Book Addiction

We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists  edited by Melody Berger

From Publisher’s Weekly -

The contemporary essays collected by Berger, an activist and creator of The F-Word, a feminist zine for teens, demonstrate loudly and clearly that feminism is alive, well and pursuing a wide variety of concerns. Sexuality, empowerment, violence, body image, reproductive rights, child sexual abuse, the gynecologist, the morning-after pill, the “Seventh-Grade Slut” and “Sex, Drugs, and the Department of Homeland Security” are all explored, as are the roles of government, religion, and the media. The result is a mixed bag that zeros in on the experience of contemporary women who face a multitude of slippery issues; according to Berger, “the connecting theme is this: ‘I’m a young feminist and I’m going to work it!’” For her, the key is to fire up a movement-not a “wave”-and the 30 voices here, including Lisa Jervis, Alix Olson, Dean Spade and Jessica Valenti, provide many fine starting points. Especially rousing are the endcap entries, Valenti’s short, blunt rebuke of “self-hating feminists” and Jennifer L. Pozner’s plan to reclaim the media for a progressive feminist future.

My thoughts -

I thought this was a pretty decent collection of feminist thought, mostly in the form of essays.  I was entertained by many of the pieces here, and I was definitely given some food for thought by some of the authors in terms of issues I don’t typically think about on a regular basis.  Overall, I’m glad I read this book, but nothing really stood out to me TOO much as being a really inspiring, amazing piece of writing.  There were many different styles of writing and many different faces of feminism present in this collection, which was nice to read, getting different perspectives and everything.  A worthwile feminist read, but not my favorite thing I’ve ever read in the area of feminist and gender thinking.

He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know by Jessica Valenti

From the back cover -

Double standards are nothing new.  Women deal with them every day.  Consider the following examples:

• He’s a Hipster, She’s a Ho
• He’s Gay, She’s a Fantasy
• He’s Angry, She’s PMSing
• He’s Independent, She’s Pathetic
• He’s Successful, She’s a Showoff
• He’s Dating a Younger Woman, She’s a Cougar

Women are held to a different standard than men.  And mostly we just put up with it - but we don’t have to.  Jessica Valenti offers 50 solutions to 50 of the most pressing double standards that women confront.  With sass, humor, and in-your-face facts, she informs and equips women with the tools they need to combat sexist comments, topple ridiculous stereotypes, and end the promotion of insidious double standards.

My thoughts -

The good news is, I feel like this book will be really helpful for younger feminists, middle school, high school, or college women, who are just beginning to understand the ways sexism permeates their every day lives, and who are just beginning to have those light bulb moments where they realize feminism is important for EVERY woman.  This book will help those women expand their developing feminist thinking, understand how the larger world really does discriminate against women in almost every situation, and have a better idea of how to deal with these double standards when faced with them in daily life.

The bad news, however, is that I wasn’t the biggest fan of this new one by Valenti.  I am a huge fan of hers, I love her website (Feministing.com) and love her first book, but this book honestly did not provide me with any information I did not already have.  There’s a reason she chose to write about these double standards - they are SO pervasive, so obvious, such common experiences of most women that to not know about them and understand them would be a problem as a woman living in today’s world.  While I appreciate what she did with this book, I simply didn’t get much out of it.  Valenti explained everything well enough and used very current examples, but her “what do we do about it?” sections also fell a little flat for me.  Her most common solution was “call people out on their bullshit” or “don’t let someone treat you this way”.  While both those suggestions are important and should be done, I wouldn’t say either of them would actually solve these real problems or teach a more ignorant individual about the importance of NOT using a double standard.  At the same time, what else can one person really do except educate the people they know?… not much, I suppose. 

So while I think this new one by Valenti is an important contribution to feminist literature, it simply was not one of my personal favorites.  I’d still recommend reading it to anyone eager to learn more about feminism, and especially anyone who does not believe double standards exist… this book will help clarify the very real fact that these double standards do in fact infect our lives on a daily basis.

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!

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

From the inside cover -

First published in 1963, The Feminine  Mystiqueignited a revolution that  profoundly changed our culture, our consciousness, and our  lives. Today it newly penetrates to the heart of  issues determining our lives — and sounds a call to arms against the very real dangers of a new feminine mystique in the economic and political  turbulence of the 1990s.

