I was a very active and very political feminist during my college years. A Women's Studies major, I edited a journal entitled Vulva, I attended one of the first NOW young feminist forums, I stuck stickers declaring "This Insults Women" on demeaning ads and posters. I was a peer sex educator and a clinic defender. I got the flu from attending a pro-choice rally in Albany in January. My best friend had "Girls Kick Ass" tattooed on the back of her neck, and neither one of us shaved our armpits or legs, but we did do away with most of our hair. And although this won't mean much to those of you outside of the Riot Grrl circle, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and I were intermittent pen pals.

Why am I telling you all of this? I guess it's my sad effort at full disclosure. You see, when my editor was looking for someone to write the Women's History Month editorial, I sprang at the chance --- I haven't gotten up on my "Girl Power" soap box in some time. After college, I was still an outspoken feminist, at least among my friends, and always the one called upon to debate hard headed parents/boyfriends/professors. I attended some marches, wrote Junebug, my own webzine about women in pop culture, and gave Planned Parenthood a (small but sincere) check every year. But I had other things on my mind, or at least thought I did, and so gradually drifted away from activism to almost passive contentment.

Arguably, a lot of my relaxing had to do with the state of politics at the time. With a Democrat in the office, I subconsciously decided that nothing too terrible would happen to my rights as a woman. I still had shelves full of Brownmiller and Faludi and hooks, but now I was reading more Bukowski poems than anything else. And he certainly is not known for his feminism. I paid a lot of attention to my cat and to my boyfriend and to my swing dancing lessons, but very little to the nightly news.

Skip forward a couple of years to 2000. See me and my girlfriends get very nervous during the campaign. See us join the "No Bush" Internet protest. 2001 started with me faxing pretty much everyone in D. C. who has anything to do with politics to decry the nomination of John Ashcroft. Now I am here watching the global gag rule stunt health related NGOs around the world, while in my own country our very anti-choice President readies his assault on Roe v. Wade, welfare, and many other issues that are of utmost importance to women. Here I am, surrounded by a generation of girls who have reaped all the benefits of feminism but will not call themselves feminists. Girls who claim to not like labels but will cover their bodies in Nike symbols made by girls their own age in Asian sweatshops. I guess it's time for me to take it to the streets and the airwaves and the papers and the Internet, again.

Now, I know that this editorial seems to have very little to do with Women's History Month and everything to do with Jennifer's History Month. You are probably right, but don't dismiss the validity of my mini-memoir. After all, one of the first slogans of the Women's Movement was "The Personal is Political." Every woman has a story, and all of those stories are illuminating. For us to change the world, we must first change ourselves. And what better way to do that than through the dissemination of information, fact, and memory. The following is a roundup of some new and notable books about the "Second Sex."