Carol Hay (1)

In this short book, Carol Hay gives us a sense of the history, terminology, and philosophical basis of feminism as a study and a way of life.
I learned about oppression, defined as one group exploiting another; about the ways that sex and gender are social; about how pervasive patriarchy is in its effects on both men and women; about how sexism, racism, colonialism, and other oppressions combine with history and personality in complex ways so that there is no one way to be a woman in the world today, and much more.… (meer)

This is a good book with clear information for those not knowing a lot about feminism and those who are stupid about where the world is today (e.g. rape culture and understanding what gender nonconforming means). But it’s sad that not a lot seems to have happened besides intersectionality in the feminist sphere; I mean the biggest quote blocks in here are from freaking John Stuart Mill.

So I guess it’s good for newbies to feminism, although note that there’s a pretty extreme heterosexual bent. But for me this quote is one of the most depressing I’ve ever read: “The sisterhood might not ever band together to topple the heteropatriarchal world order in the way other oppressed groups have, but we’re still a force to be reckoned with.”… (meer)