An Introductory Feminist Reading List [View all]

[boston bean]

1. Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft: The foremother of feminist philosophy, Wollstonecraft used this piece to push back against arguments that women should only receive domestic education, and to lay the foundations on which other women would build the argument for equality between the sexes.

2. A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf: Woolf is arguing for educational access and economic independence as necessary preconditions for women who want to write, but her arguments are applicable to women seeking self-determination in any manner of arena.

3. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan: There’s no question that Friedan is a problematic figure, particularly given her attitudes towards people of color and lesbians, but her analysis of the gap between what society wanted women to aspire to and the happiness it actually brought them played a critical role in the national feminist conversation of the last century.

4. Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde: Friedan’s flaws are Lourde’s triumphs: a black woman, a lesbian, and the child of immigrants, Lourde’s work makes a major contribution to a vision of feminism that isn’t the sole preserve of and salve for the wounds of white, heterosexual, middle-class women.

5.Gender Trouble, Judith Butler: Butler’s critique of the idea that femininity is natural rather than constructed is a perfect introduction to gender theory for first-timers.

More at the link:

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/06/22/504090/an-introductory-feminist-reading-list/