The Raging Grannies - 9781551642406

Women fought against slavery and offered shelter to hunted runaways, demanded economic justice for the starving or working poor, raised their voices when rights were trampled, raised their fists when their children were murdered. Women's collective acts of resistance have played, and continue to play, a vital but often unacknowledged role in humanizing social, political, and economic policies. To death, danger, and oppression women have frequently responded in life-affirming ways, their contributions concealed in invisibility and silence for too long, without stories of resistance and opposition. But no more. This is the tale of the Raging Grannies. Their beginning and growth, the invention of their identity, the educational and bold potential of their activism, the values expressed in their actions and songs, and their impact on issues, stereotypes, media, and people. At a time when environmental destruction and war threatened, when the growing chasm between poor and rich endangered justice, a group of women stood up with courageous irreverence to denounce government lies, corporate greed and short-sightedness, and in the process, created a new cultural figure that challenged authority as well as stereotypes of women. The Grannies' distinctive approach is surprisingly popular and effective: in sixteen years, more than fifty groups of Raging Grannies exist across Canada, in the United States, and as far away as the UK, Australia and Greece (Greek Grannies call themselves Furies). Their popularity reveals the power of creativity and humour, which allow them to claim their space on the political scene, refusing to be dismissed or ignored. The Raging Grannies both records and celebrates this vibrant activism. Bursting with adventures, this is the tale of the Raging Grannies: their beginning, the invention of their identity and their impact on issues, stereotypes, media and people.