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Manifest West #6, 2017
Women and the West, the latest issue of Manifest West, appeared in July 2017. (Ed. Caleb Seeling)
Those of us living in the West’s mountains, plains, cities, and deserts can all bear witness that there is no one type of Western woman. They are cowgirls and office staff, rock climbers and birdwatchers, First Nations members and migrant workers. Some Western women no longer live here, instead looking back on the home they left behind, and others are recent immigrants from the East Coast or the Far East. What connects their identities is the sharing of Western ways of life: family, heritage, a complicated relationship with the land’s utility and beauty. Meanwhile, issues universal to women everywhere—threats of physical violence, societal controls on their sexuality, and varied definitions of femininity—cannot be overlooked, for they also impact Western women. These ladies are individual squares of a quilt, and their interactions with the culture, landscape, and geography of the West, and with their families and each other, offer us a unified variety.
This volume celebrates Western woman as an inclusive category, not a stark label. Both female and male authors and poets share their observations and interpretations. We explore the experiences of Hispanic, First Nations, and even Thai women of the West. Their narratives include mothers, daughters, straight women, gay women, and women whose stories refuse to be defined by romance and family, instead spotlighting their passions as hobbyists, workers, and humans. |