The Guardian had an incredible story this week where they asked their readers what book "opened their eyes to the women's movement". The answers ranged from Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (of which one woman claimed she kept it "by my bed for 18 years") and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, to Elaine Morgan's The Descent of Woman. My fellow Shiny feminists Isabelle and Kathryn have kindly shared with me which books caused them to turn to the dark-femmy side of life.
Isabelle O'Carroll:
At the age of 15 a friend lent me Elaine Morgan's Descent of Woman, which is an interpretation of Alister Hardy's Aquatic Ape theory and it showed me how sexist 'neutral' subjects like science could be. Biologists like Desmond Morris treated women as an afterthought of evolution, and every bodily adaptation to be purely sexual. Morgan on the other hand used the pronoun 'she' throughout the whole book and gave women the importance they deserved in evolutionary history. Realizing the extent to which women could be marginalized in history showed me how misogynistic our society was and still is.
Kathryn Stewart:
Given the amount of feminist theory I read at university, I would like to say something by the likes of Germaine Greer. The copy of The Female Eunuch that has been half-finished on my bedside table for 5 years tells the lie of that though.
If I’m honest the books that most influenced me (after Ms Greer my primary school teacher) were books I read as a child. Winter of Fire by Sheryl Jordan and The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Both are stories with female protagonists who wield power and influence in matriarchal societies and are firmly rooted in the female / feminist perspective.
But my favourite feminist text, the one I made my friends read and was probably far too influential on an impressionable young woman, is Sex Tips for Girls by Cynthia Heimel. A brilliant and hilarious book that pre-dates Ms Bushnall’s efforts by 15 years, it’s a modern woman’s guide the world and dealing with work, relationships, single motherhood and men written by a ‘been there, done that’ feminist who probably burnt her bra in the 60s (unless it was her favourite one from Frederick’s of Hollywood). This book showed me that being a feminist didn’t mean hating men and did mean being smart, funny, strong and politically aware.
Cate Sevilla:
The Bitch in the House was the first proper "feminist" book I'd ever read just for fun. (If you can call feminist books "fun".) I have to say that the most influential one that I've read has definitely been Female Chauvinist Pigs: Woman and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy. It completely changed the way I thought. I read it in one day, in a flurry of passion, and woke up the next morning in a pool of sweat wondering where I was and who I am and why was I lighting my bra on fire? But seriously, that book changed my life and made me realize why so many things in our culture are just piles of sexist bullshit.
