist conferences, and interviewed feminists she admired.
She taught Feminist Theory at George Washington University from 1991 to 2000. She also taught community classes in Feminist Theory at the Washington Area Women's Center in the 1980s and at off our backs in the early 1990s.
Her book Love and Politics: Radical and Lesbian Feminist Theories was published by ism press in 1990. Her novel Lancelot: Her Story was published by Hermione Books in 2015. Its sequel, Lancelot and Guinevere, will be out in 2016.
She belongs to Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC:) and is a founding member of the Washington Area chapter of OLOC.
She taught Feminist Theory at George Washington University from 1991 to 2000. She also taught community classes in Feminist Theory at the Washington Area Women's Center in the 1980s and at off our backs in the early 1990s.
Her book Love and Politics: Radical and Lesbian Feminist Theories was published by ism press in 1990. Her novel Lancelot: Her Story was published by Hermione Books in 2015. Its sequel, Lancelot and Guinevere, will be out in 2016.
She belongs to Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC:) and is a founding member of the Washington Area chapter of OLOC.
Betty Jean Steinshouer is a poet, essayist, and literary historian as well as a performance artist. She has toured since 1988 on the Chautauqua circuit with portrayals of Willa Cather, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Gertrude Stein, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sarah Orne Jewett, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas. From 1994 to 2004, she also had Flannery O’Connor as part of her repertoire. She is currently embarked on a Chautauqua Companion Series combining print books, e-books and audio recordings of each character, as well as finally publishing her Running South in Agitation: Yankee Ladies in Florida from Stowe to Lindbergh (including chapters on Constance Fenimore Woolson, Rose Wilder Lane, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in addition to Stowe, Jewett, Wilder, Douglas, and Rawlings). She has been to 43 states and Canada, and will soon perform in Alaska for the first time.