Three decades later,  the underlying issues raised by Betty Friedan strike  at the core of the problems women still face at  home and in the marketplace. As women continue to  struggle for equality, to keep their hard-won gains,  to find fulfillment in their careers, marriage and  family, The Feminine Mystique  remains the seminal consciousness-raising work of  our times.

My thoughts -

This book is one of the most important feminist works of all time, if not THE most important feminist work.  It took me awhile to get through, because Friedan researched the heck out of this thing.  It’s full of statistics, citations from literary journals, interviews with real women, and quotes and stories from popular books and magazines.  I’m so glad I finally got to this book, though, because it is so incredibly important.  Reading Friedan’s book makes you wonder where in the world we’d be without it.  She has made such an important contribution to women’s lives today that there simply aren’t enough words to effectively describe how crucial this book was/is.

Having said that, it’s remarkably sad to me that many of the issues she was sure would be solved by the 80’s are still serious issues today.  She cites Roe v. Wadeas a monumental step for women’s rights, but that decision is now being questioned and attempts to revoke it have been made, and will continue to be made, by politicians and judges on both sides of the political spectrum.  Friedan talks about how gaining access to child care and financial resources for women to further their educations and professional training is one of the first step to women’s freedom, yet today we still struggle with both these obstacles.  Only the middle and upper classes can afford quality day care for their children, and most women cannot even dream of having the financial ability to go back to school after having children.  Sexual harassment in the workplace, the glass ceiling,  and the great pay divide still trap professional women to this day.  Even worse, the word “feminism” now has such a negative connotation associated with it that most women, professional and otherwise, are completely turned off from using it to describe their personal beliefs.  It’s hard that these are still such pressing problems, in 2008, but as long as there are still people working toward solving them, I have not given up hope.  Millions are women do continue to be inspired by people such as Friedan, and the modern feminist movement reflects that.

My favorite part of The Feminine Mystique is the epilogue, when Friedan explains how she started NOW (the National Organization for Women) and made it such an unbelievably powerful and successful organization from nothing.  This section is the most hopeful of the book, although one can see how many of the issues are still here today, it is also evident how much NOW has accomplished in its relatively short history, and what an amazing woman Friedan really is.

10 stars.

Full Frontal Feminism:  A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters by Jessica Valenti

From the back cover -

Feminism isn’t dead. It just isn’t very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagates on her popular website, Feministing.com. Covering a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more, Valenti provides young women a primer on why feminism matters. Valenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues. No belaboring where today’s young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with, something they can own. Full Frontal Feminism is sending out the message to readers — yeah, you’re feminists, and that’s actually pretty frigging cool.

Question - I’m thinking about purchasing another copy and doing a giveaway, simply because I feel that this book is a really important one and I would love to share it with a budding feminist out there.  Please let me know if there would be any interest in this giveaway at all, because I’d be purchasing another copy (obviously, I want to keep mine) so I won’t do it unless people actually want to win it.  So let me know if you’d want to read this book!  Thanks

Female Chauvinist Pigs:  Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

From Publishers Weekly:

What does sexy mean today? Levy, smartly expanding on reporting for an article in New York magazine, argues that the term is defined by a pervasive raunch culture wherein women make sex objects of other women and of ourselves. The voracious search for what’s sexy, she writes, has reincarnated a day when Playboy Bunnies (and airbrushed and surgically altered nudity) epitomized female beauty. It has elevated porn above sexual pleasure. Most insidiously, it has usurped the keywords of the women’s movement (liberation, empowerment) to serve as buzzwords for a female sexuality that denies passion (in all its forms) and embraces consumerism. To understand how this happened, Levy examines the women’s movement, identifying the residue of divisive, unresolved issues about women’s relationship to men and sex. The resulting raunch feminism, she writes, is a garbled attempt at continuing the work of the women’s movement and asks, how is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavored to banish good for women? Why is laboring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering? Levy’s insightful reporting and analysis chill the hype of what’s hot. It will create many aha! moments for readers who have been wondering how porn got to be pop and why feminism is such a dirty word.

