The best books on feminism (“not the fun kind”)

When I first read this book on feminist philosophy in the late 1980s, I was nervous about both feminism (because I wasn’t sure what it meant for me) and philosophy (because I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to understand it).

Marilyn Frye’s book helped me realize that I had been raised in a male-dominated and deeply sexist culture without knowing much about it, making feminism essential to my education. She also demonstrated that philosophy written in plain language was for everyone rather than an esoteric endeavor for specialists.

Frye was a scholar-in-residence at the university where I did graduate studies, and she sat in on our reading group. It was a real treat to sit across the room and hear her think out loud.

It’s a cliché, but the writing of Andrea Dworkin changed my life (often through painful internal struggle, but always for the better).

This is not her most well-known book, but this collection of essays and speeches was, for me, the most influential. Her speech “I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape,” delivered to a men’s group in 1983, helped me understand that radical feminism was not a threat to men but a gift.

A few years before she died (far too young, at age 58, in 2005), I had a chance to meet her, and in the few hours of a shared car trip, I felt the loving spirit that motivated her work. 

Audre Lorde was known primarily as a poet, but her essays were more engaging for me. She was fearless in confronting male dominance and white supremacy—and every other hierarchy that structures modern life—always with an awareness of the centrality of love and beauty in our lives.

Two of those essays that became classics in feminism—“Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” and “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”—were particularly influential for me and are as relevant today as when they were published in 1984.

She also died too young (at age 58 in 1992), and I have always wished I could have had a chance to see her speak.

I first encountered the feminist critique of the sexual exploitation industries (prostitution, pornography, stripping, etc.) in the late 1980s, my first step in learning to analyze our patriarchal society. It also helped me rethink my own life and commit to change. 

Sadly, the critique was rejected or ignored, not only by most people in the dominant culture but even by many feminists. This book came at a crucial time, bringing together activists, survivors, and scholars to challenge men’s sexual use and abuse of women.

I was proud to contribute a chapter, “Blow Bang and Cluster Bombs: The Cruelty of Men and Americans,” and I am grateful that one of the editors, Rebecca Whisnant, remains a colleague and friend. 

Many women continue to embrace a radical feminist perspective, and one of the important feminist writers today is the UK journalist and organizer Julie Bindel. Her reporting on sex trafficking has been essential to understanding the worldwide exploitation of women and girls.

She published this book in 2021 to restate the liberatory goals of feminism and critique the impediments created not only by conservatives but also by liberals. Bindel pulls no punches and takes no prisoners—she’s never afraid to confront the powerful and respond to her critics. One of the great experiences of the past year was being interviewed by Bindel for her podcast on men and feminism. Finally, Bindel reminds us that one of the biggest lies about feminists is that they have no sense of humor.