A reader writes in:
I’m a high schooler who’s recently become interested in feminist/LGBT issues, and since I won’t have anything to do this summer I figured I’d spend the time reading some books on the topic. Can you recommend anything? I’m interested in historical things (I’m probably going to try to read The Second Sex, at least,) but I’d also really love to find some good recent books.
Help a girl out.
I’m a grad student and I wouldn’t mind seeing everybody’s favorite “basic” books either!
For a feminist take on trans issues, I’d highly recommend Julia Serano’s book Whipping Girl — well, for a take on transfeminine issues. I think she does a good job of not erasing trans men, though, for all that the book is specifically about trans female experience.
I’ll be watching this thread for more recommendations!
Judy Grahn’s Another Mother Tongue is a must. As for The Second Sex, it’s a good introduction to an important version of feminist philosophy, but Beauvoir’s discussion of “the lesbian” is rather inaccurate and tainted by heterosexism.
Well, when I was sixteen and just coming out I read Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America and really enjoyed it. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present by Neil Miller is also very informative.
Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” Naomi Wolf “The Beauty Myth” Ruth Rosen, Susan Brownmiller, Karla Jay memoirs of the second wave/ L/G liberation movements.
Julia Serano’s “The Whipping Girl” Almost anything by Robin Morgan. Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte’s books. Manifesta. The dialectic of Sex and Amazon Odyssey
I just recently read “50 Ways to Support Lesbian & Gay Equality” by Meredith Maran and Angela Watrous and I enjoyed it very much.
http://www.queersunited.blogspot.com
Ooh, this is a fun game. These aren’t all basics, but I think its important to get a range of topics and perspectives: Woman (Natalie Angier), When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost (Joan Morgan), Virginity or Death (Katha Pollit), Zami (Audre Lorde), Cunt (Igna Muscio), Gender Trouble (Judith Bulter), A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Mary Wollstonecraft) , Transforming a Rape Culture (Essays), And the Band Played On (Randy Shilts), The Beauty Myth (Naomi Wolf), Feminism is for Everybody (bell hooks), Boys Will Be Boys (Miriam Miedzian) and of course some of the newer books – Full Frontal Feminism, Perfect Girls Starving Daughters, Female Chauvinist Pigs, etc. I would recommend browsing through the women’s studies section of your local bookstore and following your interests. And don’t take anything as gospel! Feminists disagree with each other all the time.
Gloria Anzaldua La Frontera/The Borderlands
Comic book wise, two of my favorites are Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Hothead Paisan by Diane DiMassa.
I consider Bi Any Other Name by Hutchins and Kaahumanu to be an essential anthology, although a bit dated. It collects essays from across a spectrum of biseuxual identities and explores the mutability of sexual identity.
The first few chapters of Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics by Baumgardener are worth reading. Baumgardener’s strength is in making the case that openness to same-sex romantic and sexual relationships has been a key part of feminism since the 19th century, pointing in particular to the early 20th century, 1960-75, and the 1990s. I think her main flaw is that she spends a ton of time on DiFranco and not mentioning Ochs, Hutchins, Kaahumanu, or the First International Conference Celebrating Bisexuality.
Queers Read This was an important document published anonymously and circulated through most internet activism networks in the early 90s. It’s an important summary of radical queer politics.
If you want a basic history of women’s rights activism in America, check out “Born for Liberty,” by Sara Evans.
“In Our Time,” Susan Brownmiller’s memoir is a great first-person narrative of the women’s liberation movement (1960s & 70s).
I second the suggestion of “Whipping Girl.”
“BITCHfest,” edited by Andi Zeisler and Lisa Jervis is an anthology from Bitch Magazine, and has a great range of stuff.
“To be real” by Rebecca Walker is another thoughtful anthology of 1990s-era feminist writing by younger women.
I love the list of books above. Some great suggestions such as Butler, Anzaldua, hooks, etc… Look into those.
A couple of recent ones that I’ve been reading:
Gender in Real Time – Kath Weston
Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom – Linda M.G. Zerilli
Those are a bit different, but take a serious look at the future of feminist theory and gender theory (and the intersection of both).
If you’re looking for transgender reading, look for the Transgender Reader. There are several good essays in there.
And I’m also a fan of Virginia Woolf. And good reader of her works would be excellent!
