— Radical Feminist Literature Under 200 Pages —
The poll on reading radfem lit made by @kittycatcat-at claims that 17.5% of respondents have not read any radfem lit. I think this is really sad! We pride ourselves on being well-informed and having an ideological canon and not forming our politics through internet posts.
Radical feminist literature can come off as very intimidating. A lot of it deals with very heavy and often upsetting topics, and a lot of them are long and old and use unfamiliar language. That said, nothing can adequately replace familiarity with source texts and deeper analysis. Nothing can change you like the right book at the right time. So! I’ve compiled a (certainly incomplete!) list of radical feminist literature under or around 200 pages. All synopses without credit listed are written by me. I’m hoping this will take some of the pressure off of the venture if this is your first time delving into radfem lit! Let’s make 2024 rad :)
The Abolition of Sex by Kara Dansky — 150 pages
"[T]his slim, easy to read volume, which I read in less than 24 hours, helps to draw all areas of concern together in a clear fashion (with examples), and demonstrates the logic of how the abolition of sex would play out in law and in our lives. Maintaining clarity about our human mammalian sex is important for reasons that one would think obvious in the 21st century, but humans have a weakness (it would seem...eye roll) for ideology, especially ideology that helps protect us from being vilified or physically harmed, by individuals or by the state. But we are also capable of so much more. We're here speaking about half of the human species, at this moment of writing comprising 3,934,783,287 females - girls and women." - Goodreads review from Louise Hewett
Femininity by Susan Brownmiller — 220 pages
This book is divided into sections on Body, Hair, Clothes, Voice, Skin, Movement, Emotion, and Ambition, and each aspect of femininity is broken down in ways that will open your eyes to socialized behaviors and expectations you had hardly noticed in yourself. Brownmiller analyzes each of these aspects of the femininity ideal throughout time and the variations in their manifestation, and you come out with a clearer understanding of how the ideal of femininity is constructed to control women. I talk about this book nearly as much as I talk about The Beauty Myth, and absolutely recommend it to new RadFem readers as well as seasoned experts. Brownmiller has a very pleasant writing style, and any woman will find herself relating to the experiences described in the text.
Pornland by Gail Dines — 200 pages
"In this thought-provoking book, sociologist Gale Dines explores how what she describes as "porn culture" has permeated mainstream pop culture -- and what that means to adult men and women as well as teenagers and young adults growing up in a world in which ideas about what it means to be masculine or feminine are being skewed by a multi-billion dollar porn industry. Her arguments are compelling and disturbing. To those who would argue that the hypersexualization of women's bodies has been empowering for women, Dines writes: "This is pseudo-empowerment since it is a poor substitute for what real power looks like: economic, social, sexual, and political equality that give women power to control those institutions that affect our lives."" - Goodreads review from Ann Douglas
Patriarchy of the Wage by Silvia Federici — 120 pages
I will never be able to recommend Silvia Federici's works enough. It breaks my heart that Caliban and the Witch is too long to recommend in this post. When we look back, we will absolutely recognize Federici as the leading feminist and Marxist writer of our time. Patriarchy of the Wage is a collection of essays regarding the invisible labor of women and the systems which confine women to the home, the intersection of Marxism and feminism and the shortcomings of communist theory in regards to unwaged labor, and the role of sexual labor in patriarchy and capitalism, among other topics. If you consider yourself a Marxist feminist or are interested in Marxist feminism, Federici is your woman.
Beauty and Misogyny by Sheila Jeffreys — 210 pages
"If you care about women, this book will make you angry. Jeffreys makes lucid and incisive analysis of the harmful standards of beauty and the choices women have under them, which are no choices at all. A true antidote to the poisonous philosophies of the sex-pozzies: it is so refreshing to read feminist thought that isn’t pervaded with the circular and unclear language of “empowerment” and “choice.” She doesn’t shy away from things she’s probably gotten a lot of hate for, like arguing that make-up cannot be empowering and condemning Madonna’s normalization of pornographic sexuality, as well as prominent names in the fashion industry. She also brings up important cultural points, like the othering of non-Western cultures that makes it easy for people to recognize practices like female genital mutilation as definitely wrong, but not Western practices like labiaplasty that women supposedly choose freely. Her argument that the beauty routines women are expected to go through should constitute human rights violations is well thought out, easy to follow, and one I agree with. I love this book and I think it’s important for women to read as an eye-opener outside of mainstream third-wave feminism." - Goodreads review from Yve
Unpacking Queer Politics by Sheila Jeffreys — 180 pages
"A feminist dismantling of so-called queer/postmodernist theory. I'd recommend this to everyone, not just lesbian feminists, to read. Addressed compulsory heterosexuality, the adoration of masculinity in queer theory, the subjugation and purchase of the female body through surrogacy and prostitution. How reproducing the masculine and feminine binary is neither transgressive nor is does it aid in dismantling or analyzing the system of oppression that keeps women subordinate. Queer theory (porn loving, male adoring, womanface wearing, female body appropriating), lacks a material or structural analysis of oppression, and therefore, is incapable of ever liberating the people it claims to serve." - Goodreads review from Jaclynn
The Obsession by Kim Chernin — 200 pages
This is a book I've read easily a dozen times. The Obsession is one of the best books I've found for a feminist perspective on the culture of female thinness and the obsession women turn inwards upon our own bodies. Chernin is frank about the female relationship with pain, comfort, desire, guilt, and of course, food, which is all of these things together. Chernin's perspective on anorexia does not shy away from the societal religion of thinness and the sickness of its devotees without sacrificing her certainty in women's rationality and entitlement to a better society.
