As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in reading fiction books that shaped literature and how women were perceived?
Here are five fiction books considered modern classic feminist fiction from the 1970’s until recently. A lot of books have been published in that time, so this is just a small selection of books.
All of these books have had a significant impact on literature and the way women have been perceived. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
Here’s a list of five fiction books considered to be modern feminist classics.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (1979)
Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (2016)
Keep reading to find out more about each one.
1. The Bloody Chamber (1979)
by Angela Carter
Year Published: 1979
Storygraph Categories: fiction, magical realism, short stories, dark, mysterious, medium-paced
Importance: One of the first feminist retellings of fairy tales
This is a collection of ten stories that are some kind of retelling or are based on fairytales or folk tales. As Carter stated: “My intention was not to do ‘versions’ or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, ‘adult’ fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories.”
In general, the stories challenge the representation of women in fairy tales and was considered one of the first feminist retellings of fairy tales.
The stories vary in length, and the novelette which inspired the title, “The Bloody Chamber” is significantly longer than the rest. It won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize in 1979, the first year of the prize.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber—which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan’s 1984 movie The Company of Wolves—she spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” giving them exhilarating new life in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition.
Importance: Science fiction that centers Black characters
Octavia Butler was one of the most influential Black Women authors in Science Fiction. She grew up loving science fiction and set out to write books that she could see herself in and is often considered to cross genre boundaries.
In Kindred, it combines time travel with slave narratives. The story focuses on two interracial couples, and explores how issues of power, gender, and race intersect.
In an interview about the novel in 2004, Butler said, she “set out to make people feel history.”
Summary (from Goodreads):
The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given…
Importance: Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize (making Walker the first black woman to win the prize)
The Color Purple won both the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was also on the BBC News’ list of the 100 most influential novels.
However, the novel has also frequently been thee target of censors or book challenges, as it appears at #17 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2010. It’s usually challenged due to explicit content, specifically in terms of its depiction of violence.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker’s iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.
The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.
The Handmaid’s Tale is considered a feminist dystopian novel and is notable for sparking intense debate.
The novel is considered a feminist dystopian novel because it explores themes of how women are subjugated, especially their lost of agency, individuality and reproductive rights.
Atwood used history as inspiration as all scenarios portrayed within the novel have actually occurred in real life. In an interview Atwood stated, “…I didn’t put in anything that we haven’t already done, we’re not already doing, we’re seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress… So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil.” The overlap with reality makes the novel that much more impactful and scary.
In 1985, the novel won the Governor General’s Award in Canada, along with the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It has also been nominated for a handful of other awards: the Nebula Award in 1986, the Booker Prize in 1986, and the Prometheus Award in 1987.
However, it has been criticized as “white feminism” for both the treatment of marginalized communities in the book (basically ”doing away with them” in a few lines and removing them from the conversation), while also primarily borrowing from the lived experiences of those communities but applying it to white women. A lot of the reproductive and human rights exploitation highlighted in the novel came from how Black and Indigenous women were treated in the past.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . .
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.
This is the most recent of the five novels, but it’s notable for how it depicts sexism in Korea and the recent impact it has had on sparking discussion around women’s experiences.
Even though it’s a fictional novel, all the main character’s experiences are based on statistics and research done by the author (with footnotes and references to back it up).
The novel focuses on sexism experienced throughout everyday life, the constant and pervasive sexism.
The author, Cho Nam-Joo, said that she intended to “make this into a public debate.”
“I thought of Kim Jiyoung’s character as a vessel that contains experiences and emotions that are common to every Korean woman.”
Cho Nam-Joo
In 2020, the novel was longlisted for both the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature and the French Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature.
Summary (from Storygraph):
One of the most notable novels of the year, hailed by both critics and K-pop stars alike, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rampant misogyny. In a tidy apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, millennial “everywoman” Kim Jiyoung spends her days caring for her infant daughter. But strange symptoms appear: Jiyoung begins to impersonate the voices of other women, dead and alive. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist. Jiyoung narrates her story to this doctor—from her birth to parents who expected a son to elementary school teachers who policed girls’ outfits to male coworkers who installed hidden cameras in women’s restrooms. But can her psychiatrist cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?