-aec
Read everything you can by bell hooks. Start with From Margin to Center, it brings the voice of black women to the spotlight.
Wow, there’s a great list of books already. Here are a few others: Sister Outsider (Audrey Lorde), Egalia’s Daughters (Gerd Brantenburg), Stone Butch Blues (Leslie Feinberg) Listen Up! (essays), and anything put out by the Guerilla Girls.
Oooh, as a bisexual librarian volunteering with a small GLBT library, I live for this stuff. I’m just going to make a list by title and author of queer books with feminism or feminist books with queer issues.
We Don’t Need Another Wave edited by Melody Berger
Revolutionary Voices by Amy Sonnie
Lotus of Another Color by Rakesh Ratti
anything by Audre Lorde
Getting Bi : Voices of Bisexuals around the World by Robyn Ochs (and really anything else Ochs has written or contributed to is a good bet)
The Color of Violence, an INCITE Anthology
Families Like Mine by Abigail Gardner
The Trouble with Islam Today by Irshad Manji
SLUT by Leora Tanenbaum
Any of the Guerrilla Girls books
Anything by Stephanie Coontz
Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation by Karla Jay
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis
The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel P. Maines
A Woman Like That : Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories by Joan Larkin
Anything from Pat Calafia
Lambda Literary Award Winners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Literary_Award
How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality by Joanne Jay Meyerowitz
Below are some links to other book lists I’ve worked on/with that might interest you. If you need more, don’t hesitate to ask. You can get my contact info through the first link.
http://www.bilerico.com/2007/12/10_books_every_bisexual_should_read.php
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Queer_Womens_History.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Older_Lesbians.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Jewish_Stories.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Hispanic_Books.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Hijras.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Mental_Disabilities.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/GLBT_History_Nonfiction_Booklist.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/Gay_Japan.pdf
http://www.indiana.edu/~glbtlib/booklists/East_Asian_and_Pacific_Islander.pdf
I would also like to diverge from the group and not recommend Julie Serrano’s Whipping Girl. I was really bothered by her footnotes, in that she uses a lot of feminist writings from the 70′s and 80′s to argue that feminism still views transpeople as problematic while completely ignoring third-wave feminists and the vast ground they have covered on this issue. It made me really frustrated because I felt like she was minimizing the current situation of feminism and cherry picking to prove her point instead of really getting into the intersectionality of third-wave. She didn’t footnote any of the third-wave sources that reject womyn-born-womyn views or discuss them at length. She also notes the long history of non-trans people disrespecting the right for transfolk to self label, then turns around and makes up her own labels for all sorts of people and groups, including feminists. It bugged me a lot.
I’m really getting into bell hooks lately…I’d definately recommend Feminism is for Everybody. It’s a very easy read, although I wouldn’t call it light because it is so jam-packed with insight. I haven’t yet gotten to the section on sexuality and gender identity yet, so I can’t speak to that.
When you need some fiction with lessons, also consider:
The Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri Tepper
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
He, She and It by Marge Piercy
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Wow! You read my mind. I was just thinking about requesting this for feminist feedback the other day.
Stone Butch Blues!
I see someone mentioned The Handmaid’s Tale, which I heartily second. It has more to do with women’s rights in general than with LGBT stuff, but it is pretty much my favorite book ever.
I’m curious about other’s feelings towards Muscio’s Cunt. I’d seen it mentioned a number of times on threads like these, and recently (in an effort to expand my feminist reading: The Female Thing, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, The Wimp Factor, The Technology of Orgasm, etc) picked up a copy.
I’m only a couple of chapters in, but I have to admit I’m not overwhelmed by it. She has a lot of great points, but the style gets in the way (it reads a bit like a mid 90′s poetry slam). Mostly it’s just really high on the earth-mother woo factor, and I am not a fan of woo.
I found it really weird that she makes a great snarky point about how doctors and pill companies, in an effort to expand their market, finally admitted that PMS and cramps aren’t just a figment of women’s imaginations–and then, literally a page or two later, says that if women just paid more attention to the cycles of the moon, they wouldn’t have cramps. Which sure sounded a lot like saying it was all in their heads. She also seems to think most women can just take off from work every month to relax and commune with their cycle.