Only Words by Catharine MacKinnon — 160 pages
MacKinnon is the woman we have to thank for workplace sexual harassment regulation as well as the very legal concept of genocidal rape. Only Words is MacKinnon’s response to the Supreme Court declaring pornography an expression of 1st Amendment free speech (which overturned the Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance she and Andrea Dworkin worked on in the 80s). MacKinnon argues in this book that declaring the commodification and distribution of women’s bodies, sexualities, and pain as a natural right of a free country is an affront to women’s humanity, and that porn is not speech, but violence.
Gender Hurts by Sheila Jeffreys — 220 pages
"Identity politics replaced structural political analysis, and meant that people could claim identities that were seen to arrive from the heavens rather than from the power structures of sex, race and class."
"And there is the nub of it. A good analysis of the impact queer theory has had on much modern day feminism, especially in the sleight of hand that has 'gender' touted for its progressiveness, whilst simultaneously reinforcing the naturalness of masculinity and femininity. An important read in the context of a feminism largely submerged in a cacophony of individualistic identity politics." - Goodreads review from Helen
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry — 200 pages
Released just last year in 2022, this is a book I recommend to young women as often as I can. Perry’s conclusions are not always my own, but few books tackle the dark side of hook-up culture that women often struggle to articulate as well as this one. This book confronts the shortcomings of consent as an end-all be-all in simpler language than dense rape law theory (also worth reading, but perhaps not as an introduction), as well as containing the most concise critique of strangulation as an increasingly popular sexual practice that I’ve encountered. Perry critiques the liberal feminist argument that, “[...] if you are going to destroy the sexual double standard, then you must use your own body, and the bodies of other women, as a battering ram against the patriarchal edifice,” through charmingly no-bullshit takedowns of Onlyfans empowerment, BDSM practices, and sex as an act divorced from intimacy.
Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy — 220 pages
Very easy read, despite getting into serious topics. Levy's writing style is casual and sharply funny as she discusses the culture of sexual empowerment as she observed it in 2005. This does mean that the references and pop-culture examples she examines are very much of their time as she writes, and certain aspects may feel outdated, as what she calls 'Raunch Culture' has changed significantly and rapidly in the years since. However, her analysis of the faux sexual empowerment trend she calls Raunch Culture is spot-on. She calls out the harsh reality of performative promiscuity and the ways that women put each other down in an effort to play a game already rigged by men.
Enough by Harriet Johnson — 200 pages
"This book is one of the most important books I have ever read, by a barrister who sees day in day out the violence women face and the justice we never receive. It is a call to arms and a succint, brilliant precis of all the key statstics and laws to arm you against the next person who diminishes its seriousness. I feel not just acknowledged by Harriet's incredible writing, but understood in a way I didn't think was possible. She has articulated the lasting effect of gender-based violence with such clarity and compassion it is hard to look away." - Goodreads review from Hannah
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc by Carolyn Gage — 140 pages
A retelling of Saint Joan of Arc, or Jeanne Romée, more accurately, in the form of a one-woman show. Reimagined as a butch lesbian, Romée tells her story of fighting a pointless war between men, being abandoned by her soldiers, subsequently being captured by the English, and then being tried as a heretic. The story’s voice is distinctive and relatable to all women, especially when talking about the limitations we’re forced to endure, the difficulty of watching other women suffer, the horrors of puberty, and the traumatizing existence we’re put through timelessly. This is the book that turned me toward radical feminism. - @journalisticintegrity
Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy, and the Split Self by Kajsa Ekis Ekman — 220 pages
Grounded in the reality of the violence and abuse inherent in prostitution – and profoundly affected by the death of a friend to prostitution in Spain – activist and writer Kajsa Ekis Ekman exposes the many lies in the "sex work" scenario in this polemic in which she also criticizes the booming surrogacy industry. The author places the theory that it is possible to separate the "self" from the body, thus making it possible to sell the body for sex without compromising an individual's fundamental human dignity – a key argument of the pro-sex worker narrative – under the microscope. Taking the belief at face value, she extends it to the practice of surrogacy, pointing out that if a woman is neither connected to her body nor to the child that grows within her, surrogacy itself can be viewed as a form or prostitution where the product sold is a baby, rather than sex. If this is the case, Ekis Ekman argues, is surrogacy not a form of child trafficking? Written with a razor-sharp intellect and disarming wit, this illuminating exposé seeks to highlight the dangers of commodifying the human body and presents both prostitution and surrogacy as emotionally fraught enterprises rife with power imbalances and the potential for abuse. - Goodreads Synopsis
The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas — 60 pages
You’re due for a mental reset. How many books praised as classics, as philosophy, as poetry, as politics, as the cornerstones of society, are filled with virulent hatred of women? How many men have been praised as revolutionaries while (or for) claiming women are subhuman, irrelevant, or inane? People, including radfems, sometimes treat this book as a satirical work, a book that’s undoubtedly fun to read, but too extreme to consider real theory. This may well be your takeaway after reading, but I ask that you go into The SCUM Manifesto with no more irony than you do when reading the work of male geniuses. Solanas wastes no time on irony or apologies as she posits her theory of female superiority and potential domination. Allowing this book a space in your mind is one of the most empowering things you can do, and you can do it in an afternoon!
I also encourage reading a chapter or section which interests you in longer books that may seem intimidating. Chapters in non-fiction and theory texts tend to stand well on their own. Don't let the size of the project stop you from taking on the part that drew you in.
I don’t have PDFs of all of these works, as I own the majority of them in print. If you have a PDF of any of these works on hand, please share them in a reblog!
