What are some good books about feminism? Positive or negative, fiction or nonfiction

what is to be done.
not the leninist tract

Watch Lena Dunham's hit TV series 'Girls'. It has taught me lots about Feminism and Male Privilege.

The obvious starter piece is The Second Sex by De Beauvoir.
It's excellent too.

weakness is feminine and we live in a gynocentric society. figure it out

holy fuck i hated this book.

"** spoiler alert ** There is quite literally ( I went through and checked) nothing remotely clever in this book that isn't immediately spelled out explicitly to the reader.

There are a handful of interesting images, dystopian curiosities, characterisations and other literary devices (nothing brilliant, mind) and for each are followed half a page deconstructing exactly why it's there.

I haven't got the book to reference but there's one moment in which the protagonist (forget the name), after her meetings with the Commander, speaks to him informally. Okay, she's representing changing relationships by tone of voice, it would be strange if she didn't, but then follow "you can tell from my tone of voice that we were on different terms". There are possibly hundreds of examples. Every so often are chapters, titled "night" which exist merely as a device for the protagonist to deconstruct the events and characters and changes in relationships of the proceeding chapters.

I estimate 40% at least of the text is the author analysing the book via the protagonists inner monologue. Some of you may say "she intentionally bores the reader to show how boring the environment is". Okay then.

Finally, it got to the point at which I thought there's nothing the author wants more than to shamelessly deconstruct the whole book. And then there came the last chapter. Reminder, the story ends ambiguously on whether the protagonist escaped to freedom or was captured. The author used a final chapter showing academics explicitly telling the audience (both in-story and in-reality) rhetorically how interesting this ambiguity is.

There were a couple of interesting things. The character of Janice, maybe. The isolation of the Commander. But nothing original. Open a random page (it works, I've tried it) and it will probably be one paragraph of juvenile device, and five paragraphs explaining it. A decent editor might not be able to make it a good book, but he could probably make it tolerable."

but in general I like feminist-lit more than most people. the execution IS very disappointing

The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir (nonfiction)
Magic book even if it stills classical. It can give to you a smooth welcome into feminism. Other autobiographical's books from Beauvoir can give to you a great insight of the female perspective of their experience.

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (fiction)
I would include this book here just because is an amazing book written by a very lucid woman. You have to read books written by women, just because so, you moron.

A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (nonfiction)
Virginia Woolf's book about women in literature and social life in general. Just because Virginia Woolf rocks.

King Kong Theory - Virginie Despentes (nonfiction)
Non academic but brutal sincerity about women existence in patriarchy society. It introduces you into some more modern terminology and problems.

Gender Trouble - Judith Butler (nonfiction)
Third wave best wave. The problem are the gender relations as class relations were (are) in marxism.

Countersexual Manifesto - Paul B. Preciado (nonfiction)
Well, this is a personal favourite about transfeminism that if you understand quite well the problem with gender, stablish a new epistemology about sexuality and gender itself.Total posmodernism.

Not any order in particular (avoid as soon as you can this way of approaching a subject), even the last two I guess are more contemporary, so maybe they can sound quite crazy if you are not related to the topic (specially the last one. it's crazy. it's perfect).

and of course and always, Foucault. Even if he doesn't writes about feminism, his approach to knowledge and power, and their relations, are essential (top kek) to understand how the gender relations works. Discipline and Punish, even if it looks hard at first, it becomes quite addictive and you will find you finishing it before you expected.

As always everyone should have in mind, this is my personal approach based on my interests and forms of knowledge.

I didn't even know it was possible to have spoilers within spoilers

tiqqun - preliminary materials
more about the consequences of capitalism

>I am against your desire to make things better than they are because things aren't good and it is that way, especially where I live.

How do I into feminist literature? Which essays and literature should I start with?

Feminist Frontiers is probably still the best intro to academic feminism you can find. Very approachable and covers lots of topics by lots of authors.

My favorite authors are Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Judith Butler probably.

this meme really triggers me. I get that she became famous and got a show greenlit because of her pretentious artsy film funded by her megarich parents that features many of the same actors, but girls as a show is such a great satire of rich "millennial" kids running around new york, if you got memed out of watching it I feel bad for you

why would you support a show made by a woman who raped her 5 year old sister

>not ignoring weakness is akin to wanting things to not get better

whoah lad

It's probably a lie she made up because she thought it was oh so quirky and edgy. She's a shit writer tho and it's hard to tell if she is doing satire or merely suffers from a total lack of self awareness. Here she is taking a 'selfie' with US war criminal Hillary Clinton

ouch you got me

Something by Schopenhauer

I watched an episode, and I thought it was funny, but I was legitimately unsure as to whether it was meant to be satire. In "All in the Family" you can very clearly tell (yet some people certainly couldn't at the time), but in "Girls", I have no idea.
For example there was this one scene where some characters were arguing over some literary trend, I think it had to do with self-inserts.
One black male character lists off like 8 authors generally considered great that did this one thing, and the main character responded, "You know what's wrong with your list? All white males."
Then she smirked and another character said, "She's got you there" while the rest of the characters nodded as if she was right.
I'm intensely confused by this scene. Is the show attempting to express that this is actually right, of that the argument is ridiculous? In many contexts satire is relatively obvious, although I admit some good satire isn't. However, in this context, I have no idea.

Please, stop this thing. To know Schopenhauer for his misogyny is like to know Frege for his antisemitism.

Oh, wait, you are the kind of person
who worship that features.