This week’s theme: Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Find several books addressing that issue; they don’t have to books you’ve read, just books you might like to read. Using images (of the book covers or whatever you feel illustrates your topic) present these books in your blog.
When I saw this week’s theme, I knew right away which social/political issue I wanted to write about: feminism. Feminism is extremely important to me, I wish we’d come far enough in our society to recognize that women are people deserving of equality just as the other 50% of the population, but unfortunately America is still not perfect in that respect. We’ve come a long way from the pre-suffragist, early 1900′s, but not far enough in my opinion. Something that I am very passionate about is studying feminism and looking at the world through my gender-focused lenses. To do this, I frequent several feminist blogs such as Feministing, Feministe, The Curvature, and Pandagon, to name a few, and I also try to read as much feminist literature as I can. Here are some examples of books I have read and enjoyed:
I actually just read and reviewed this book the other day. SUCH an important contribution to feminist thought.
I read this collection of essays in college, in a women and gender studies class that I was taking. Some wonderfully talented and amazing women contributed to this work (Anna Quindlen is one) and I really enjoyed reading it. Here is the Amazon info.
This is another one I read recently. Jessica is the founder of Feministing.com and has a great way of making feminism seem like the most obvious choice in the world, especially to younger girls who may not already be exposed to some of her ideas.
Now onto a few I haven’t read….
This is Valenti’s new book, and one I just ordered from Amazon the other day. It promises to be just as good, if not better than, her first.
This one is on my current TBR pile, and I actually have it lined up pretty soon as a selection for one of the challenges I’m participating in. It’s another collection of essays, which I’m always a fan of.
This is one of the many books by bell hooks that I’m interested in reading. I’ve read a few essays by her, and they are always thought-provoking and intense. She writes a lot about the intersection of race, class, and feminism, so she truly deals with a lot of the stuff that many feminists don’t want to delve into. I’m hoping to read something by her very soon.
Well that’s about it. I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s weekly geeks about important social issues. Like I said, there are a lot of issues that are important to me, so I’m sure a lot of you bloggers’ posts will interest me!