I would like to recommend “Compulsory Heterosexuality” by Adrienne Rich (1980); “Queer Theory” by Ann Marie Jagose; French theorist Helene Cixous “The laugh of the Medusa” (1975) if you are looking at French feminist like de Beauvoir then Cixous is a wonderful, after the fact, read; and for fiction read Jeanette Winterson (huge list of novels but an awesome read with feminist/queer theme); “Valencia” by Michelle Tea.
Okay, that’s it for now. Awesome list of books btw. Bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich a def. read.
I want to add my support to everyone recommending bell hooks — Feminism is for Everybody is a great overview, but I would recommend Teaching to Transgress even more strongly because you’re a student. It’s geared towards educators, but is all about making the educational system more accessible and actually about learning and dismantling privilege in learning settings. It absolutely motivated me to be an even more engaged student.
As for Cunt, I think it’s important to read but it’s very problematic. I couldn’t get past the places where she seemed to be claiming that abortion is a liberatory experience, as well as what you noted about her analysis of pharmaceuticals. I think it’s a good idea to give it a look, since I’m frequently asked about it when people find out I’m a feminist, but a very critical look as well.
Good luck! I read Second Sex in high school and it was totally responsible for catapulting me into feminist consciousness.
Stone Butch Blues (trans relationships), Before Night Falls (gay man in Cuba).
And yes – bell hooks Teaching to Transgress is very good. I read it during college as well, and since I want to become a professor, it was a great read.
I just want to enthusiastically second Annajcook’s recommendation of To Be Real edited by Rebecca Walker.
I just read it a couple months ago, it’s a book of essays and it’s kind of a sampler platter of third wave feminism, and, importantly it includes more than a token number of writings by women of color.
If you’re looking for transgender reading, look for the Transgender Reader. There are several good essays in there.
Many of the essays are thick with academic language, so if you’re looking for individual essays to read in that book, Susan Stryker’s essay “My Conversation With Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamonix”. Saved my life, this essay did.
Nightwatch by sarah waters.
Beautiful book,.
A few interesting non-fiction histories:
Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts by James M. Saslow — A really good overview of, not just gay artists, but how homosexuality has been expressed and coded throughout history, and how much it has contributed to art.
Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, put out by Aperture and edited by Louise Downie — A long overdue english language rediscovery of an amazing artist. She was loosely associated with the Surrealists, and is best known for her gender twisting self-portraits and photo-collages. If you like Cindy Sherman, you need to check out Claude Cahun. This book also has some great stuff about her life with her partner. They posed as sisters during WWII and worked in the resistance movement.
Sultry Climates: Travel & Sex by Ian Littlewood — A pretty interesting history of the Grand Tour (and beyond) and how recreational travel was primarily a means of experiencing taboo sexuality.
Unsuitable for Ladies: An Anthology of Women Travellers by Jane Robinson — A collection of writings from women who explored on their own, when that sort of thing just wasn’t done.
Anything by Virginia Woolf
And anything by Quentin Crisp.
Two hard reads are Daily and Dworkin. Even if you disagree with them I think they are important reads. Although it occurs to me that Stoltenberg’s critique of masculinity and heterosexuality might be a good bridge to understanding exactly what Dworkin is saying when she critiques the social construction of sexual intercourse.
The Gate to Women’s Country is underrated, brilliant, and extremely depressing science fiction. It’s one of the few Tepper novels that don’t pull a deus ex machina to get humanity’s ass out of the fire. Tepper is a prolific and unapologetically feminist science fiction author. I’d also recommend Grass, Sideshow, and Raising the Stones.
Another feminist science fiction author to read for fun is Nalo Hopkinson.
I’d recommend “Manifesta”, which is an excellent introduction to the basics, as well as a defence of the third wave. “The Feminine Mistake” is also good. I’m sorry, but the authors’ names don’t come to mind. “The Myth of Mars and Venus” by Deborah Cameron is fantastic. “The Caged Virgin”, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, while not very well written, is a great look at feminism in other cultures, as the movement tends to be very US centred, especially in the third wave.
For LGBT issues, I especially like Matthew Parris. He is a British journalist and author (mostly journalist) and he has a wonderfully unsensational way of looking at the world.
Riddle of Gender, The History of How Sex Changed, Whipping Girl, and the fiction anthology Am I Blue are all really good.
