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Feminist Books & Feminist Authors

List of Feminist Books
(Includes Fiction and Non-Fiction Books)

  • "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan (see excerpts The Problem that Has No Name and The Happy Housewife Heroine)
  • "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf
    Naomi Wolf is a controversial feminist, however her book The Beauty Myth has been highly recommended for it's discussion of body image.
  • "Real Beauty" by Kaz Cooke
  • "Revolution from Within" by Gloria Steinam
    About recovering creativity.
  • "Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation" by Barbara Findlen
  • "Feminist Fairy Tales" by Barbara G. Walker
  • "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver
  • "Women, Sex, and Desire" by Elizabeth Davis
    Excellent for a better understanding of menstrual cycles and predicting them.
  • "To Be Real" by Rebecca Walker
  • "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  • "Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  • "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" by Gloria Steinem
  • "The Edible Woman" by Margaret Atwood
  • "Surfacing" by Margaret Atwood
  • "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
  • "Mama's Girl" by Veronica Chambers
  • "Kickboxing Geishas" by Veronica Chambers
  • "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
  • The autobiography of Audre Lorde
  • "The Story of Avis" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
  • "The Body Project" by Joan Brumberg
  • "Hamlet's Mother and Other Women" by Carolyn Heilbrun
  • "Writing a Woman's Life" by Carolyn Heilbrun
  • "Towards a Recognition of Androgyny" by Carolyn Heilbrun
  • "Feminism Unmodified" by Catherine MacKinnon
  • "Reasonable Creatures" by Katha Pollitt
  • "The Mismeasure of Women" by Carol Tavris
    Subtitled, "Why women are not the better sex, the inferior sex, or the opposite sex."
  • "Aren't Women Human?" by Dorothy Sayers
  • "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone
  • "Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls" by Myra and David Sadker
  • "Personal Politics" by Sara Evans
  • "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen" by Kates Shulman
  • "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French
  • "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown
  • "Bitter Ice" by Barbara Kent Lawrence
  • "Women Without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters" by Annie Laurie Gaylor.
  • "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
  • "The Politics of Reality" by Marilyn Frye
  • "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft
  • "The Victim of Prejudice" by Mary Hays
  • "Ruth Hall" by Fanny Fern
  • "The Madwoman in the Attic" by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
  • "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrisson
  • "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir
  • "Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes: Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman" by Sheila Norgate
  • "Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves" by Sarah B. Pomeroy
    An academic explaination of the roots of homophobia, misogyny, infanticide, and classism through a presentation of the religious, social, and legal structures of ancient Greece and Rome.
  • "Fire With Fire" by Naomi Wolf
  • "Glass Town" by Lisa Spaar
    An exploration of eating disorders and adolescence.
  • "Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media" by Susan Douglas, a contributor to Ms. magazine.
  • "From Reverence to Rape: The teatment of Women in Movies" by Molly Haskell
  • "A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960" by Jeannine Bassinger
  • "SchoolGirls" by Peggy Orenstein
  • "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape and Femininity" by Susan Brownmiller
  • "Backlash" by Susan Faludi
  • Essays by Candida Royalle
  • "Myths of Gender" by biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling
  • "The Lenses of Gender" by psychologist Sandra Bem
  • "Gender Shock" by Phyllis Burke
  • "The Gender Knot" by Allan Johnson
    Intro to radical feminism 101.
  • "Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings" by Miriam Schneir
  • "Letters to a Young Feminist" by Phyllis Chesler
  • "Throwing like a Girl by Iris Marion Young
  • "Bound Feet and Western Dress" by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang
  • "ain't i a woman" by bell hooks
  • "Feminism and Men: Reconstructing Gender Relations" edited by Steven P. Schacht and Doris W. Ewing
  • "Woman On the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy
    Utopia fiction.
  • "Woman: An Intimate Geography" by Natalie Angier
  • "Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century" by Rosalind Rosenberg
  • "Cunt: A Declaration of Independence" by Ingo Muscio
    A wonderful (and rather famous) book about menstruation.
  • "Dragontime: Magic and Mystery of Menstruation" by Luisa Francia, translated into English by Sasha Daucus
  • "A History of Their Own" by Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser
  • "Women's Lives"
    An anthology of autobiographical works by more than 100 female feminist writers.
  • "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism" by Suzanne Pharr
  • "The Last Time I Wore a Dress" by Daphne Scholinski and Jane Meredith Adams
    A true story of the transgender experience.
  • Full Frontal Feminism
    A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters.
  • "Ahab's Wife" by Sena Jeter Naslund
    Inspired by the classic "Moby Dick", about the perspective of the fisherman's wife.
  • "1000 Acres" by Jane Smiley
    A woman-friendly version of Shakespeare's King Lear.
  • Anne Sexton's feminist retellings of fairy tales.
  • "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys
    Told from the perspective of Rochester's crazy wife in the book "Jane Eyre".
  • "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter
    feminist retellingsof several fairy tales.
  • "Kissing the Witch" by Emma Donoghue
  • "The Moon Under Her Feet"
    The story of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Mary Magdalane, which suggests that Christianity originally had deep roots in Paganism.
  • "The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation" by Janice Delaney, M. J. Lupton, and E. Toth.
  • "The Chalice and the Blade" by Glenna McReynolds
  • "The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism" by Zillah Eisenstein.

    List of Feminist Authors
    (Alphabetical by Last Name)

  • Maya Angelou
  • Margaret Atwood
  • Simone de Beauvoir
  • Susan Brownmiller
  • Judith Butler
  • Helene Cixous
  • Angela Davis
  • Andrea Dworkin
  • Susan Douglas
  • Susan Faludi
  • Marilyn French
  • Betty Friedan
  • Germaine Greer
  • Zora Neale Hurston
  • Luce Irigaray
  • Margaret Lawrence
  • Ursula K. LeGuin
  • Kate Millett
  • Adrienne Rich
  • Anne Sexton
  • Gertrude Stein
  • Gloria Steinem
  • Alice Walker
  • Naomi Wolf
  • Virginia Woolf

    See also Suggested Readings for Black Feminists


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