Essential feminist books to read.

[TinyRick]

As the title. I would like to start reading some books on feminism. What would you consider the 'must have' books on your bookcase?

Also any child friendly ones for a well read 11yo? Would she be too young for any Margaret Atwood books? At what age would you start her books?

Thanks :)

[Terfulike]

Our bodies ourselves - The Boston Women's Health Collective

[QuarksandLeptons]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
We should all be feminists
(Short, very readable introduction to feminism)

Cordelia Fine: Delusions of Gender
(An award winning neuroscientist discussing scientific evidence that the two sexes have the same brain but socialisation moulds the respective brains over time to create the imbalances we see)

Michelle Goldberg: The Means of Reproduction; Sex, Power & the future of the world
(Brilliant, very readable New York Times journalist, she gives a huge, historic overview of women’s lived realities and the fight for women’s rights over the past 50 years)

[MrsUnderwood]

I’m bumping his thread as we could do with a feminist reading list up top for all the newbies, lurkers and recent joiners.

I’m adding ‘Cunt’ by Inga Muscio to the list.

Can anyone recommend any Dworkin in particular?

[StewieGMum]

My daughter is a similar age and just become interested in feminism. She's read Peggy Ornstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's We should all be feminists. She's currently reading bell hooks' Feminism is for Everyone. i expect she could manage Cordelia Fine and Kat Banyard's the Equality Illusion too. She's reading them herself but asking lots of questions about vocabulary and such. She's doing sex ed at school so already covered pornography there so the stuff in Banyard and hooks on sexualised violence fits in with her school lessons. Beatrix Campbell's End of Equality is excellent but does cover prostitution, pornography and sexualised violence in more detail than Banyard and hooks.

The blog Sister Outrider is an absolute must read on racism, white supremacy and feminism.

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge is also fabulous.

For you, I agree with other suggestions and would add:
Gail Dines' Pornland
Susan Faludi's Backlash
Susan Maushart's Wifework
Angela Davis' Race, class and gender
Kiraly & Tyler's Freedom Fallacy: the limits of liberal feminism
Denise Thompson's Radical Feminism today (title isn't accurate but book itself is excellent)

[makeourfuture]

Clara Zetkin - Lenin on the Women’s Question

www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1920/lenin/zetkin1.htm

[auldfuckingspinster]

Maybe when she's a bit older but Misogynies and Different for girls by Joan Smith are worth reading.

[zsazsagaboredom]

Today I bought "The Power" by Naomi Alderman. Has anybody read it? The bookseller told me she gave it to her daughter for Christmas (no idea what age her daughter might be though, now I think about it...)

[KnittedBlanketHoles]

Yay, reading list for me- thank you.

I found books by bell hooks inspiring and easy to read.

[curlykate]

A good place to start for all kinds of age-appropriate feminist stuff is A Mighty Girl - via their own webpage or Facebook. Lots of reccommemdations for reading/toys etc. www.amightygirl.com/

[TinyRick]

Lass I love Margaret Atwood's work. Different strokes and all that ;)

[TinyRick]

Thank you all :)

I will look all these up and add to my want list.

[DownAmongtheElves]

When she's a bit older, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women is a foundational feminist text. Wollstonecraft also wrote mad Gothic feminist novels - maybe start with Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman


John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, The Subjection of Women is a very important foundational essay, full of wonderfully logical thinkings through of the position of women mid-19th century. Beautiful lucid prose.

Is there a child-friendly biography/novelisation of Wollstonecraft's life? It'd make a fantastic movie.

[SpongeBobJudgeyPants]

Any good for you, OP?

[thepennyshop]

Ooh you have got to read 'Liberating Motherhood' by Vanessa Olorenshaw.
I've just finished it and found it completely eye-opening about the way 'mothers' as opposed to women are penalised by society, and how mothers can be overlooked by much of feminism.

Inspired by this book I'm now going on to read 'who cooked Adam Smith's dinner?' As it's a look at common economics, and how it completely misses out women's work.

[Miffer]

Back up where you were little thread.

[hotmail124]

And
Wifework by Susan Maushart
A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk
Family Politics Paul Ginsborg

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Anything by Virginia Woolf, especially Mrs Dalloway
Beloved Toni Morrison
Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
NW by Zadie Smith
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy ( not an officially feminist book, but I thought he captured dichotomy of female hood elegantly)
The Group by Mary McCarthy

Oddly I have read and loathed all of the above, especially The Golden Notebook.

I thought Anna Karenina (along with Mme Bovary) was fabulous when I read them at 18- rereading at 35 I thought Anna and Emma were both spoilt, tiresome , selfish and deeply irritating.

I would be quite happy never to read another word by Margaret Atwood. I don't think I've found any of her books other than a toil.

[MrsMarigold]

I read Cat's Eye at 12, I enjoyed it but a lot passed me by, I re-read it as an adult and thought bloody hell!

[AnnaFiveTowns]

The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf.

[rivierliedje]

Would The Handmaid's tale be okay for a 15th birthday present? I'm looking for things for my goddaughter. (she's religious, from an atheist family)
Persepolis is good. I had no idea that women's rights/liberation could go backwards as well as forwards in real life until I read that. It made the handmaid's tale seem more realistic somehow.
A woman's place by Ruth Adam is really interesting non fiction
No surrender by Constance Maud is a non fiction account of suffragete struggles, written by a contemporary
Round about a pound a week by Maud Pember Reeves; a study on how women who lived just above the poverty line in the early 20th century managed, and how expectations placed on them restricted them and made their lives harder. It was a report for the Fabian's Women's group.
Those last three are from Persephone books (they have lots of fab fiction and nonfiction about, by and for women).
My own story by Emmeline Pankhurst, quite an easy read really.
The F word is a primer on feminism which is easily read.

[hotmail124]

M0stlyHet on the money there re THT. Realised too late that Stepford wives and Handmaiden's Tale were predictive texts on 2016/17 life.
Attwood's The Edible woman's a good read too.

[hotmail124]

A Question of Courage Marjorie Darke
The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia by Esther Hautzig
Specific teen girl books

[hotmail124]

Correction: The Men's room Anne Oakley
Love reading is good website for teen readers with sample books and extracts.

[hotmail124]

Fat is a Feminist Issue Susie Orbach I agree spongebob
Anything by Virginia Woolf, especially Mrs Dalloway
Beloved Toni Morrison
Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake Shange
Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( was on GCSE list before non white writers banned by M Gove)
The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing , I agree zsazsagaboredom
Read alongside NW by Zadie Smith who was somewhat influenced by Lessing.
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy ( not an officially feminist book, but I thought he captured dichotomy of female hood elegantly)
I read The Group by Mary Mc Carthy when I was about 12
The Women's Room Anne Oakley
Great thread, thanks!
At 11 you should start to start to read everything, why not!