Feminist books - must reads for teen

[Beforetoday]

I am hilariously now considered on the so called "rad" fem end of the spectrum and want by daughters to understand the second wave and radical feminist writing in context. I am aware I have a really 1980s and white set of references so keen to expand.

15 year old DD currently dipping in to Backlash by Susan Faludi and is enjoying (if that's the word) it and wants to know more. We have the very excellent Trouble and Strife Feminist Reader and some of the Penguin shorts for Kathy Acker, Audre Lourde and Betty Friedan and my ancient copy of the Female Eunuch. I am thinking of getting The Beauty Myth, which I am not keen on, but there are moments of usefulness. I think it may be a little early for the Second Sex (just a bit tricky in terms of language) and Andrea Dworkin (can't really do a lite version!), so what am I missing?

In terms of fiction I read Virago Press publications almost exclusively as a teen, which meant I covered everyone from Angela Carter to Maya Angelou - but again I feel that I am missing crucial things that might inform her thinking.

Really not very interested in Feminists don't wear Pink nd of the spectrum and we have done the accessible stuff like Laura Bates, when she was younger.

So - what are the key texts that turned you on to feminism and flipped your brain. fiction or non-fiction, genuinely intersectional (rather than woke), history, science, current or in the past?

George Eliot.

Simone de Beauvoir

Octavia Butler

Toni Morrison

Playwrights from Caryl Churchill to Suzan-Lori Parks (dozens of these).

A million artists, sculptors, composers, scientists, philosophers ...

Each of them for their articulation of their experience within their work.

Oddly enough I would recommend Persephone Books if you want a go-to publishing house from which she might build a collection. They’re seen as a source of genteel, ladylike fiction - but, as regards the recent (modern) history of the position of women in England I’m not sure they can be bettered.

Definite place mark

This current NYRB article on sci fi by women seems pertinent.

While it’s true that political tracts have immediate impact, I’d say that over a lifetime my understanding of how the world works has been more significantly shaped by women’s work in science and art - and how they have been positioned.

Invisible Women.. not sure how mature she is but she can read a chapter at a time.