What is the definitive feminist tract?

[MrsWembley]

Fiction, that is!

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

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?

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.

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

Thank-you. Any more?

Bumping for the afternoon crowd!

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?

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

Any opinions about The Group?

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

Who is the author of The Group?

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

I didn't get on with the golden notebook.

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

Sorry, had to go check - Mary McCarthy.

Arghhhhhh! X-posts! Thank-you

Thank you and will give it a read.