I know someone upthread said she(?) didn’t like Whipping Girl because her critiques of feminism aren’t as relevant today, but the problem is that those critiques are still relevant. Other than the Transsexual Empire and Whipping Girl, are there any books about feminism and trans*ism or look at trans*ism from a feminist (not queer theory) POV? Even just look at the other discussions on trans*ism on feministe and you’ll find the views Serano critiques. Look at the case with Vancouver Rape Relief Center or the VRRC’s website.
Am I Blue is really cute. The title story is by Bruce Coville and he edits the anthology. It’s a bunch of coming out stories for LGB youth; the title story is about a boy who gets beaten up because his classmates think he’s gay getting a fairy godfather.
I saw this post and thought I would shamelessly self-promote. If you’re looking for historical fiction to read this summer, I would recommend my first novel, House of Clouds, released in October of last year. It takes place during the Civil War and deals with the lesbian relationship between a northern and southern woman (check out the book blurb on my website, http://www.kithompson.com). You can purchase the book from my publisher, http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com, or you can get it online from Amazon. You can also get it from Barnes and Noble or Borders, and if they don’t have it on the shelf, you can also order from them.
Thanks everyone for letting me indulge.
KI Thompson
As novels capturing the lives of (white, American) women during certain periods, I’d suggest reading The Group by Mary McCarthy, and The Women’s Room by Marilyn French.
I have not read Cunt myself, but the author came to my university to speak for the rally before our Take Back the Night march this year and honestly, from the bits that she read of her book, it does sound a little like a poetry-slam. She did not impress me as a public speaker, which leads me to believe that she probably wouldn’t impress me as an author.
As for some recommendations:
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Voices Rising (an anthology of black queer and transgender voices)
The Lesbian and Gay Movements by Craig A. Rimmerman
Lots of these are repeats, but:
Queer/Feminist Fiction–
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties by Felicia Luna Lemus — I cannot recommend this book highly enough, it makes me so happy.
Valencia, Rent Girl by Michelle Tea
Non-Fiction–
Without a Net, edited by Michelle Tea
This Bridge Called Our Back
This Bridge We Call Home
Whipping Girl by Julia Serano
As someone else said above, while some of the trans-misogynistic theory that Serano quotes is from the 60s-70s, it is naive to think those notions are not still extremely prevalent in feminist communities today. As the partner of a transwoman, I see it all the fucking time. It’s a really excellent book.
Also, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, Audre Lorde.
Some of my favorites from academia (mostly histories) —
Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis & Elizabeth Kennedy
Gay New York by George Chauncey
Not June Cleaver, edited by Joanne Meyerowitz
How Sex Changed by Joanne Meyerowitz
Dude, You’re a Fag by C.J. Pascoe (especially interesting and relevant since you’re still in high school)
Enjoy!
Ooh, historic queer. I insist you must go find Sarah Waters right now. I thought Tipping the Velvet was fab. Fingersmith is a lot darker, but also fab, and puts some things in very interesting perspective.
I strongly recommend “Schoolgirls” by Peggy Orenstein. I read it during my first year teaching and it was consciousness-raising for me. It’s an easy and engaging read and might be particularly revelatory for someone in high school.
Keeping You A Secret, a coming out lesbian love story
and
Luna, about a girl balancing helping her transgender sibling and having a life of her own.
Both are by Julie Anne Peters and are VERY good.
I have to defend Inga Muscio’s Cunt. Sure, it’s skewed, and it parts will gross you out, and parts are just wymyn/howl at the moon/pseudo-pagan mumbo jumbo, but reading that book as a teenager (and passing it around between my other budding feminist friends) really opened my eyes to a world beyond the lip gloss and body glitter girliness of high school. It’s a great jumping off point for getting into feminist/glbt lit/theory (the bibliography and recommendations at the back – books, movies, zines, everything – is worth the money) and the fiery conviction of the writing really appeals to young angry girls.
Transforming a Rape Culture/Emilie Buchwald. THis one is kinda unknown, but sooo good. I can’t recommend it enough.
Backlash/Susan Faludi.
A Room of One’s Own/Virginia Woolf.
The War on Choice/Gloria Feldt.
Everday Sexsim in the Third Millenium/Car Rambo Ronai.
