Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Reclaiming The "I": Memoir Writing As Feminist Activism, Michela Sottura

University Honors Theses

When I set out to write about my body and what happened to me, I knew I was going to have to sit with parts of myself I had long silenced, overlooked, maybe even abandoned. When I first took a class on women's memoir writing I was struck by the power of the stories we read. I felt like a door had been opened for me, as I witnessed the importance of sharing one's personal lived history. Reading the words of women with different identities and experiences than mine taught me how memoir can inspire, challenge, educate, rewrite, heal, and …