Key feminist texts for me to read and leave lying about the house for dd?

[HRHQueenElizabethII]

Spurred on by musings from another thread: I've read almost no feminist writings, and was one of those women in my early 20s who rejected the term; through not understanding it.

I've been extraordinarily lucky - I've had strong female role models, but find myself more feminist than them, and have married a man who's clearly a "natural" feminist - though he hasn't read the literature either. But so much of what I read and see makes me want to buy some key texts, past and current, so that dd will have access to them as she grows up, and so understand the contexts and conditions which will influence the choices she makes in the future, and those made by people she comes into contact with.

Anyone fancy giving me a reading list?

We studied this at Uni, the ones I remember are "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf, "A Vindication of the Rights of Women", by Mary Wollestonecraft".

If you want her to be familiar with the classics, Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth to start with.

I think that the books that made me a feminist were, oddly enough, mostly anti-feminist books! It was getting cross with Enid Blyton (eg Ann always having to be the little housewife and George being "almost as good as a girl") that made me start to formalise my feelings that girls were as good as boys and why on earth should they have to make bracken into superbly comfy beds for the boys, rather than go out adventuring?

However I realise that's probably not what you want, and it may not be practical to go around littering the house with Mills & Boons in the hope that your DD burns her bra.

Do you want fiction or non-fiction? I read quite a bit of feminist literary theory at university and found it rather heavy going, but there are lots of good, feminist fiction writers (not all consciously feminist - some pre-date formal feminism but still have broadly feminist sentiments)

For a novel, 'The Handmaid's Tale' would be a good place to start. Germaine Greer too.

Anything, really. I don't want to force stuff down her throat, and yes, stuff to kick against also good. I just want to make sure she has access to it, and want to have read some myself so that when the time comes we can talk properly about it. I guess I found Margaret Attwood helpful, so yes, definitely fiction too.

Poor dd - she's only 2!

Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Erica Jong's Fear of Flying if you want to include fiction as well as non.

Start with the Famous Five - using George as a role model!

Brill thread

Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, for real anger about rape and how it is 'constructed'.

Gloria Steinem's book about infiltrating the Playboy empire as a bunny girl was entertaining and also pretty simple, and probably still useful today in showing what's behind the 'it's just a bit of fun' argument. Of all of these, i think this would be most accesssible to a teenager - it's not philosophy.

Ariel Levy's book Female Chauvinist Pigs is good and readable.

haven't read the Female Eunuch .

Simone de Beauvoir is good .

And Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is great - but she needs to be a lot older than two for those particular fairy tales

Ah, well, fiction - Toni Morrison's Paradise is a corker (well lots of hers are corkers but that one particularly interesting from the feminist POV I think).

I think Austen was a proto-feminist myself.

Oh yes to Margaret ATwood Handmaid's Tale

That Marilyn French novel - Women's Room? - is bloody awful IMO (I know she died recently so should leave a decent interval before posting this I suppose).

have you read the Levy now then OBM?

Austen deffo a feminist.

If dd is only two, I think Babette Cole might be good. There is also a very silly book called 'The Granny Who Was Not Like Other Grannies' in which said granny indulges in rollerblading, motorbike racing etc.

I loved My Brilliant Career as a youngish teen (by Miles Franklin - published by Virago)

The Pullman trilogy is very positive. Central, strong girl character part of whose ultimate destiny is to challenge Christian misogyny and in particular the demonising of female sexuality.

I have to resort to children's lit because I am ashamed to say that as far as I can remember I have neve read a single feminist book (other than literature).

God, I felt bad the other night when she went to bed listening to Cinderella, and all the talk of the Ugly Sisters!

She has Emily Brown and the Night Pirates as a counterbalance atm... I'm overthinking, I suspect!

For yourself, read some French feminists: de Beauvoir, Irigaray, Kristeva, Cixous. Lovely stuff.

yes pol, curate's egg from my pov. V accessible [snooty].

For DD: The paper bag princess.

Ah. Can I borrow it?

To add to teh brilliant suggestions on here already...

Margaret Atwood - I would add Alias Grace to the list.

Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea is great

Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebook - although she would say she is not feminist. Has anyone read that bizarre sounding novel about the Clefts and the whatever the penis ones are called? I started it and couldn't go on!

Colette is sort of interesting - not feminist exactly but thought provoking. The Claudine novels are good when you are about 15 or thereabouts.

The Yellow Wallpaper - not a novel but a novelette.

Backlash - Susan Faludi, The Women's Room - Marilyn French

My brilliant career is fab!

Our Bodies Ourselves. Not for a 2yo, though.

The Mill on the Floss, perhaps.