Women, Race & Class/Angela Davis.
fiction: The Dispossed/Ursula Le Guin. Golden Notebook/Doris Lessing. Ruby Fruit Jungle/Rita mae Brown.
Keeping You a Secret was amazing. I’m a big fan of it, for a YA lesbian book that was actually on the regular bookshelves in B&N. Tripping the Velvet is a good historical fiction lesbian love story.
I have many more on my bookshelf, but I will have to get home to look. :)
Everything already mentioned in this thread, plus:
We Don’t Need Another Wave! edited by Melody Berger, which came out last year and is full of essays from young feminists.
If you’re into sci-fi at all, please read Ammonite and Slow River by Nicola Griffith. They’re wonderful.
Leslie Feinberg is really good and really interesting because ze writes a lot about class in hir analysis- like in Transgender Warriors which I really liked and also the classic Stone Butch Blues.
Fourth, fifth, sixthing bell hooks, you won’t be disappointed.
Internationally there’s Nawal El Saadawi, who wrote “Woman At Point Zero” along with some other fiction/memoir and nonfiction, who I think is wonderful and really interesting.
I love “Whipping Girl,” Julia Serano has a lot to say about the “scapegoating of femininity” that I find really interesting.
Confessions of the Other Mother: Nonbiological Lesbian Moms Tell All! Edited by Harlyn Aizley is also really good, a collection of inspiring, funny, touching essays.
Audre Lorde, too! Read her autobiography and poetry- it’s very powerful. “Zami: A New Spelling of my Name.”
Gayatri Gopinath’s “Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures” I’ve had as a text book a few times now (as I’m a member of the sanctimonious women’s studies set) and like it more every time. Very interesting.
Dorothy Allison!!! “Bastard Out Of Carolina” as well as her nonfiction. I met her last year and she is the sweetest woman.
Kate Bornstein is also a goddess- she’s written a biography, too, and a book of 101 alternatives to suicide.
For a look at women’s oppression in another culture, try Infidel and The Caged Virgin by the indomitable Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I disagree with her politics, but the power of her tale is immense.
Is anyone familiar with a book called (or about) The Invention of Heterosexuality? I think that was the title, or at least the subject. I saw it years ago in a college bookstore and regret not picking it up.
Well, even though you asked for more contemporary stuff, the “Sisterhood is Powerful” compilation is an easy read that gives a good overview of a lot of stuff from the late 60′s, and explains in more detail a lot of the theories/ basic ways of looking at the world that newer books will take for granted.
Bell Hooks is great too, for just giving a holistic way of looking at stuff. I think Killing Rage was the first book of hers I read, and it was a fine introduction. She has like a intro to feminism book, but I found it kind of slight and not as compelling as other stuff.
Whipping Girl’s main points speak much more broadly about feminism then how it interacts with trans women. It’s more about femininity, and in our misogynistic society everyone internalizes feminine=bad. It speaks to a lot of culture war stuff that is debated often.
But yeh, can’t recomend Bell Hooks enough.
Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism by Suzanne Pharr.
Great analysis of how much heterosexism stands upon a base of misogyny, and how intertwined those two things are.
The Irish feminist, journalist and novelist Nuala O’Faolain died last Friday at age 68. For anyone who wants to know what growing up in a brutally patriarchal society was like, read her memoir Are You Somebody? It would be nice, too, if one of the feminist blogs would do a post on her.
I adore Tipping the Velvet. I think it’s more than a book- it’s a life experience.
I should have added in that post that Tipping the Velvet is also an excellent film, and so is Fingersmith (both by Sarah Waters).
SarahS says
“How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality by Joanne Jay Meyerowitz”
I’m mentioned in it several times.
If you are interested in French feminists the three most prominent and more recent writers are Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray (Je, tu, nous is a short and wonderful starting point) and Helene Cixous (her novel The Book of Promethea is one of my favourites). Also Monique Wittig’s collection of essays The Straight Mind is phenomenal as are all her novels.
The most important of Virginia Woolf’s essays on women is, in my view, the Three Guineas.
And as an English girl I’d have to say the American writers who’ve most impacted me are Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin. I first read them as a teenager and found them both heartbreaking and hopeful; still do.
Manifesta was awesome.
if you’re interested in learning about bisexuality, Manifesta coauthor Jennifer Baumgartner published a good book titled Look Both Ways. She’s a great author with a great perspective.