Have you read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book in a comment below?
Final thoughts
I know this is such a small selection of books, and it’s clearly not representative of all feminist fiction in the past 50 ish years. Though, I did try and provide a range of novels both in genre and authors.
Each one of these is so distinct and I like how each book has it’s own way of sparking conversation and provoking debate. I believe each of these will leave a strong impression on you and give you lots to think about. However you feel about these books, you’ll likely have an opinion about it and something to say.
I think some of the best books help inspire both questions and conversation. If it can make you reconsider aspects of reality or get you talking to others about big topics, I think that’s powerful.
Do you have a favourite feminist fictional book? I’d love you to share it in a comment below.
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in reading fiction books that shaped literature and how women were perceived?
Here are five older fiction books considered classic feminist fiction from the 19th century up to the 1960’s. Obviously that’s a large time span, so this is just a small selection of books.
All of these books have had a significant impact on literature and the way women have been perceived. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
Alcott wrote this coming-of-age novel focused around the lives of the four March sisters.
Through this novel, Alcott developed a new genre of literature by combining romantic children’s fiction with sentimental novels.
The book was an immediate success! Readers were eager for more about the characters, so Alcott quickly completed a second part. It was originally published in two volumes, however now the two volumes are often sold together in a single novel.
Summary (from Storygraph):
The lives and adventures of the four March sisters–Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy–are set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century New England while their father is off fighting in the Civil War.
Storygraph Categories: fiction, classics, horror, short stories, dark, mysterious, fast-paced
Importance: Mental health portrayal
This is a short story that powerfully portrays health issues and their treatment faced by women of this era (late 19th century).
It’s considered an important work of early American feminist literature due to its portrayal of women’s mental and physical health. It’s also considered a great work of horror fiction.
I find it’s a short story you can keep re-reading, getting something new from it each time.
Summary (from Storygraph):
First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, this short but powerful masterpiece has the heroine create a reality of her own within the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wall-paper of her bedroom–a pattern that comes to symbolize her own imprisonment.
This key women’s studies text by a pivotal first-wave feminist writer, lecturer, and activist (1860-1935) is reprinted as it first appeared in New England Magazine in 1892, and contains the essential essay on the author’s life and work by pioneering Gilman scholar Elaine R. Hedges.
The Awakening is considered a precursor to American modernist literature, due to its blend of social commentary, a realistic narrative, and psychological complexity. It’s also one of the earlier American novels that discussed women’s issues without condescension (surprise surprise it took a woman to accomplish that).
It was considered quite controversial at the time of publication, mostly due to its open discussion of female marital infidelity.
Chopin faced many barriers when she tried to publish stories after she published this novel, and unfortunately she did not write another novel after this one.
Summary (from Goodreads):
When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.
Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work “quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity.” Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.
Importance: Realistic depiction of women’s lived experiences
The Golden Notebook is considered as a companion volume to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. It also became popular with feminists due to its realistic depiction of women’s lived experiences.
This 1962 novel by the British writer Doris Lessing is considered one of the best English-language novels since 1923 (according to Time Magazine).
Margaret Drabble describes Lessing’s writing style as “inner space fiction” because Lessing’s work explores a combination of mental and societal breakdown.
Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 for being “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier year. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in the blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
This was an experiment where seven women read the book online, while also commenting on the book and discussing it together. Each page/website has a short part of the book with the comments from the seven women below. You can read along the book together as if in a group.
Importance: Powerful depiction of mental health and Plath’s only novel
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by Sylvia Plath, an American writer and poet. It was originally published under a pseudonym (”Victoria Lucas”) as it is semi-autobiographical.
