The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition
by Eve Ensler, Gloria Steinem.
"I say vagina because I want people to respond," says playwright Eve Ensler, creator of the hilarious, disturbing soliloquies in The Vagina Monologues, a book based on her one-woman play. And respond they do--with horror, anger, censure, and sparks of wonder and pleasure. Ensler is on a fervent mission to elevate and celebrate this much mumbled-about body part. She asked hundreds of women of all ages a series of questions about their vaginas (What do you call it? How would you dress it?) that prompt some wondrous answers.
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The Feminine Mystique
by Betty Friedan, Anna Quindlen (Introduction).
The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since. A national bestseller, with over 1 million copies sold.
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The Female Eunuch
by Germaine Greer.
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.
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No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women
by Estelle B. Freedman.
Repeatedly declared dead by the media, the women’s movement has never been as vibrant as it is today. Indeed as Stanford professor and award-winning author Estelle B. Freedman argues in her compelling new book, feminism has reached a critical momentum from which there is no turning back. A truly global movement, as vital and dynamic in the developing world as it is in the West, feminism has helped women achieve authority in politics, sports, and business, and has mobilized public concern for once-taboo issues like rape, domestic violence, and breast cancer.
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The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy
by Allan G. Johnson.
John Stoltenberg,in Men and Masculinities (July 1998):
"This book can be especially recommended to male students as an exemplary model of plainspoken and conscientious writing about male supremacy that is neither naive nor navel-gazing and that takes feminist theory and analysis absolutely seriously . . . . This honorable book promises to be around a long time . . . . The Gender Knot belongs on the reading list of every course in sexual politics that encourages students to engage patriarchy meaningfully."
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Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women
by Susan Faludi.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Faludi lays out a two-fold thesis in this aggressive work: First, despite the opinions of pop-psychologists and the mainstream media, career-minded women are generally not husband-starved loners on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Secondly, such beliefs are nothing more than anti-feminist propaganda pumped out by conservative research organizations with clear-cut ulterior motives.
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