Yes, but is it for me?

Some of you may be wondering if Shelfari is even worth looking at; you may not be the avid book reader that I am, so the enthusiasm of my last post might not have revved you up much. Even so, Shelfari is worth taking a look at for anyone interested in gender topics, which I must assume you are, or you have really wandered off the beaten path to be perusing this blog!

The importance of social networking and sharing knowledge cannot be under estimated, in fact, such networking and sharing is precisely what facilitated the boom in awareness and activism for transexuals and other transgender people in the 1990s. Before the Internet facilitated cross-country networking at the click of a mouse, trans people were often isolated from each other, not just from the rest of the population. Small groups came and went in large cities, but pulling together national networks was a struggle (for a history of these struggles, see Susan Stryker's Transgender History and Joanne Meyerowitz's How Sex Changed: A History of Transexuality in the United States). Trans people can now find out in minutes, through web resources, what used to take years, if ever, to learn.

Shelfari can direct you to further resources on your favorite gender topics in seconds through its recommendations. Users can also find others with similar interests. A trans person alone in a small Midwestern town can meet other trans people online, perhaps from Shelfari, and can find out what informative books are popular in the trans community through Shelfari. Believe me, books on trans topics are quite hot in many trans communities. Activists and young trans people especially are reading up storms of empowerment. As the feminist, lesbian, and gay movements have shown, gaining knowledge goes a long way in gaining power, and to effect the change that is needed for the health and safety of gender minorities everywhere, greater power is definitely needed!

So whether you are a trans person yourself, a budding feminist looking for resources to keep on fighting patriarchy and glass ceilings, or just interested in gender in general, Shelfari can help you find out who your peers are and what they are reading. As they like to say at my University, "Networking, networking, networking!" Go find your people today at Shelfari.com.