My thoughts:

I thought this was a very quick and easy read, and also a very insightful look at today’s “raunch culture” as Levy calls it.  In this book, she skillfully analyzes the ways in which women feel empowered now, and explains how the majority of them are not in any way empowering, such as going to strip clubs, getting fake breasts, reading, watching, or acting in porn, etc.  Levy explicitly says several times throughout the book that she is in no way coming out AGAINST any of these behaviors, per se, just taking the position that all of these activities are done for the pleasure of men, and they are all based off men’s desires and men’s fantasies.  She explains that in order for women to actually feel sexually empowered, we should figure out what WE like, what turns us on, what makes us happy, and what makes us feel good and proud of ourselves, and start looking toward that instead of feeling empowered simply by being a token of a man’s desire.  I am having a little difficulty putting into words exactly why I enjoyed this book so much, but honestly, just read it.  It’s pretty short but very concise and really speaks for itself.

Rating:  9/10

Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach

Summary - Fat is not about food.  Fat is about protection, mothering, sex, strength, assertion and love.  Fat is a response to the way you are seen by your husband, your mother, your boss, and yourself.  You can change that response by learning the difference between “mouth hunger” and “stomach hunger”, by seeing weight loss as a good thing rather than a punishment, and by realizing that food is not your enemy.  Author Orbach says that most women respond to her program by maintaining or even gaining weight at first, as they learn to accept and like themselves - that’s okay.  And that’s just the beginning of this astonishingly effective new approach to weight loss through satisfaction.

My thoughts -

I did not read this book because I am a compulsive eater, or because I think I am fat, or because I have any other issue with food.  I read this book because I am a feminst, and I think it is important for me to expose myself to any and all feminist literature I can find, even when on the surface I don’t think it’ll apply to me.  Except in this case, I found it sort of did apply to me, indirectly, simply because I am a woman trying to get by unscathed by our anti-woman culture.  Orbach’s thesis is that having a weight problem and/or a compulsive eating problem is a response to the culture and social structure in which women are placed.  And even though the book was first published in 1978, I sadly found myself agreeing with pretty much all of what she had to say, even now 30 years later.  Much of the support she used for her thesis is standard feminist thinking, taken for granted by women in today’s day and age, but surprisingly it does still apply.  Just because women today know they are basically second class citizens does not change the fact that it is still true, and that being second class citizens still affects every single decision we make in the world - including what we eat, how much we eat, how we eat it, and when we eat it.  Orbach also spent a chapter drawing parallels between compulsive overeating and anorexia nervosa - while many people would argue that these are two separate, completely opposite disorders that have nothing in common, Orbach argues that they are two sides of the same coin.  Both are a response to the culture that women live in, with one being a rejection of that culture and the other being an overexaggeration and obsession with that culture.  I’d really recomend reading this book if you are fat, a feminist, both, or neither.  It is smart and enlightening and another one of those feminist pieces that you hope will not be necessary in today’s world, but unfortunately it is, so it’s worth reading. 

Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide by Maureen Dowd

Summary: Sex is a topic generally considered unsuitable for polite conversation. Ah, but the intrepid New York Times columnist, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1999, steps up to the plate to hit some fly balls well out of the field as she discusses sexual realities and absurdities, doing so with the same verve and nerve with which she handled the other hot-button topic–politics–in her 2004 best-seller, Bushworld. Dowd is hilarious, cutting, and provocative–in other words, perfectly willing to express her vision of the truth without an ounce of reservation. And isn’t that why readers gravitate to her? Her new book arises from her New Times columns, and her observations on how men and women relate lead to pithy commentary on the contradictory path feminism has taken (”the new urban legend is about a young man who loses a girl by asking her to split the check”), the superior suitability of women as political leaders (”women are affected by lunar tides only once a month; men have raging hormones every day”), and other topics more timid conversationalists would stay away from. Thank goodness she doesn’t.

My thoughts:

Honestly, I’m not sure what to think of this one. Dowd definitely has her moments of hilarity, that’s for sure. Throughout the book, she also had much to say about serious gender issues we continue to have in this country, even though womens’ liberation was supposed to have fixed all that. I enjoy Dowd’s writing style but I kind of feel like it got old after 200 or so pages; perhaps she’s better off in the op-ed section, for me. But like I said, I do think what she has to say about gender disparities and women’s issues is important; she is a powerful and truthful voice against the chorus of backlash against women. To me, this is a valuable read, an important contribution to feminist literature, but at the same time could have been done better with less rambling and in a more concise format.