Dangerous Woman

I originally reviewed this when I was a fresh new baby booktuber in 2015, but I figured it was time to re-read and re-review this really inspiring biography that turned me onto such an interesting leftist figure.

A Dangerous Woman was published September 30th 2007 by The New Press and apparently also in at least Turkish in 2010.

The only warning, besides extreme awesomeness, is that there is some nudity. In case there was any doubt about it, Emma Goldman did have several sexual relationships and this is dealt with in a very matter of fact way that does include some sexual scenes where people are clearly enjoying themselves. There's also two assassination attempts and one state sanctioned execution.

While I didn't know that much about the creator before setting out to make this review, Sharon Rudahl is apparently also pretty coolio. According to lambiek and the women in comics wiki, Rudahl was an early contributor to underground comix in the 1970s and part of the collective that started Wommen's Comix in 1972. Rudahl's work has appeared in Wet Satin, Dope Comix, Bisarre Sex and Anarchy Comix. She also ID's as Jewish and according to Lilith was a homeschool parent.

Flipping the box over, the official description is as follows. " A wonderful retelling of the famous anarchist and radical icon Emma Goldman's extraordinary life, this graphic biography embodies the richness and drama of Goldman's story in a wholly original way.

A Dangerous Woman depicts the full sweep of a life lived to the hilt in the struggle for equality and justice. Emma Goldman was at the forefront of the radical causes of the twentieth century, from leading hunger demonstrations during the Great Depression—"Ask for work! If they do not give you work, ask for bread! If they do not give you work or bread, take the bread!"—to organizing a cloakmakers' strike, from lecturing on how to use birth control to fighting conscription for World War I, while her soulmate, Alexander Berkman, spent fourteen years in jail for his failed attentat against industrialist Henry Clay Frick."

As I mentioned during the creator bio, Sharon Rudahl was part of the underground comix movement, and that seems fitting to my untrained eye just flipping through the art. It's certainly a bit word heavy, something I often found daunting. Obviously for this re-read my love of Emma Goldman made everything pretty easy to get through, but I feel like the page layout choices did help more then a little on my first read-through. Not a super easy to follow 101 sort of comic layout, I do feel like the dynamic framing and detailed drawings helped to give my ADHD brain details to flip to when my attention starts to wander.

Gender, obviously, is something that comes up a lot in the book. Mostly implicitly, not so rah rah WOMEN explicitly. Emma's gender and sexuality were key to how she was able to move through the world and the different kinds of obstacles she had to overcome. Her critiques of the suffragette movement are pretty interesting, and important to know the context of in case some uppity member of the Manosphere ever tries to convince you that Emma was on their side. Some exciting examples of what she had to say on the subject of suffrage include.

"The American suffrage movement has been, until very recently, altogether a parlor affair, absolutely detached from the economic needs of the people."
"The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and by that right, he has forged chains around his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor."
And to conclude. " Few countries have produced such arrogance and snobbishness as America. Particularly is this true of the American woman of the middle class. She not only considers herself the equal of man, but his superior, especially in her purity, goodness, and morality. Small wonder that the American suffragist claims for her vote the most miraculous powers. In her exalted conceit she does not see how truly enslaved she is, not so much by man, as by her own silly notions and traditions. Suffrage can not ameliorate that sad fact; it can only accentuate it, as indeed it does."
Which I, and the few people who I have talked to on the subject, perceive to be fairly run of the mill anti voting sentiment of an anarchist and a critique of presenting women as a class of more moral and pure voters.

Emma's sexuality was also pretty interesting. Apparently pretty straight, her practice of free love was still pretty revolutionary. An outspoken critique of marriage, Goldman was apparently an early critique of what we now call homophobia. Although the latter was highlighted more on her wikipedia profile and not so much inside this particular graphic biography. She had several male lovers throughout her life, with at least one later in life being much younger. I felt like Rudahl did a good job of differentiate each relationship, and didn't just brush over this aspect of Goldman's life in any way.

While not explicitly disability representation, I did also appreciate the way in which Rudahl also highlighted the toll that Goldman's busy life had on her and others. There's at least once, if not twice, where Goldman becomes quite ill and must be nursed back to health by her sister. The imprisonment of a lover also has a deep and profound impact on both of them mentally and politically. It would be nice to see more, and I would not consider Goldman a disability icon, but there is something to say about pushing back against the idea that our heroes just go go go all the time and never need to rest.

Another implicit and not super explicit idea, you kind of have to think about it on your own time, but race (or ethnicity, I am not sure if she would have been seen as white at the time or not) is also an important aspect of Emma Goldman's life. Emma Goldman is a Russian immigrant whose family fled from Russia due to antisemitism. Goldman faces barriers that she must creatively overcome because she is not a native english speaker. Doing some cursory web searching nothing is coming up for Goldman and race. General perception is she was against racism, although the social media is saying she did have strong negative feelings about Lucy Parsons.

While it's always nice to think of the people we admire as perfect, I'm really glad to have done this thought process about the way Goldman did or did not react to different marginalizations. Lots of questions to keep in mind whenever I work up the concentration to engage with her work again and inspiration for more holes of representation I need to look into. And she certainly is not necessary for everyone.