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Recommendation RequestBeginner's Radical Feminist Books?
I'm not new to the idea of radical feminism, but as someone looking to get into feminist material for the first time, what would you recommend?
I would start with Dworkin. Her material is emotionally difficult to engage with, but it's written clearly and is easy to understand.
Dworkin wrote page-turners. I find Jeffreys and Daley hard to read, good luck with Firestone if you haven’t already read the Communist Manifesto, and I always recommend Love and Politics but it’s dense and easy to get distracted with a rabbit hole (IMO) because it’s a broad compilation. But Dorkin’s books give you momentum.
Are there any particular books of Dworkin's I should start with?
I think you can start with any of them, but Right-Wing Women is my favorite.
I would strongly suggest Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. To me, this is the best, easiest-to-read introduction to thinking about women as a class and how men being in charge effects us on a day to day level, which is foundational to all radical feminist analysis.
I also really like the other books mentioned here, but they might be a little bit like learning to swim by diving in to the deep end.
I listened to Invisible Women on audible and I got super pissed off multiple times, lol. It's incredibly well-researched and well written. I also highly recommend it.
https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Feminism-Anne-Koedt/dp/0812962206 https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/koedt-anne/radical-movement.htm Marilyn Frye free here https://archive.org/details/politicsofrealit00frye Sylvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
In fact, try them all on the internet archive.
Just want to bump Caliban and the Witch. It shows the idea that women as "nature," "common resource," and prostitute is a thoroughly modern phenomenon, not some ancient human practice.
Any book published in the 1970s or early 1980s by
Susan Brownmiller, Kate Millett, Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone, Germaine Greer.
Sisterhood is Powerful, essays, editor Robin Morgan.
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.
Sisterhood is Powerful, essays, editor Robin Morgan.
It’s worth noting that there are a lot of Sisterhood is Powerful anthologies and getting the first one is difficult.
Love and Politics: radical feminist and lesbian theories by Carol Ann Douglas.
If you want an overview that gives you a picture of the broad scope of the subject, at least from the early 90s (I think) it’s the place to start. It will give you so many routes to delve into.
For the beginnings, as in the late 1960s,
Toward a Female Liberation Movement and Notes from the First Year are fairly short, under 40 pages.
If you want something later, I’d say “The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism.” Yes, it is available to download on the website of one of the editors: https://janiceraymond.com/the-sexual-liberals/. If you only can read a few of the chapters/essays in it, I suggest “Liberalism and the Death of Feminism” by Catharine A. MacKinnon and “Woman-Hating Right and Left” by Andrea Dworkin.
For then, for now, for always: The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas.
I read it for the first time almost 30 years ago and it still blows me away. Just a fun, kicky, and brutally honest piece of radical feminist history. Long live Valerie!
That’s an interesting read for sure but it’s really not an introduction to radical feminism. She was not a radical feminist.
Solanas is excerpted in "Sisterhood is Powerful" right alongside Millett, Daly, etc., so it seems many radical feminists of note would disagree with you, but thanks for sharing your opinion!
She was treated as an outsider by movement women, she didn’t self identify as a radical feminist, and not everyone included in that book was a radical feminist.
I definitely appreciate that you think I should consider your opinion as a random person on the internet to be more relevant than, like, Ti-Grace Atkinson's; however, we'll have to agree to disagree. I also disagree that women cannot produce radical feminist work unless they self-identify as radical feminists.
It's an important reminder that different people can look at the exact same information and come to entirely different conclusions. In other words, you're not proving me wrong by simply insisting otherwise, nor vice versa. No kneejerk downvotes from me just for disagreeing, though. Have a good one.
In terms of books
Older works: Last days at hot slit The female eunuch The second sex The beauty myth
Newer works are kinda tough for me to find but I found these interesting: The end of men (Hannah rosin) I hate men (Pauline harmange)
I often just search for "radical feminist substack" to find some contemporary blogs and articles. Feminist current, redduxx are also quite rad fem websites.
This drive folder has been suggested, I hope it is fine to share here.
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/mobile/folders/1SoD-wdOcoOfvjYW6vOtnfuP-j5aXqwPf
"Sexual Politics", by Kate Millett. Published 1970. She created the analysis that is radical feminism. So if you want to know what radical feminism is, from one of the women who "invented" it, this is the book to start with.