What is the definitive feminist tract?

[MrsWembley]

Fiction, that is!

Well, what is it for you? Curious minds want to know...

[bunchoffives]

Kate Millet Sexual Politics? Oh hang on that's not fiction....
The Women's Room Marilyn French?
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood?
I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou?

[hackmum]

The Maya Angelou isn't fiction either, bunchoffives.

I would say The Women's Room, though it's a long time since I've read it. For a while in the 70s Fear of Flying was regarded as a feminist book, but I'm not sure it is really.

[MrsWembley]

That's a good start, books I've actually heard of!

Thank-you. Any more?

[MrsWembley]

Bumping for the afternoon crowd!

[MollyMaDurga]

Classic: the golden notebook?
Been ages since I read it though and can't remeber much of it, so maybe well off the mark!

Apart from that, I would doubt that there is one such thing, the definite tract I mean.. different times andtastes, lives and priorities and all that stuff. We is a mixed bunch of all sorts, right?

[hackmum]

Oh yes, The Golden Notebook is excellent. Lessing always denied it was a feminist book, though. Mind you, she was quite a contrary sort of person.

[Alchemist]

Marge Piercy is an amazing feminist writer - Vida is excellent.

She does write some space-age sort of stuff. I'm glad I read Vida before I read Woman on the edge of time. It was shite.

Margaret Atwood, Lisa Alter, Fay Weldon.

[cruikshank]

Fay Weldon gets on my teats. She makes some good points, but boy does she like to hammer them home.

I would say The Women's Room is the one that really got me to wake up, although that might have been due to the age I was when I read it (late teens - everything's a bit more 'intense' then).

[MrsWembley]

Thank-you for all these suggestions. Keep 'em coming...

[hackmum]

I really liked both Marge Piercey and Lisa Alther back in the 80s, esp. Vida (Piercey) and Kingflicks (Alther). No idea what I'd make of them now!

I think you could make a case for Margaret Drabble as a feminist writer - some of the early stuff like The Millstone is very good. And so much of Lessing is good about the female experience - the Martha Quest series in particular.

Margaret Atwood's writing about women is wonderful - my personal favourite is Alias Grace.

But if it's pure polemic you're looking for, then, as I said earlier, it has to be The Women's Room. But I'm not sure fiction should be polemical.

[MrsWembley]

Any opinions about The Group?

[Alchemist]

hackmum I have both books still, do you fancy a Kinflicks reread? Or Vida?

[Alchemist]

Who is the author of The Group?

[FrancesHB]

For me it's always The Women's Room.

I didn't get on with the golden notebook.

[FrancesHB]

The Group is by Mary McCarthy. It's well worth reading and v ahead of its time.

[MrsWembley]

Sorry, had to go check - Mary McCarthy.

[MrsWembley]

Arghhhhhh! X-posts! Thank-you

[Alchemist]

Thank you and will give it a read.