Full Frontal Feminism

Like a 2.5. There were some good points and the conversational tone would probably be good for people just getting into feminism, but I found parts of it to be condescending and kind of against the whole right-for-you-not-for-me thing that I find so great about feminism.

I read this as I was trying to find an accessible introduction to feminism to give to my sister. On that point, this succeeded, however I found myself annotating the margins furiously because a lot of what Valenti says is incredibly problematic. She mentions not judging other feminists for how they choose to act as feminists, yet she criticises women who take their husband's surname. She complains about ableism (very briefly in chapter 13) but the entire book is littered with ableist slurs. She also comes across as very partisan - ‘don't fuck Republicans', she says, and whilst I agree with the sentiment it's alienating to young women who are republicans, often those who we really want to identify as feminists.

My biggest concern was that somehow, Valenti manages to make feminism an individualistic ideology. ‘Become a feminist because your sex life will improve! Feminism is cool!', but feminism is so much more than just that and this is what concerns me.

As introductions to though, this is a good one - just give it to your future feminist with a pinch of salt.