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Description
A collection of journalist Michele Landsberg's Toronto Star columns, where she was a regular columnist for more than twenty-five years between 1978 and 2005. Michele has chosen her favorite and most relevant columns, using them as a lens to reflect on the the second wave of feminism and the issues facing women then and now. An icon of the feminist movement and a hero to many, through her writing and activism Michele played an important role in fighting for the rights of women, children, and the disenfranchised. Her insights are as powerful for the generation of women who experienced the second wave as for the rising tide of young feminists taking action today.
Awards
- Short-listed, Toronto Book Awards
Editorial Reviews
The book is an eye-opening collection of some of the 3,000 columns she wrote for the Toronto Star from 1978 to the early 2000s in which she took women’s issues and turned them into human issues so fearlessly, doggedly and articulately that it still makes my head spin. From equal pay to sexual harassment at work, child care to false memory syndrome at home, from a tax on tampons to a pox on lap dancing, Ms. Landsberg passionately pulled apart each issue and then denounced politicians, judges and even the media if she thought they were holding women down.
— The Globe and Mail
Landsberg’s passion for and hope for the future of feminism is inspiring and this book is essential reading, providing the kind of perspective that’s entirely necessary if feminists want to keep moving forward.
— Pickle Me This
Landsberg wrote (and continues to write – in her prologues to each column) with clarity and passion. Writing the Revolution is enjoyable and thought provoking!
— Word on the Street (Toronto) Blog
Writing the Revolution demonstrates how Landsberg took feminism to the masses with intelligence, passion, and wit, and illustrates the enormity of the role she played in changing the lives of Canadian women.
— Quill & Quire
As a writer Landsberg holds nothing back! Landsberg gave the female perspective, encouraging and supporting courage – a true Canadian hero.
— Word on the Street (Toronto) Blog
“The text educated me to what I had missed and reminded me of the battles we have won and those we continue to fight.”
— Word on the Street (Toronto) Blog
In my books, she remains revolutionary.
— Buried in Print
Reading her columns is sometimes difficult work, and rewarding for that very reason. One cringes, clenches, sometimes has to shut one’s eyes for a moment of respite before re-embarking down the page. But you end up caring.
— The Toronto Review of Books
It's a fascinating read that put recent history into perspective for me. All I know is that she got a lot right. She advocated for causes like the right to abortion, better child programs, same-sex marriage and ending the war in Iraq, but she also put her personal life - her issues and experiences - from becoming a mother to surviving breast cancer out there, too.
— Canadian Living "Life" blog
The book, and particularly the added commentary, serves as a reminder that despite the incredible advancements made by the women's movement we still have a long way to go before we fully achieve society-wide equality.
— herizons Magazine
As a record of feminist organizing over the past fifty years, I doubt "Writing the Revolution" can be beat.
— The Outlook on Books
Michele Landsberg's columns in the Toronto Star were the first of their kind in a daily newspaper - fearless and unabashedly feminist. Her book mines the best of these passionate pieces that gave women a voice where there was none. It's easy to see how Landsberg inspired an entire generation of women - and men, including husband Stephen Lewis, who never gives a speech without mentioning her influence on him.
— NOW Magazine
Even more interesting is Landsberg's running commentary of back stories, details about sources, and other asides, fascinating additions that make this book much more than a mere collection of newspaper columns.
— Quill & Quire
Writing the Revolution, Ms. Landsberg's passionate repository of wit, wonder and worriment offering her unique and unforgettable views upon those heavenly hellish years she spent as one of The Toronto Star's most influential and controversial voices.
— "In Other Words" blog, The Globe and Mail
“I think of Michele Landsberg’s book as a clutch purse, in the sense that I tuck the gleaming thing under my folded arm, clutching it for safety and comfort and for the treasure it holds. Open it and jewels spill out: the stories of lives lived by women during feminism’s second wave. Love, humiliation, struggle, pain, small triumphs, great victories, all dressed in this great woman’s words imbued with the warmth for which she is famous. It isn’t the book of the year or the decade, it’s our own personal true story. “
— Heather Mallick
She brought legitimate left political cred to what began as a place in the "Women's section" and morphed over the years to front-section prominence. Long before she left the Star in 2003, Landsberg was renowned as one of the nation's clarion Second Wave feminists. She was the very model of the journalist-as-social activist, no mere recorder of the heady parade.
— The Toronto Star