The novel portray’s the main character, Esther Greenwood, as she descends into mental illness. The book is often considered a roman à clef as the protagonist’s experience tends to mirror the author’s, with Plath dying by suicide only a month after its publication in the UK.
I think it’s important to acknowledge and warn individuals that there are racists parts of the book. I personally don’t think that those parts are enough to negate the rest of the book, but I completely understand if you don’t want to read the book because of this.
Summary (from Goodreads):
We follow Esther Greenwood’s personal life from her summer job in New York with Ladies’ Day magazine, back through her days at New England’s largest school for women, and forward through her attempted suicide, her bad treatment at one asylum and her good treatment at another, to her final re-entry into the world like a used tyre: “patched, retreaded, and approved for the road” … Esther Greenwood’s account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.
I couldn’t help to think that so many of the books considered to be “feminist texts” are just a genuine portray of women’s experiences.
Most of them are just women written as fully developed characters dealing with normal life experiences. Or, if they were considered controversial at the time, it might just be women going through experiences that society didn’t want to know about (like mental health and unfulfilling marriages).
I know that older male authors are not known for writing strong or well-rounded women characters, but I didn’t realize that the bar was so low.
I recently read Kafka’s novel The Trial and I was astounded at how terrible the women characters were. Now, I understand that his stories were groundbreaking and powerful commentaries on society, but the one-dimensional female characters were such a turn off, and made it extremely difficult to finish the book.
All that to say, I think we need to understand what it means to be considered a feminist text within the literary context of that era. It’s unlikely for it to match with what we consider feminism to be today.
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in learning more about the history of women’s movements and gaining tools to think critically about how society is shaped by the patriarchy?
Here are five older nonfiction books considered classic feminist texts from a range of eras, from as early as 1792 up until the 1970’s. They each had a considerable impact on women and society.
However, as these are older, they may lack the depth of insight provided by intersectionality (considering more than just gender to affect one’s experience). I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
It’s important to note that these books are primarily focused on the women’s movements in the Western societies (including North America and the UK). They are also all written by white women, who tend to have a limited understanding of gender.
If you have suggestions for books that focus on women’s movements from elsewhere around the world, especially from early in the 20th or 19th century, please let me know in a comment below!
Importance: One of the earliest feminist philosophy works
Mary Wollstonecraft argues in this work that women should have access to education and that we are depriving society of their contributions. It’s considered on the of the earliest feminist philosophical works.
The book was generally well received when it was first published in 1792.
Wollstonecraft’s work ended up having significant impacts on the women’s rights movements, especially those in the 19th century. The influence of her work can be seen during the suffragette movement in the US, particularly at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.
Summary (from Goodreads):
In the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.In what does man’s pre-eminence over the brute creation consist?The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; inReason.
Importance: Highlights the importance of space for women
This book is actually a collection of lectures she delivered to two women’s colleges in October 1928, which is important to note to better understand the audience and context of the work. She was addressing women enrolled in higher education, which would be quite privileged women of that era.
This quote sums up her key message:
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”
Virginia Woolf
Source: A Room of One’s Own
The book highlights the need for women to have space to create, both a physical space (a room) with sufficient needs ($) to alleviate stress from daily tasks, along with a metaphorical space to be accepted in the literary world.
The book also highlights the lived experiences of different women authors in fiction, along with theorizing what would happen if Shakespeare had an equally talented sister.
I found this book quite enlightening and interesting. However, it does come with limitations. The book is primarily focused on a certain demographic (white, privileged and educated women), limiting her analysis.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women’s colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.
Importance: Groundbreaking work of feminist philosophy
Simone de Beauvoir is a famous philosopher who was part of the existentialist movement in France.
The Second Sex is a feminist philosophical work that discusses the treatment of women both now and throughout history. The book had a huge impact on the second wave of feminism and inspired The Feminine Mystique among other feminist texts.
Simone de Beauvoir was one of the first to identify the sex-gender divide, meaning the difference between biological sex and the societal/social construct of gender.
