Emailbag: Calling All Book Nerds!

The Womens Resource Group at my college is apparently not spending enough money on resources (ie- we are under budget) and are looking for suggestions to add to our library.

What would you recommend to us? What we have right now is pretty vanilla, nothing historical, nothing controversial. It has occurred to me, however, that unless you have had the luxury of being exposed to strong feminist literature by your peers or teachers (and this is a college environment, not a university one) it would be very hard to find unless you knew what you were looking for.

So... tell me what to look for :-) Are there specific authors that you would recommend? Specific topics or genres?

The night I got back from South Carolina I checked my email and noticed a mulch pile was starting down at the bottom of it. I resolved to answer 5 every day until I'm caught up. I'm not even going to tell you how long this letter sat in my Inbox. Dan Savage said in his latest column that if he doesn't answer your letter in three weeks, forget it. It takes me forever to answer people's emails, but I do answer them eventually. I don't get nearly as many letters as he does, though, so I have no excuse.

I thought this letter was kind of fun. A few years ago I went on a feminist book binge, buying a ton of books but reading only a few. Some of the ones I bought and would recommend for a library span from mainstream popular books (the fun kind of feminist) to books that are more radical (not the fun kind), but, I believe, are classics and span a large range of feminist thought.

Here's some of my recommendations. Please help her out and put your recommendations in the Comments Lounge.

*Andrea Dworkin. Probably one of the most inflammatory of the feminist writers. More inflammatory than Valerie Solanis, who wrote the S.C.U.M Manifesto and shot pop culture artist Andy Warhol. Dworkin, who formed no groups and shot nobody, has been vilified and lied about more than any other feminist writer combined.(All heterosexual sex is rape, anyone? There's a dog that won't die.) The best way to cure yourself of an aversion to Dworkin is to actually read what she wrote. Here's a few of her better ones.

Scapegoat.
In this carefully written book, Dworkin parallels the scapegoating of women with the scapegoating of Jews, from the Inquisition, where women were tried as witches and Jews as heretics, to Nazi experimentation on Jews and women in the death camps.

Right-Wing Women
Probably my favorite of all the Dworkin books, Right-Wing Women attempts to explain the appeal of Christian fundamentalism among certain women, and their embrace of their second class status. Rather than making a harsh screed against them, Dworkin takes a kinder, empathetic approach, and attempts to show the reader the world filtered through the eyes of this particular group of women.

Letters From a War Zone.
A good introduction to Dworkin. This is collection of Dworkin's more famous speeches from her lecture circuits. It includes her moving "A Day Without Rape" speech, which, she claims, caused her to have to barricade herself in her room from angry men who took issue with it. Apropos of nothing, my copy has a lavender stamped image of a little girl on the inside of the front cover, tousled-haired and pigeon-toed, holding a stack of books. The spines of the books read, "This Book Belongs to Marcy." I think that's kind of funny.

Moving away from Dworkin -

The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker.

A must read for all women, everywhere. I can't begin to describe how incredibly useful this book is. De Becker, an expert on violent behavior and president of a group that provides security to celebrities and private citizens (who can afford him), explains the value of real fear. De Becker says that women's intuition that alerts them to danger is not actually intuition, but is rather the brain quickly absorbing clues in their surroundings that alert them to the fact that something is wrong. His first example of this is from the story of a woman he met who was brutally raped, and who saved herself from being murdered by listening to her instincts. Her rapist met her on the stairs in her building and gallantly offered to help her pick up the groceries that had fallen out of her bag. She was afraid of him immediately, but gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was so polite. Later, in retrospect, she realizes she was probably afraid of him from the beginning because he was not visible when she walked into her building, and appeared behind her when her groceries spilled. Her fear actually began because she did not hear the door to the building open, which meant he was already in the building. Since she could not see him when she entered, he must have been hiding under the stairwell.
De Becker describes the behavior of a potential sexual predator versus the behavior of an ordinary man, and cautions women against their socialization to "be nice" to a man that is setting off their inner alarm bells. Stocking this book in the library would be doing a tremendous service to the women on campus.