If you’re into fiction, check out The Bell Jar; it’s a trip!!
Like irishgril, I recommend Siterhood is Powerful. It was among the first of my eye-opening feminist culture reads. The Great Cosmic Mother (Monica Sjoo and ?) is EXCELLENT…Everyone on this blog should get it! Quick! I find it harder to find as the years pass. bell hooks is great (name is always in lower case, real name is Gloria Watkins) Also, for laughs and tears, Pulling Our Own Strings (nice Tampon reference!) is a great book of essays, jokes, etc. Vintage! It is where I first read Flo Kennedy:
“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” who also said, “Men: We can’t live with them and we can’t shoot them” lol
I hope my sisters haven’t become too pc to laugh at that…
peace, ya’ll
“can’t live with them..” I think Flo said that…
For a historical text, I highly recommend *To Believe In Women: What Lesbians have done for America* by Lillian Faderman. Although this text focuses mostly on white, middle-class women during the Progressive Era, she does present a number of African-American couples as well.
Personally, I have learned a great deal reading the blogs of RWOC mentioned here and at Feministing lately. Some of those authors have taken their blogs down, unfortunately, but others haven’t. (I find that you can sometimes re-construct the gist of people’s work through their quotes or other’s responses to them; not nearly as good as reading them, but it can give you a sense of the author and the issues.) They are well worth perusing. If I’m ever lucky enough to teach a queer theory course again, I will most definitely ask my students to read these.
For non-historical stuff and heavy theory, Judith Butler’s *Gender Identity*–but frankly, my queer theory class and I found the last chapter the most relevant and the one worth reading the most; I have also found her interviews highly accessible–much more so than her books.
Well, you sound quite awesome.
I read Bitchfest when I was going into my junior year of high school (clearly I’m not much older) and some of those essays really rocked my world and still do. (Granted, some sort of didn’t sit well with me, but most are so sharp, funny, smart and plain old glorious that it’s definitely worth it.)
Also, I’m seconding the “Look Both Ways” recommendation (esp. the first few chapters) for its nice melding of feminism + sexuality issues.
My newest favorite is “Sister Outsider” by Audre Lorde. Must-read. I’ve highlighted damn near every line.
Happy travels!
p.s. I had made a “flow-chart” relating to this for my friends in high school (and others) relating to this, for your viewing pleasure.
Sorry for not reading through the comments…i am at office so hope to do so the moment i reach home.
i mean, sorry if this is a repeat but ‘Vagina Monologues’ and ‘The Good Body’ by Eve Ansler
I’d recommend The Female Man by Joanna Russ, and also the Native Tongue series by Suzette Haden Elgin (well, really, anything by Suzette Haden Elgin).
“All that False Instruction” by Kerryn Higgs (aka Elisabeth Riley) is an interesting, well-written book about the lesbian/coming out experience in Australia in the… ’60s, if I recall correctly. It’s very well written, although not terribly uplifting! I definitely recommend it, if you can get your hands on a copy.
this is so much fun …
i second all recommendations of virginia woolf, particularly a room of one’s own. kate chopin’s the awakening is a striking read as well.
i have heard a lot of hirsi ali, who i don’t like; if you want to read her then i would recommend reading some other middle eastern feminists like fatima mernissi, fadia faqir and laila ahmed. the politics of piety by saba mahmood is an academic’s academic book (lots of foucault) but has some very moving reflection on feminist scholarship in middle eastern societies that i really enjoyed.
cheers to reading women’s writing! hands down my favorite activity.
To throw in a few not yet mentioned…
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Yellow Wallpaper” is short and a great read
The inimitable Patricia Williams’s Alchemy of Race and Rights is a lot about gender/sex, and totally absorbing….
Donna Haraway if you’re into science (a harder read, but worth it)
Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, since you mentioned French philo…
For a short hit of Judith Butler, I like “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” in Diana Fuss, ed. Inside/Out
If you like history, read anything by Joan Scott.
…I could go on, but that would get you going pretty well!
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (anthology) edited by Daisy Hernandez and Bushra Rehman and Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. Also Nobody Passes and That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation by Matt (Matilda) Bernstein.