Simone de Beauvoir was bisexual and had an open relationship with fellow philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. She had many lovers throughout her life. However, her relationships with young women, many of whom were her students, are questionable, with some sexual abuse allegations.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Newly translated and unabridged in English for the first time, Simone de Beauvoir’s masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of “woman,” and a groundbreaking exploration of inequality and otherness. This long-awaited new edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as it was back then, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.
Importance: Credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the USA
The Feminine Mystique is considered to be one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century. It is also commonly associated with sparking the second wave of feminism in the US.
Betty Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former classmates only to find that many were unhappy with their lives as housewives. This inspired her to began researching what would ultimately become this book.
In this book, Friedan challenges the concept that women could only be fulfilled as a “housewife-mother.” Rather she showed that many felt unfulfilled in this role.
The book was a best seller, and sold over a million copies. It drew many women to the feminist cause, specifically white, middle class women.
Despite its huge influence and significance, the message is clearly aimed at a specific demographic: the white suburban housewife. I think it’s important to both acknowledge its influence and its limitations.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th–anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.
Importance: Made shockwaves within the feminist movement
The Female Eunuch made shockwaves within the feminist movement in 1970 as it focused on how women are taught to repress their sexuality.
Greer’s focus of the book is to show that a “traditional” (read as white), suburban nuclear family sexually represses women, which also devitalizes them and turns them into eunuchs.
I am looking forward to reading this book, as I think it will have interesting points to make. However, I also expect this to have limited applicability because women who aren’t white tend to either be overly sexualized or exoticized, which are just different ways to control women’s sexuality.
Summary (from Goodreads):
The clarion call to change that galvanized a generation.
When Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch” was first published it created a shock wave of recognition in women, one that could be felt around the world. It went on to become an international bestseller, translated into more than twelve languages, and a landmark in the history of the women’s movement. Positing that sexual liberation is the key to women’s liberation, Greer looks at the inherent and unalterable biological differences between men and women as well as at the profound psychological differences that result from social conditioning. Drawing on history, literature, biology, and popular culture, Greer’s searing examination of women’s oppression is a vital, passionately argued social commentary that is both an important historical record of where we’ve been and a shockingly relevant treatise on what still remains to be achieved.
I know these books are all by white women authors and their limitations may make them less appealing. However, I do know these books were still hugely influential and affected the course of history.
Personally, I think it’s worthwhile to read these landmark books to understand how they affected society and see how things have changed over the years. I know it can be frustrating to read some of these books from a 21st century perspective as the intersectionality gaps seem huge.
Nevertheless, there is still useful information and arguments in these books that can help us understand the evolution of women’s movements and where we need to go in the future.
History can be a great teacher, as we can learn from our past mistakes and move towards a better future. Looking back, it’s not surprising to see how limited the audiences were for some of these books, but we can also make sure we don’t regress back to that state.
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in learning more about the history of women’s movements and gaining tools to think critically about how society is shaped by the patriarchy?
Here are five nonfiction books considered classic feminist texts from the 80’s and 90’s. They each had a considerable impact on the women’s movement and continued to be both relevant and heavily studied. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
It’s important to note that these books are primarily focused on the women’s movements in Western societies (including North America and the UK).
Also, I’m always looking to diversify my reading. If you have any suggestions that discuss women’s rights and movements from other parts of the world, please share them below!
Importance: One of the first intersectional analyses of gender, race and class
This book discusses the interaction of gender, race and class, with an emphasis on the experiences of Black Women.
It clarifies aspects of US history that you may not have heard about, spanning the time period from the slave trade to modern women’s rights movements.
This book radically shifted how I understood the history of the women’s movements, especially the suffragette movement. I feel like it gave me so much more nuance to the history.
Summary (from Goodreads):
From one of our most important scholars and civil rights activist icon, a powerful study of the women’s liberation movement and the tangled knot of oppression facing Black women.
“Angela Davis is herself a woman of undeniable courage. She should be heard.” —The New York Times
Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable work.
