A Feminist Starter Pack
So you’ve enlisted to fight in the Social Justice Wars. Congratulations! Now that you’re on the front lines, of course you have to declare #waronchristmas. That’s in the bylaws.
But you still want to use gifts as a way to commodify your affection.
What do you do?
You give books that cater to the vagenda.
I consider The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf to be the gateway drug of Feminism. What woman hasn’t held herself back from awesome because she felt she was too fat? Or not pretty enough? Who hasn’t felt like her voice hasn’t been heard because all the eyes are glued onto someone else who looks more like Heidi Klum? Come on. You have. Unless you’re Heidi Klum—but then she probably feels it now that all the attention goes to the 24-year-old in the room.
That’s what this book is about. This book is about the setup: you are born into a world where you can be reduced to your appearance at any time by the majority of the population. What does that feel like? How does it constrain and limit you? How does it alienate you from other women? How does it keep you from turning your attention to other things you care about? How does it shape your self-esteem, confidence and your feelings of self-worth?
And why don’t men have to worry about these things like we do?
That’s what this book is about. This book is about examining the socially-produced beauty myth and its toll on our lives.
Laurie Penny burst into my life with a confessional essay, “I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” And it hit me in the feels because I *was* a manic pixie dream girl. I was! And she knew why before I did! Because I felt I wasn’t the most conventionally beautiful girl in the room, I had to get attention from the second-place pedestal of quirkiness. I can be cute! And whimsical! And then at least some of the boys who can’t get with the most conventionally beautiful girls will settle for me and I will finally be loved!
God damn.
I know, right? Reading that right now, you’re wondering how the hell did it take you so long to wake up to how stupid that sounds? Well, in my defense, Zooey Deschanel is older than I am and she hasn’t, so.
Anyway, back to Penny. Unspeakable Things isn’t perfect, but so much of it is super relatable if you’ve ever felt like you were fighting for scraps in a system not of your own design.
Caitlin Moran’s How To Be a Woman is like making the lifelong friend in college you never made.
“What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men, however nuts, dim, deluded, badly dressed, fat, receding, lazy and smug they might be. Are you a feminist? Hahaha. Of course you are.”
I loved this book because it reminded me of how insanely necessary feminism is in a way that made me call up all my feminist friends and tell them how awesome they are for being part of the vagenda. Other feminist friendlies written by comedians: Bossypants and Yes, Please.
Every marriage is actually two marriages and with The Second Shift, The Future of Marriage challenges the idea that marriage is equally experienced.
There are more recent contenders in this vein of exploring how unequal marriage is for women, such as The Meaning of Wife, Wonder Women, Flux, The Price of Motherhood, and The Mommy Myth. But Jessie Bernard is a genius Sociologist who basically oozes insight.
This approachable, sympathetic book written by a Sociologist I would recommend to anybody wanting to understand what Feminism is and isn’t. Johnson knows how to teach the Patriarchy. I use it as the introductory text in a homeschooling course I teach to teenage boys in my microschool course on Gender and Sexuality.
I haven’t had a chance to rip through Bad Feminist yet (my Christmas Day plan actually), but I have a really strong hunch this is remarkable, readable and shareable.
What are yours?