Kiss My Tiara by Susan Jane Gilman.
One of the fun feminists, Gilman's introductory feminist tome is the first book on feminism I ever read. Kiss My Tiara is designed to help focus women between 18-35 on getting a great life, not (just) a great man. With chapter titles like, "Every Idiot We Date is One Less Idiot We Risk Marrying" and "Niceness: Barf," Gilman makes feminism hip, irreverent, and fun.
and for a fun biography, Gilman's book Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress, a collection of essays about growing up hippie in Manhattan, is a hilarious read.

Woman, by Natalie Angier.

Angier, a Pulitzer Prize-Winning science writer, takes every biological aspect of women, from eggs to estrogen, and carefully examines the workings of the female body in an extremely engaging, delightful way. She also spends a very satisfactory chapter on shredding evolutionary psychologies which make the claim that women "are naturally" better at this or that, which usually boil down to us spending more time ironing.

Gyn/Ecology, by Mary Daly.

A radical feminist classic, Daly's book is groundbreaking not only in its complex philosophies, but also because she has rewritten it in entirely restructured and reclaimed feminist English. From a footnote: "This book contains Big Words, even Bigger than Beyond God the Father, for it is written for big, strong women, out of respect for strength. Moreover, I've made some of them up." This book is perfect for college women, because it's best read while completely stoned.

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by my girlfriend Gloria Steinem.

A collection of essays covering all the awesome things Steinem has done, including the famous incident when she goes undercover at one of the Playboy Bunny clubs, and the hilarious "If Men Could Menstruate." She's witty, charming, intelligent, sexy, and can school Stephen Colbert on how to bake a pie. I love her.

Sisterhood Is Powerful by Robin Morgan.

You have to have this classic feminist anthology, edited by he legendary radical feminist poet Robin Morgan. Morgan has a knack for achieving a measure of fame for almost everything she does, because almost everything she does is awesome. From being the only person ever to walk off the set of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show to hijacking the male-dominated lefty magazine Ratt, locking the men out of the offices and using the presses to churn out a magazine for radical feminists, to creating the feminist symbol of the woman sign with the fist in the circle, Morgan doesn't fail here either, creating one of the first and most famous comprehensive anthology of feminist writing. And for a full picture of her awesomeness, you'll need to get her autobiography Saturday's Child as well.

Cunt by Inga Muscio.

This book gets on my nerves, but it's a feminist bible to a lot of young women, so you should probably include it. I got yelled at last time I said this, but I still think it's irresponsible to tell women they can self-abort by the power of Bad Vibes. Sorry. But there's some good stuff in there, too. Pick and choose, is what I'm saying.

Backlash, by Susan Faludi.

There is nobody that can get women all stirred up and outraged like Susan Faludi. In Backlash, Faludi comprehensively covers the modern media tendency to tell women the feminist battle has been won, so it's okay to get back into the kitchen. Told matter-of-factly, with a lot of specifics to back her up, this book will have you raging around your apartment, wanting to bite someone.

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

One of my friends went to go hear Ehrenreich read from this book last month. He was a huge fan, and finally had a chance to speak to her. After standing in line to meet her, when she finally turned to him, he blurted out, "I love your book! I've never read a book before!" She looked at him like he'd recently escaped out from under a huge rock, and he spent the entire next day at work moaning, "Why did I say that? Why? Why? I meant to say, 'I've never read a book that affected me so strongly!' That's what I meant!"

Nickel and Dimed is the result of Ehrenreich going undercover and investigating what it's like working for minimum wage in jobs that are typically female: a diner waitress, a housecleaner, and a Wal-Mart employee. Some people find her to be a bit condescending, but for twenty years I've worked jobs exactly like these, and she's right on the money, I think. After reading the treatment Ehrenreich received as a Wal-Mart employee, you'll think twice about shopping there again.

The Mommy Myth, by Susan Douglas and Meredith Nichols.

Douglas and Nichols tackle the past thirty years of media images of mothers, how they affect the perception of modern mothering, and how the pressure to conform to impossible standards drives us all bugfuck crazy.

Getting tired now, so my last three are going to be quick.

Woman's Inhumanity to Woman by Phyllis Chesler.

Why some women are bitches.

Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz.

See how marriage has always mostly sucked?

The Female Thing by Laura Kipnis.

I reviewed this once already! Hurray!

Okay, so, you should buy those books.

Anybody else have any recommendations for her?