Fifty Shades of Feminism

by Lisa Appignanesi, Susie Orbach, and Rachel Holmes

Fifty years after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, have women really exchanged purity and maternity to become desiring machines inspired only by variations of sex, shopping and masochism - all coloured a brilliant neuro-pink?

In this volume, fifty women young and old - writers, politicians, actors, scientists, mothers - reflect on the shades that inspired them and what being woman means to them today.

Contributors include: Tahmima Anam, Joan Bakewell, Bidisha, Lydia Cacho, Shami Chakrabarti, Lennie Goodings, Linda Grant, Natalie Haynes, Siri Hustvedt, Jude Kelly, Kathy Lette, Kate Mosse, Bee Rowlatt, Elif Shafak, Ahdaf Soueif, Shirley Thompson, Natasha Walter, Jeanette Winterson - alongside the three editors.

• ISBN10: 1844089452
• ISBN13: 9781844089451
• Publish Date: 28 March 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 23 April 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Virago Press Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Not perfect but close, more thought provoking than thought providing it's 50 opinion pieces with other scattered snippets, quotes and some cartoons about feminism, some of them explore the elephant in the corner of 50 Shades of Grey but many of them just talk about their experience of feminism and what it is to be female in the 20th and 21st Century. Many of them are asking why it's so hard for some people to see that it's still necessary and that maybe, just maybe, we're walking into another series of problems instead of solutions.

The last quote: 'You can tell whether some misogynistic societal pressure is being exerted on women by calmly enquiring, "And are men doing this, as well?" If they aren't, chances are you're dealing with what we strident feminists refer to as "some total fucking bullshit".' by Caitlin Moran, resonated particularly with me. All of it opened up some thinking, some of which will take me a while to process.