Book Wars!
Woo!
The blogosphere is abuzz with book talk. If there’s no such thing as bad publicity then, then Jessica Valenti just hit paydirt.
I haven’t read the book. Honestly, I probably won’t read it—not my thing.
I’m also not particularly interested in the cover debate. They take shit over the mudflap lady logo all the time, and honestly, were I Valenti, I’d be fucking tired of that kind of thing, too.
That said, the purpose of the book confuses me.
Now, people come to feminism in all sorts of ways. Hip hop. Punk rock. Take Back the Night. The Vagina Monolouges. All sorts of things.
And, some people do come to feminism through books. And, sometimes they come through books that are shallow.
And, y’all… I’m a Naomi Wolf convert. For real. It was The Beauty Myth, that really hooked me.
But, you know what the secret is there? Beauty standards affect all women. You can be a Republican woman and still feel bad looking through magazines. Beauty standards are, therefore, an excellent subject for a book to become a sneak attack for feminism recruitment.
You know what’s not going to interest a woman that doesn’t identify as a feminist? A book with “Feminism” in the title.
I’d say that if the goal was to write a book to bring women into the fold, the problem may not be that there are swear words or a naked lady on the cover. The problem is right there in the title.
I think that there are books that work to bring young women to feminism. Honestly, Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs (I can hear Ren and Amber cringing) is probably the newest one of those; I’ve heard more than one woman in her late teens credit Levy with opening the feminism door. And, it’s pink with a mudflap girl on the cover. I bet Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters picks some women up, too.
But, I don’t think that Full Frontal Feminism is going to serve the purpose that Valenti had in mind. It’s very likely that Valenti’s book would make a decent second book to get your hands on if you’re just starting to “come to feminist consciousness.” But, a hook book?
I don’t think so.
tags: feminism
The problem is right there in the title.
I hadn’t considered that, but you’re right, that’s very possible. Backlash, the first book that hooked me, is definitely a feminist book, but it doesn’t say the f-word anywhere in the title; just “the undeclared war against American women.”
I’m trying to cast my mind back to when I bought it and think whether I’d still have picked it up if it had been “the undeclared war against American feminism.” And you know, I’m not sure. I might have thought, “Well hell, feminism, what’s that got to do with me?”
— ilyka May 16, 07:17 PM #
Yeah, I mean… there’s nothing wrong with writing a Basic Feminism Book, even if, as has been put forth—it’s a book aimed at Sorority Girls and would-be Sorority Girls. Manifesta was an excellent example of one of those types of books. But, I have to admit that I’m just not buying Valenti’s initial pitch. I'm not saying it won't find an audience. Just maybe not the audience she thinks she's getting.
— Veronica May 16, 08:14 PM #
Oh, FCP is perfect for bringing women into the fold. I too know many young women who LOVED it and saw it as their gateway to feminism book. Many of them also continue with the slut shaming, think they need to be saviors of we willinging raunchified, so on, so forth, blh blah blah.
— RenegadeEvolution May 17, 06:13 AM #
Personally, I’m too into a book on Greek history at the moment. I’m taking a course next semester on Ancient Greek Society. I like the subject, particularly from a feminist perspective. Showing where pure democracy does not equal freedom for humanity as a whole, etc.
Anyway, also personally, I don’t think Jessica intended to forget about the people she did. She’s like me: privileged, and I think we need the criticisms, but since there are so many that are worth discussion, we feel obliged to take the criticisms to heart, rather than expend energy against their rightful claims. We learn, we lurk, we STFU at times. Of course, I don’t mean to speak for anyone else.
— JackGoff May 18, 11:28 PM #
Ya know, Jack, I don’t especially like the way that she responded in that interview today (yesterday?)
I mean, sure, I don’t think that she set out to piss people off at all, and she really does deserve to be excited and proud of her first book. Who wouldn’t be?!!
But, this whole weird insistence that anyone that criticizes the damned thing must 1.) have not really read it, or 2.) must be doing it out of personal spite, is off-putting, to say the least. She basically said that if you don’t like the book, it’s because you’re imposing some made-up meta-narrative on her and her work, which is bunk. She’s not above simply making a mistake, overlooking a subject, overdoing the tone, talking down to her audience, or making ungrounded assertions with no back-up data (which she, in fact, did in a lot of the pre-release interviews.)
And, those problems are problems with the book, not Valenti as a person.
— Veronica May 19, 05:08 PM #