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 :)

Back up where you were little thread.

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.

Any good for you, OP?

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.

Thank you all :)

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

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

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/

Yay, reading list for me- thank you.

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

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...)

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

Clara Zetkin - Lenin on the Women’s Question

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

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)

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?

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)

Our bodies ourselves - The Boston Women's Health Collective