Foray into Feminism: Recommended Reading

When I introduce myself as a feminist to many people, they don't exactly know what a feminist is. This is one in a series of posts about what it means to be a feminist and the basic principles and practices of many feminists today.

A couple months ago, a friend of mine (a male friend at that) asked me for some information about reading materials that could introduce him to feminism, asking, "I've always considered myself a feminist, but I realize I have no idea how it's formally studied or discussed, so I'm wondering where a good place to start would be." I am so glad he asked! And I am flattered that he asked me! I shared some of my favorite blogs and authors with him at the time, but I thought there might be more of my friends out there who want a firmer grasp on what it means to be feminist. Perhaps there are some people who would like to define their place in feminism and still others who want to know what it is that I get myself up to being a feminist.

You probably will start out reading online. Blogging is very important to modern feminism since new issues come up so fast and writers need a quick way to respond to news stories that may be portrayed in the media in a not-so-feminist light. Warning: feminist bloggers often blog for each other and other fledgling feminists, not for newcomers. You are going to read things right away that you don't totally agree with. I would recommend that right at the beginning, you don't comment on posts until you fully understand the vocabulary and premises that these posts are based on. If you still don't agree, comment away, but you know you have two ears and one mouth and you should always listen first.

To keep up to date with feminist news stories, I check feministing at least a couple times a week. Once you start digging into that site in particular you will find that modern feminism does not focus solely on women's rights, but has a big stake in LGBT rights as well. In fact, I find that feminism tends to examine all types of privilege in society, although it does focus on privileges related to sex and gender. Feministing profiles and interviews different people in the feminist community every week in a series called The Feministing Five. This will help introduce you to more feminist voices that you might find interesting.

I follow a few well-known feminists on Twitter. Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen, and Kate Harding, founder of Shapely Prose. Along with some other less active twitteristas, these two link me to articles everyday about what is going on in the world of feminism. They also retweet posts from other awesome feminists. I say this all the time, and I will say it again, I get more relevant information from Twitter than I would ever get from Facebook. A lot of that has to do with news stories relevant to my interests.

One of my favorite writers is Melissa McEwan, who manages to say so many things that I think and feel in a way more eloquent way than I ever could. Check out this piece that I come back to every couple of months. And check out this post on rape culture, in case you've never heard the term before or would like more eloquent descriptions of it. McEwan is, however, significantly farther to the left even than I am, so not every one of her posts is for me.

For a laugh, check out manboobz. This guy David Futrelle spends his time digging into men's rights forums and critiquing them. I usually enjoy it for a couple posts, but after reading for about ten minutes, I start to get really depressed that there are people out there who actually believe this stuff. I have no idea how he lives in that world every single day, but somebody has to do it.

For another laugh, but not very much commentary, check out not sexist, but... It's pretty hilarious, just Facebook statuses that include the words "not sexist but." They're pretty much always great.

Good luck and happy reading!