Feminism in Bookshops - not really helping!

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

Following on from suwoo's thread about academic attainment and feminism, I wandered into Heffers in Cambridge today thinking I'd buy myself some nice feminism theory to read on the bus.

So, I did some searching (past about five displays of the new book on medieval manuscripts at Cambridge and three or four bookcases on military history (which made me think, given the conversation on another thread about violence and masculinity). Eventually, I found politics and after a bit more searching found a couple of short shelves, maybe two feet long, with a predominance of pink-spined books.

Eureka! The feminist section!

It's not good, really, is it? Two small shelves I had to hunt for, on which the predominant colour was pink. Andrea Dworkin? No, sorry, she's out of print and we don't stock any. (Well, they did actually: she's one of the contributors to a compilation feminist reader).

If they are trying to survive as a high street bookshop, then they need to stock titles people are asking for. There have been several book chains collapse over the last few years and now Waterstones and Blackwells' are trying to keep their noses above water. We may see the end of bookshops selling new stock rather than second-hand.
Amazon and Kindle are the future, I bet they have much larger Feminist sections and easier to access.
The question for me is why are women not reading Feminist literature?

Women not reading feminist literature and feminist literature not being visibly available are kind of a catch 22.

I went to Heffer's online and searched Feminism. It came up with 5,000 titles. People shop online in increasing numbers, so perhaps that is the answer to my question.

it's not good at all. If you can't find them in Heffers they're probably not taught at Cambridge all that much.
but then that's not so surprising, is it

I know Goblin - I'm as much narked at the fact they make more money (one assumes) from military history than feminist theory, which a slight cynical suspicion they'd make more money out of feminist theory if they didn't present it as something to be tucked away in a small space, you know?

Also, Heffers is a high street bookshop, but it also markets itself as an academic bookshop and this is their big branch in a university town - they had about a case and a half of medieval and anglo-saxon primary texts and commentaries, which I doubt your average Waterstones would stock, so I'm not sure how far 'high street books shop' is the point and how far 'two big universities obviously don't require their students to read much feminist theory' is the point.

I have some minority interests which involve me making a bit of an effort to locate material. Not walking into a bookshop and saying 'Oh dear' and leaving with no further action taken.

cross-post sybil.

But yes, I assume so.

Erm, yes ... I was being a bit sad that feminist theory is so much more of a special interest that military history, Goblin, not just being lazy and hoping to have my reading needs handed me on a plate.

That's good to know SGM (I don't use it myself but will pass it on - very sensible way to make clear which books are in demand!).

Proactive campaigning with customer pressure SGM? That sounds a much better option.
I've got a lot of texts on the Medieval period, including warfare. Some of them took serious searching out. If women want to read the books, they should be asking for them and ordering them.
What about the situation in local libraries? Bet that's even more dire.

But why is Feminist theory not widely read by women? it is specifically aimed at them, addressing areas that impact on them daily. Yet somehow, to a middle-aged feminist the issues seem to be discussed generally much less than when I was 20.
I wasn't meaning to imply that you were being lazy LRD, just that women as a group do not seem to be buying key feminist texts. It can't just be because they are not on an open shelf.

God my local library has fuck all in feminist literature which i actually find bizarre - am i really in a minority thinking that womens' history is important?

Goblin, I'm in the middle of a 5 hour round trip today in order to search out the books I need, since you ask. I spent a shedload of my time in university library manuscript rooms or travelling to and from them. I also spend a lot of time on Amazon and in second-hand bookshops asking them to hold copies of things for me.

I don't know where you got the idea that I can't be arsed to look for books properly, but believe me it is the wrong idea.

So disclaimer not accepted then LRD?
OK

I think goblinchild got it exactly right - they will only use valuable shelf space on stock which sells from that shop (in light of actual sales and requests). And of course there's the confounder in comparisons to eg military history in terms of the sheer number of titles in print.

So why question is why is the demand where it is?

Is a populist book required? Look at how a whole new category "popular science" sprang up recently.

Ah, sorry, cross-posted. I went off all guns blazing there!

I don't imagine the problem is just because books aren't on the open shelf either ... but I did find it quite sad (and surprising) that, in a bookshop that's so dedicated to academic special interests, there wasn't more. Especially since a fair few people on suwoo's thread were saying how university/criticial thinking had made them more inclined to be feminists.

Good idea SGM- there is nothing on iBooks either. I must confess I enjoy reading military history. It is certainly easier to find than feminist theory, though. :(

Goblin, I hadn't seen the disclaimer when I posted that. But I do aggravate for my books, promise!

meditrina - I got the impression that a lot of their section was quite populist. It also had a lot of stuff that looked to me more like Queer Theory than Feminism (it wasn't titled 'Feminist Theory' so that may have been the aim). They had Cordelia Fine's 'Delusions of Gender', which I bought as I've heard it mentioned on here, but that looks to be quite populist too?