In this book, bell hooks discusses how stereotypes from slavery are still very influential in today’s world.
bell hooks is considered a feminist theory scholar, and this book has been considered groundbreaking in feminist theory as it discussed the longterm impacts from slavery that are still felt today.
This book has no footnotes in it. bell hooks said it was to make it more accessible and less scholarly, but it has also been criticized for not sharing her sources.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A groundbreaking work of feminist history and theory analyzing the complex relations between various forms of oppression. Ain’t I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women’s movement, and black women’s involvement with feminism.
Importance: A groundbreaking impact on contemporary feminist theories, including intersectionality
This is a collection of essays, with “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” likely being the most well known.
The essays showcase Lorde’s philosophical thought and reasoning, especially highlighting oppressions as both complex and interconnected. Her essays are considered a significant contribution to critical social theory.
Summary (from Goodreads):
A collection of fifteen essays written between 1976 and 1984 gives clear voice to Audre Lorde’s literary and philosophical personae. These essays explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde’s intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference—difference according to sex, race, and economic status. The title Sister Outsider finds its source in her poetry collection The Black Unicorn (1978). These poems and the essays in Sister Outsider stress Lorde’s oft-stated theme of continuity, particularly of the geographical and intellectual link between Dahomey, Africa, and her emerging self.
Importance: Redefined the relationship between beauty and female identity
The Beauty Myth focuses on how beauty is used as a distraction and continues the subjugation of women.
As women’s power in society has increased, so has the pressure from media to achieve unrealistic beauty standards.
Beauty is both a way to distract women from their desire for equal rights, while simultaneously providing a way for everyone (men and women) to judge women on their personal appearance.
Summary (from Goodreads):
The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today’s world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women’s movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It’s the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of “the flawless beauty.”
This book originated as an article that Faludi wrote in response to a 1986 Newsweek cover story about the so-called “man shortage” and the “statistic” that women over 30 were more likely to be killed by a terrorist than marry.
Newsweek reported that the “statistic” came from a Harvard-Yale marriage study. It got tremendous coverage and was widely believed to be true. You’ll even see it referenced (as a joke) in the movie Sleepless in Seattle! But the statistic didn’t hold up to be true and the Harvard-Yale team later retracted the statistics.
You can hear Susan Faludi talk more about it in an interview here.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women’s Rights
“Opting-out,” “security moms,” “desperate housewives,” “the new baby fever”—the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is back in a fifteenth anniversary edition, with a new preface by the author that brings backlash consciousness up to date.
When it was first published, Backlash made headlines for puncturing such favorite media myths as the “infertility epidemic” and the “man shortage,” myths that defied statistical realities. These willfully fictitious media campaigns added up to an antifeminist backlash. Whatever progress feminism has recently made, Faludi’s words today seem prophetic. The media still love stories about stay-at-home moms and the “dangers” of women’s career ambitions; the glass ceiling is still low; women are still punished for wanting to succeed; basic reproductive rights are still hanging by a thread. The backlash clearly exists.
With passion and precision, Faludi shows in her new preface how the creators of commercial culture distort feminist concepts to sell products while selling women downstream, how the feminist ethic of economic independence is twisted into the consumer ethic of buying power, and how the feminist quest for self-determination is warped into a self-centered quest for self-improvement.
Backlash is a classic of feminism, an alarm bell for women of every generation, reminding us of the dangers that we still face.
Personally, I think these most, if not, all of these books are life changing. They can provide significant perspective shifts and can help you think more critically about your experiences.
You may not agree with everything in the books, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t gain something from them. For instance, Angela Davis was an ardent supporter of the communist party in the 80’s and part of the book focuses heavily on communism. Whatever your feelings about communism (and people tend to feel quite strongly about it – thanks Cold War!), that shouldn’t negate or affect what you can learn from the rest of the book.
If you’ve read any of these, I would love to know what you think of them! Please feel free to share a comment below with your thoughts.
If you have suggestions for books that focus on women’s movements from elsewhere around the world, please let me know in a comment below!
