Sex and Subterfuge

By Eva Figes,

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Sex and Subterfuge as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Figes argues that although women novelists did not directly challenge the rules of a patriarchal society, they challenged its assumptions by protesting the restrictions on women’s lives and severely criticizing the clergymen, enablers of the patriarchy. My favorite section of the book is her interpretation of the Gothic novels, which she calls the female equivalent of picaresque novels. Women, she points out, were not permitted to roam the world like Tom Jones, having adventures. Instead, these novels presented women, who, through no fault of their own, are imprisoned by evil men. Their adventures, as they find their way to safety…

From Mary's list on lovers of Jane Austen.

If you love Sex and Subterfuge...

Ad

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Want books like Sex and Subterfuge?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Sex and Subterfuge.

Browse books like Sex and Subterfuge

Book cover of A Room Of One's Own
Book cover of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
Book cover of Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,593

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 If you like Sex and Subterfuge, you might also like...

Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? By Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

Book cover of A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France

A Long Way from Iowa By Janet Hulstrand,

This memoir chronicles the lives of three generations of women with a passion for reading, writing, and travel. The story begins in 1992 in an unfinished attic in Brooklyn as the author reads a notebook written by her grandmother nearly 100 years earlier. This sets her on a 30-year search…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Jane Austen, World War 1, and the patriarchy?

Jane Austen 101 books
World War 1 937 books
The Patriarchy 85 books