Comics: Y: the Last Man, Love and Rockets, Stranger in Paradise
Zines: Almost anything at StrangerDangerDistro.com, especially my zines: Angry Black-White Girl and Borderlands: Tales from DIsputed Territories Between Races and Cultures
More props to Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera and Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl.
This got me thinking back to my Philosophy and Feminism class in college, where I read the Adrienne Rich essay on Compulsory Heterosexuality, and it pretty much changed my life, if not my thinking. Unfortunately, I can’t remember other books/articles. But I heartily recommend that – and Rich’s poetry, too. Oh… come to think of it: Deborah Tannen’s Men and Women Talking, an article which became the book You Just Don’t Understand. But I prefer the article.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Steinem – I grew up the child of a charter Ms. subscriber, and I devoured every new Steinem essay, and love Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, which collects most of her key writing from those years.
I think one can draw links between McCarthy’s The Group, French’s Women’s Room, and Friedan, all of which capture the “problem with no name” notions of feminism among college educated women in the postwar period (though McCarthy is pre-war, but it lays the groundwork). it’s not the whole of what feminism is, but it’s central to the American story, I think.
One other great fictional work with feminist themes is The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley which retells the Arthurian Legend from the women’s perspectives, especially Morgaine LeFay. That,too, really expanded my thinking about things I thought I knew.
I’d also recommend Urvashi Vaid’s Virtual Equality. Vaid was head of NGLTF, and has a sharp perspective on the lesbian/gay divide.
Finally, from my women’s history class, two books stand out: Victorian Women, by Erna Hellerstein, and Daughters of Time, by Vivian Gould. Victorian Women is a thick volume, but it was probably one of the books I was most pleased to be required to read in school.
I’m don’t read a whole that much anymore, but I will give some suggestions:
Contempt: How the Right is Wronging American Justice by Catherine Crier
Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Nadine Strossen
Behind Every Choice is a Story by Gloria Feldt
And here is one that everyone forgot: Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe by Arianna Huffington
For any highschooler or middle-schooler, I recommend “Changing Bodies, Changing Lives.” My lesbian mom gave me the first edition of this book when I was nine or ten and it changed my life forever. I don’t know if it qualifies as a specifcally LGBT book recommendation but it is definitely LGBT inclusive. And it deals with reality — a perfect tonic to the abstinence hooey you are probably being taught in school!
Definitely another voice for everything by Audre Lorde, Zami especially but check out her poetry as well (just google “A Litany For Survival” – blows me away every time).
Wanted to add the Dorothy Allison essay “Notes to a Young Feminist”. She hits on language and theory, and she makes her own list of books. It’s one of those essays I can re-read a million times and it always resonates (and boosts morale!).
I second Dworkin and Stoltenberg readings, as well as Mary Daly. I’m enjoying all of the recommendations, actually.
And for fiction, I really recommend Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. It’s a beautiful utopian novel that may as well be set today.
And for bell hooks recommendations, her most influential writing for me has been All About Love. It talks about love being part of the social justice movement, and really, part of the revolotion.
feminist love,
jen
I’ll second just about all of the recommendations above … especially Friedan, Wolf & Lorde. I got into feminism via lots of texts about birth/motherhood, so here’s some good ones from that realm:
Of Woman Born – Adrienne Rich
Misconceptions – Naomi Wolf
Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born – Tina Cassidy
Pushed – The Painful Truth About Childbirth & Modern Maternity Care
Baby Love - Rebecca Walker (Alice Walker’s daughter)
The Mommy Myth : The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women – Susan Douglas & Merideth Michaels
Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety – Judith Warner
The Price of Motherhood – Ann Crittenden
Opting Out?: Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home - Pamela Stone (Also, go to the NY Times website and search the archives for the original “Opting Out” article.)
Also, some books that will make you think about the intersection between gender and class issues:
Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America – Jonathan Kozol
Nickel and Dimed – Barbara Ehrenreich
Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform – Sharon Hays
Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage - Kathryn Edin & Maria Kefalas
Nobody Passes: Rejecting The Rules Of Gender And Conformity edited by Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore is fantastic, and a really excellent, accessable read. It features a great diversity of voices on the subject of passing, and makes you realize how connected we all are in the struggle.
Similarly, Sycamore also edited a collection called That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation” which is a little more politically charged toward queer radicalism.