Feminists, What are some good feminist books?

Question

I'm going to list ones I have read but what are some good ones not on my list that you have enjoyed or at least found interesting that you would recommend to me?

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Here are some I read a while ago and that I really loved or at least found interesting as a Feminist. I read all of these in high school and I feel like I need to read more now. :]

The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan (I think thats like the basic book every feminist reads at some point )

Revolution From Within - Gloria Steinem
Women Sex and Desire: Understanding Sexuality at Every Stage in Your Life - Elizabeth Davis
The Female Man - Joanna Russ
The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler
A Room of One's Own _- Virginia Woolf
The Second Sex - Simone De Beauvoir
****: A Declaration of Independence - Inga Muscio
Full Frontal Feminism - Jessica Valenti
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture - Ariel Levy
He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know- Jessica Valenti
Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape - Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman
The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women - Jessica Valenti

Ok. I really like Jessica Valenti lol

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity - Julia Serano
Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings - miriam Schneir
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - Audre Lorde
The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power - Audre Lorde
The Meaning of Wife: A Provocative Look at Women and Marriage in the Twenty-first Century - Anne Kingston
Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire - Merri Lisa Johnson
We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists - Melody Berger
Herstory: Women Who Changed the World - Gloria Steinem
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions - Gloria Steinem
Living With Contradictions: Controversies In Feminist Social Ethics -Allison Jaggar


In high school I read lots of bell hooks. She was a famous black feminist with a cool pseudonym. I was in love.
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
Aint I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism
Feminist Theory from Margin to Center
Communion : The Female Search for Love
All About Love: New Visions
Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood






There are others but these are the only ones I have on hand with me here at my place and I cannot remember the others right now. Plus, I need to go to work in a couple hours and I have massive amounts of homework and cleaning to do. lol I have read quite a few books but there are still so many I want to read. I am trying to work in time between my new job, being a full time student, like 5 volunteer jobs, friends, bf, (and yahoo answers) lol to get on this 50 book challenge I just learned about. I have heard a couple other users on here talk about the book challenge and on live journal. So I am going to try to do this but I think it might be more like 50 books in 2 years instead of one. lol

Anyway thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Of third wave feminists, I liked:
-Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
-Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"
-Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq by Kirsten Holmstedt

Sci-Fi: Any book by Octavia Butler, I've read them all plus Ursula LeGuin

Second wave feminists you haven't mentioned:
-I just saw Angela Davis speak at a local college, so I want to read: Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
-Women & Love by Shere Hite
-SchoolGirls by Peggy Orenstein
-Homophobia : A Weapon of Sexism/Includes Afterword and Annotated Bibliography by Suzanne Pharr

Outdoors:
-Rivers Running Free Edited by Judith Niemi and Barbara Wieser
-Annapurna: A Woman's Place by Arlene Blum

Funny: The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by Guerrilla Girls

Art/Photos: Women by Annie Leibovitz

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

thanks girl! let the reading begin :]

Answer 2

SCUM manifesto - where all men are to be exterminated. Valerie Solanos was considered somewhat of a feminist icon for this peice. She also shot a guy. Maybe that's why she a feminist icon?

Answer 3

"Suicide: How and why you should do it"

Answer 4

This is a good collection! However you've left out major poets such as Sappho, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Erica Jong and so on.

It took me a long time to distinguish true history from invective. The same applies to philosophy and all the sciences. You don't necessarily have to read arguments against your chosen field of study, but it does make a broader mind to study things related to your study, such as the science of sexology. This is called keeping things in balance.

As an example, most feminists strongly feel that sex work exploits women. Some say it doesn't and that it's a woman's choice.
Not only is sex work the 'oldest profession' (it's not, that of the shaman was arguably the first), it has animal origins. Animals don't use money, but they will swap a screw for some service. Bonobos will eagerly engage in sex with either gender for food. Even birds do this: female penguins build their nest out of stones. Since stones are scarce in Antarctica, the male might be away for awhile looking for one. If another male appears with a stone, the female will screw him in exchange for something valuable, namely a rock for her nest.
My point is that being well read in only one discipline warps your view of the real world.

Source(s):

Retired nurse and aging hippie