Feminist Book List

• "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan
• "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf
  • Naomi Wolf is a controversial feminist, however her book The Beauty Myth has been highly recommended for it's discussion of body image.
• "Real Beauty" by Kaz Cooke
• "Revolution from Within" by Gloria Steinam
  • About recovering creativity.
• "Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation" by Barbara Findlen
• "Feminist Fairy Tales" by Barbara G. Walker
• "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver
• "Women, Sex, and Desire" by Elizabeth Davis
  • Excellent for a better understanding of menstrual cycles and predicting them.
• "To Be Real" by Rebecca Walker
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• "Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" by Maragaret Atwood
• "The Edible Woman" by Maragaret Atwood
• "Surfacing" by Maragaret Atwood
• "Cat's Eye" by Maragaret Atwood
• "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
• The autobiography of Audre Lorde
• "The Story of Avis" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
• "The Body Project" by Joan Brumberg
• "Hamlet's Mother and Other Women" by Carolyn Heilbrun
• "Writing a Woman's Life" by Carolyn Heilbrun
• "Towards a Recognition of Androgyny" by Carolyn Heilbrun
• "Feminism Unmodified" by Catherine MacKinnon
• "Reasonable Creatures" by Katha Pollitt
• "The Mismeasure of Women" by Carol Tavris
  • Subtitled, "Why women are not the better sex, the inferior sex, or the opposite sex."
• "Aren't Women Human?" by Dorothy Sayers
• "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone
• "Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls" by Myra and David Sadker
• "Personal Politics" by Sara Evans
• "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen" by Kates Shulman
• "The Women's Room" by Marilyn French
• "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown
• "Bitter Ice" by Barbara Kent Lawrence
• "Women Without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters" by Annie Laurie Gaylor.
• "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
• "The Politics of Reality" by Marilyn Frye
• "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft
• "The Victim of Prejudice" by Mary Hays
• "Ruth Hall" by Fanny Fern
• "The Madwoman in the Attic" by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
• "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrisson
• "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir
• "Storm Clouds Over Party Shoes: Etiquette Problems for the Ill-Bred Woman" by Sheila Norgate
• "Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves" by Sarah B. Pomeroy
  • An academic explaination of the roots of homophobia, misogyny, infanticide, and classism through a presentation of the religious, social, and legal structures of ancient Greece and Rome.
• "Fire With Fire" by Naomi Wolf
• "Glass Town" by Lisa Spaar
  • An exploration of eating disorders and adolescence.
• "Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media" by Susan Douglas, a contributor to Ms. magazine.
• "From Reverence to Rape: The teatment of Women in Movies" by Molly Haskell
• "A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960" by Jeannine Bassinger
• "SchoolGirls" by Peggy Orenstein
• "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape and Femininity" by Susan Brownmiller
• "Backlash" by Susan Faludi
• Essays by Candida Royalle
• "Myths of Gender" by biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling
• "The Lenses of Gender" by psychologist Sandra Bem
• "Gender Shock" by Phyllis Burke
• "The Gender Knot" by Allan Johnson
  • Intro to radical feminism 101.
• "Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings" by Miriam Schneir
• "Letters to a Young Feminist" by Phyllis Chesler
• "Bound Feet and Western Dress" by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang
• "ain't i a woman" by bell hooks
• "Feminism and Men: Reconstructing Gender Relations" edited by Steven P. Schacht and Doris W. Ewing
• "Woman On the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy
  • Utopia fiction.
• "Woman: An Intimate Geography" by Natalie Angier
• "Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century" by Rosalind Rosenberg
• "Cunt: A Declaration of Independence" by Ingo Muscio
  • A wonderful (and rather famous) book about menstruation.
• "Dragontime: Magic and Mystery of Menstruation" by Luisa Francia, translated into English by Sasha Daucus
• "A History of Their Own" by Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser
• "Women's Lives"
  • An anthology of autobiographical works by more than 100 female feminist writers.
• "Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism" by Suzanne Pharr
• "The Last Time I Wore a Dress" by Daphne Scholinski and Jane Meredith Adams
  • A true story of the transgender experience.
• "Ahab's Wife" by Sena Jeter Naslund
  • Inspired by the classic "Moby Dick", about the perspective of the fisherman's wife.
• "1000 Acres" by Jane Smiley
  • A woman-friendly version of Skakespeare's King Lear.
• Anne Sexton's feminist retellings of fairy tales.
• "Wide Sargasso Sea" by Jean Rhys
  • Told from the perspective of Rochester's crazy wife in the book "Jane Eyre".
• "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter
  • feminist retellingsof several fairy tales.
• "Kissing the Witch" by Emma Donoghue
• "The Moon Under Her Feet"
  • The story of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Mary Magdalane, which suggests that Christianity originally had deep roots in Paganism.
• "The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation" by Janice Delaney, M. J. Lupton, and E. Toth.
• "The Chalice and the Blade" by Glenna McReynolds

Also, be sure to check out Seal Press Feminist Publications.