In the aptly named Young Wives� Tales, New Adventures in Love and Partnership, we are invited to understand and experience the struggles of intelligent, modern feminist women in the face of an ancient institution: Marriage. In each of these compelling essays, we see a different facet not only of the marriage institution, but of feminism itself. The voices in this book examine their beliefs, their histories (both personal and cultural), the expectations of their communities, and their hearts. Many of them never planned to marry at all, and the stories of how they came to find themselves in such an unlikely position are funny, sad, and, ultimately, mysterious. In this era of infinite choice and possibility, these women battle their demons and embrace marriage for how it is meaningful to them. Or they reject marriage altogether. Or they find a different arrangement that works for them.

These stories are real. These stories of living together and living apart, of friendship and courtship, of lesbianism in a heterosexual world, of polyamory, of asexuality, of being committed without being married, of having a child with another woman or someone far away�all of them are real. Life is full of surprises. Marriage and family may challenge our feminist assumptions, but isn�t it only through challenge that we grow? These stories certainly lead this reader to such a conclusion.

Whether you are contemplating marriage, married, or clearly opposed to marriage or anything like it, this book is worth reading. Young Wives� Tales is really about women; courageous women struggling to understand their place in a world full of contradictions.

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Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers
Edited by Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender
Seal Press (2001)
$16.00
Review by Teresa Coates

As a Hip Mama magazine subscriber and fellow breeder, I�ve anxiously awaited the release of Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender�s newest book�Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers. I�ve read many excellent essays and stories in both Hip Mama magazine and Gore�s other books (The Mother Trip and The Hip Mama Guide) and expected more of the same in this book. I wasn�t disappointed.

Before Ariel Gore and Bee Lavender decided to make �breeder� the title of their collection of essays, the word was used as a degrading term for mothers. Women who had children (especially in a non-Ozzie and Harriet fashion) were seen by society as a burden for simply �bringing children into this world.� But with women like Gore and Lavender redefining the term, that image is shattered in one fell swoop. These 36 women writers are proud to be mothers, bearers of life. They are, and thereby make other mothers, proud to be breeders.

Of course, Breeder isn�t a parenting book. There are no �to be a good parent, do it this way� advice stories. There are no hints and tips to surviving the first year of motherhood. Nor are there pictures of little Gerber babies in cute poses. Rather, this 256�page book is filled with stories of mothering and what it means to each of these women.

Their tales vary incredibly, so if you don�t see yourself in the essay by Liesl Schwabe � �Motherhood and the Indian Post Office�� in which she tells of finding herself unmarried, pregnant and living in an isolated village in India, perhaps you will find something familiar in Coleen Murphy�s search for �balancing motherhood with personhood� in her essay, �Progress.� Whatever your life story, there is likely a similar one to yours within these pages.

Chosen to represent the so-called X-generation, the contributors to Breeder do so in an uncommon, and sometimes uncomfortable, way -- they bare it all. There is the lesbian mother who is raising her estranged lover�s child. Another mother eats her own placenta; one names her child Lizard, almost as a joke. One mama gives birth in a wading pool, another on the ground. Many of the parents live in the city, yet one family lived for several years without electricity.

While we may not all be mothers, or even want to be, Breeder delves into areas of the mother-child relationship that we can all understand and even enjoy.

Teresa Coates is a Hip Mama with two kids.

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Cry Baby Cry
Jesus Loves Stacy
Discord/Skoda(2001)
Review by Allison Dubinsky

Growing up outside of D.C., I became accustomed to bands that pushed the boundaries of genre, combining rock, punk, new wave, goth, jazz, blues and more with undeniable musicianship and the persistent kind of fury born of living in a city awash with power and hypocrisy. Dischord founders Fugazi have ensured the scene�s survival (not to mention its national distribution) by continuing to put out bands that challenge their listeners musically and lyrically and that rarely disappoint. Cry Baby Cry is no exception. Assembled from former members of other notable D.C. bands, among them Trusty and The Norman Mayer Group, this foursome consists of two boys, two girls, and lovely harmonies. In an always refreshing change of pace, one of those girls (Jenn Thomas) plays the drums. Fierce, fun and unusual, Jesus Loves Stacey is a sonic patchwork: �Metropolis,� a carnival-esque whimsy, sidles up until it�s back to back with Kathy Cashel�s rich, sneering vocals and James Brady�s confident guitar attack on �Monkey�s Darling.� The title track leaps from funk-driven rhythms to lo-fi punk-rawk and then back again. Which makes for an awfully interesting song, don�t get me wrong. Whatever Jesus Loves Stacey may lack in coherence of mood or style, it makes up for in versatility, attitude and the all-important element of surprise. It almost makes me want to move back to D.C.

B-sides: Check out their website at www.crybabycry.com for cute band photos and escape into Cry Baby Cry�s fast and furious East Coast lifestyle when they come to Portland in November (venue TBA).

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Bitch & Animal
Eternally Hard
Righteous Babe Records (2001)
Review by Allison Dubinsky

So they may have torn a scrap of paper out of Ms. DiFranco�s book, but these two tough-talking, tough-rhyming punk-folk rockers have scrawled all over it with their own take on being a girl, or a girl-boy, or a grrrl in the world today. Bitch is the dark-haired one from Detroit; Animal is the mohawk-ed one from Queens, NYC. Their songs are spitfire gems of percussive, bass-driven performance art. They tell it like it is. Each word a boot heel grinding out societal expectations about sexuality, love, marriage, etc., into the pavement like a dirty, dirty cigarette. That is, except for surprisingly lovely acoustic songs like �Passports� or �Traffic� interspersed throughout the album like glitter in gravel. Or the hilarious re-imagining of �Angels We Have Heard On High� � no, I am not kidding � into the pro-marijuana ditty �Ganja.� But wait � that�s not all this duo has to offer. Bitch is also the author of the �pussy manifesto,� which argues for the reclamation of the word �pussy� from its present sentence as a synonym for cowardice and weakness. They take on the world with humor and music, and they do it so powerfully and so fearlessly that you can�t help but listen closely. Someone please inform the Spice Girls (wherever it is they�ve gone) that this is what girl power sounds like.

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