A question for Dittany

[roseability]

Sorry to target you personally but I have noticed your name on a few threads of interest and you seem to know your stuff

Basically I am trying to stir up an interest in feminism and feminist thinking/discussion in my bookclub. I am tired of the usual 'chic lit' that gets recommended, the type that revolves around romance and needing a man (yawn). I also want to stretch my brain a bit after a long period of domesticity and motherhood (I feel chained to the kitchen sink!)

I have recommended Sheila Jeffreys Beauty and Misogyny and they seem to be keen. One is an English Literature lecturer, who is widely read in feminist literature. She hasn't read this though. Do you think this is a good recommendation? Is it maybe too hard hitting for a first venture into feminism (I haven't read much myself other than stuff about the medicalization of chilbirth to allow male control of pregnant women as part of my degree).

Hope you don't mind me asking. Your comments on the thread about pornography were a defining moment for me. I had no idea, and I wept for my baby daughter and vowed I would educate myself more so that I can teach her to respect herself and never be controlled by men.

OOh i was going to recommend 'Edible Woman' as well,

I always wonder if Atwood wrote it when she was pregnant though as the last part is so evocative of morning sickness!

Also, 'Martha Quest' by Doris Lessing

an underrated feminist classic IMO

oops- x post with loads of others!

Great thread. Can I add that absolutely ANYTHING by Toni Morrison gets my vote. The Bluest Eye is one of the most powerful, breathtaking novels I have ever read.

Also whoever suggested Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall - excellent idea. That woman was ahead of her time IMO.

I have got to mention The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. Brilliant brilliant sci fi about a world where there is no biological sex. People are just people rather than 'men' and 'women' - and all can bear children. I think she wrote it at the end of the 1960s, so just as second wave feminism was getting going. I also love 'The Dispossessed', although it's not as feminist focused.

So many great suggestions here, it has sent me off to Amazon.

Yet to Ursula Le Guin too. There is book of short stories that are amazing on the subject of gender. I also like 'Always coming home' but it's out of print I beleive.

Slightly left field, but Marin Zimmer Bradley's A Shattered Chain, and Thendara House are sci-fi/fantasy with feminist themes.

Actually, Roseability, there's a publisher called Persephone Books who publish lesser known novelists of the 20th Century. You could have a look on their website.....

Seeker: now I wondered about mentioning those - quite a lot of MZB's work has feminist themes. I read some interview or other with her a while ago where she talked about how inventing the Renuniciates Guild Houses and the rules for them was inspired by women she knew at the time setting up women-only households and the struggles they had etc.
For people who like fantasy/sorcery type stuff as well, try The Mists Of Avalon.

Also I want to put in another plug for my beloved Gwyneth Jones series Bold As Love - ok it's not immediately 'feminist literature' and there are male leads as well as female ones but there is a fair bit of stuff about sexism and sexist Utopias and also decent male characters learning and understanding about sexism.

Thanks for posting this, rose

That horrible porn thread and its content actually made me shed tears and made me very frustrated at myself that I couldn't articulate what I was saying very well at all

I will look up some of this stuff, and educate myself

How about The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter? Fantastic reworkings of traditional fairy tales, very thought-provoking and great for a book club because it's a collection of short stories.

Also second The World's Wife by Duffy.

Here's the thread.

This is a fantastic thread, loads to look for in the library!

I'd second Native Tongue & the Judas Rose (Suzette Hayden Elgin) - I wouldn't say they were hard going at all, and they are fantastically thought provoking. (Much more so than pretty much any of the academic feminist writing about language that I've read.)

Ursula le Guin - definitely Left Hand of Darkness, & Always Coming Home but also there are some great short stories in her collection The Birthday of the World exploring gender differences.

Ann Oakley's book Housewife I think is very interesting from a historical point of view looking at how things have changed from then to now and very readable (mind you I love social history)

Takver: Oooh, somebody else who's read Suzette Hayden Elgin! I mentioned they were a bit hard going as (for me) the bitty nature of the stories and the fact that characters appear for an episode here and there and the all-over-the-place timeline kind of did my head in on first reading but I did find them more rewarding on repeated reading and I like the linguistic theory.

I'm going to be recommending Regina Snow in a minute - when I say that will really blow people's heads off that may not be in a good way.

The two Nuala O Faolain autobiographies (Are You Somebody? and Nearly There) are pretty thorough records of one woman's life and times, her ambivalence about being a woman, struggles for selfhood; very raw and frank stuff.

Almost There

Anyone else spend their formative years immersed in the Women's press science fiction - that list doesn't include Walk to the End of the World which is another pretty depressing but very thought provoking dystopia.

Tell us more about Regina Snow, SGB

Just thought, much lighter hearted than many of the above, but still - what about Jill Tweedie's Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist

Yes, Takver, that is a brilliant book - it's the letters from a housewife to her rad-fem sister, isn't it? I couldn't believe when I read it just how bad things were even as recently as the 1980s, (and still today in some circles). Bloody funny as well.

I only recently realised that my mum made a real effort to bring me up as a feminist, when I looked at my old books and realised that daring heroines were absolutely everywhere. If you have DCs of the right age, Joan Aiken's Dido Twite series is brilliant - The Stolen Lake, Nightbirds on Nantucket etc. Books like that meant I grew up thinking that adventures were had by girls all the time, and simpering was not an option.

Takver: Ok I was being a bit flippant there, Regina Snow is what you might call a specialist author - I am currently working on a piece about the Aristasian empire and contemplating how it's one of those things that everyone interprets in different ways, love it or hate it. ANd one take on it is a very unusual kind of radical separatist feminism...

don't know if this has been linked to already but where is the porn thread?

Several people have mentioned A Room of One's Own, which I second enthusiastically, and I'd also add Three Guineas - it's less read these days (and it's very much of its time) but it's more political and a lot of it still has resonance.

Has anyone mentioned Dale Spender or Susan Brownmiller yet?

The porn thread is up and kicking again, in Relationships, Unlikelyamazonian.

nope, still can't see which one it is. it sounds interesting...what's the title?