Feminist Reads

: Folklore, fairy tales and dream symbols are called on to help restore women’s neglected intuitive and instinctive abilities in this earthy first book by a Jungian analyst. According to Estes, wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. This comparison defines the archetype of the Wild Woman, a female in touch with her primitive side and able to rely on gut feelings to make choices. The tales here, from various cultures, are not necessarily about wolves; instead, they illuminate fresh perspectives on relationships, self-image, even addiction.

: The Second Sex (French: Le Deuxième Sexe, June 1949) is one of the best-known works of the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature.

: Half the Sky lays out an agenda for the world’s women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. We know there are many worthy causes competing for attention in the world. We focus on this one because this kind of oppression feels transcendent – and so does the opportunity. Outsiders can truly make a difference.

: The Feminine Mystique is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century, and is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. Futurist Alvin Toffler declared that it “pulled the trigger on history.” [2] Friedan received hundreds of letters from unhappy housewives after its publication, and she herself went on to help found the National Organization of Women, an influential feminist organization

: When did you know you were a feminist? Whether it happened at school, at work, while watching TV, or reading a book, many of us can point to a particular moment when we knew we were feminists. In Click, editors Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan bring us a range of women—including Jessica Valenti, Amy Richards, Shelby Knox, Winter Miller, and Jennifer Baumgardner—who share stories about how that moment took shape for them. Sometimes emotional, sometimes hilarious, this collection gives young women who already identify with the feminist movement the opportunity to be heard—and it welcomes into the fold those new to the still-developing story of feminism.

: Ms. was the first U.S. magazine to feature prominent American women demanding the repeal of laws that criminalized abortion, the first to explain and advocate for the ERA, to rate presidential candidates on women’s issues, to put domestic violence and sexual harassment on the cover of a women’s magazine, to feature feminist protest of pornography, to commission and feature a national study on date rape, and to blow the whistle on the undue influence of advertising on magazine journalism. Ms. was the first national magazine to make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable, and a feminist worldview available to the public.

: Dr. Christiane Northrup’s vision of mind-body wellness has received an extraordinary response from women all over the world. Her groundbreaking classic, now completely revised, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom powerfully demonstrates that when women change the basic conditions of their lives that lead to health problems, they heal faster, more completely, and with far fewer medical interventions.

: Marina Warner explores the tradition of personifying liberty, justice, wisdom, charity, and other ideals and desiderata in the female form, and examines the tension between women’s historic and symbolic roles. Drawing on the evidence of public art, especially sculpture, and painting, poetry, and classical mythology, she ranges over the allegorical presence of the woman in the Western tradition with a sharply observant eye and a piquant and engaging style.

: “In a methodical and devastatingly effective manner, Fine eviscerates the recent trend in attributing society’s gender-based differences to biology. Fine uses solid references to refute the notion that biology trumps pervasive stereotyping, and offers a sterling rebuttal to agenda research and the lure of pseudo-science.” –Colleen Mondor

: Women have had a special relationship with the camera since the advent of photographic technology in the mid-nineteenth century. Photographers celebrated women as their subjects, from intimate family portraits and fashion spreads to artistic photography and nude studies, including Man Ray’s Violon d’Ingres. Lesser known– and lesser studied– is the history of women photographers, who continue to make invaluable contributions to this flourishing art form. Featuring more than 300 illustrations, “A History of Women Photographers” is the only comprehensive survey of women photographers from the age of the daguerreotype to the present day.

: Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source—the source—of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages. Cinderella Ate My Daughter is a must-read for anyone who cares about girls, and for parents helping their daughters navigate the rocky road to adulthood.

: Drawing on interviews she conducted with more than 200 women, Orenstein presents an intimate and politically astute vision of how women in their 20s, 30s and 40s negotiate life in a world only half-changed by feminism. Divided into three parts “The Promise,” about women in their 20s exploring relationships and beginning working life; “The Crunch,” about women in their 30s confronting issues of children and family; and “The Reconsideration,” about women in their 40s reassessing what they want for themselves. Orenstein believes women will profit by sharing their experiences across generations; this rigorous and appealing book should jumpstart the conversation.

: Recent feminist criticism has revolutionized the way we view modern literature, none more than the stories and novels of Virginia Woolf. Jane Marcus here collects twelve provocative new essays by women scholars, all of them taking feminist critical approaches to yield fresh readings of Woolf’s work.

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