Beyond brilliant, this book displays a wide open view of the differences between what it should mean to be female and what it does mean. It's sometimes political, sometimes spiritual, sometimes crass, sometimes tear making, often causes me to spurt a giggle of random laughter.

From it's evocative title to it's well founded research I would recommend this book to anyone who is a woman, knows women, or is touched by their lives, births, hearts, etc. I won't be forgetting the wisdom and ideas found in these pages for a love time. ( )

I was ready to give this book two stars until I read the postscript. While I totally feel almost all of Muscio's points and consider myself to be fairly feminist and frustrated by our patriarchal society, I was a little turned off by the constant Goddess/womyn/bootcamp-style anger. If *I'm* turned off by that, imagine someone who isn't already a righteous, cunt-loving babe! I guess maybe we're at the point where only separatism and antagonism will make turn heads and create pockets of sisterhood and empowerment, but I don't really buy a movement succeeding by excluding. The PS tempers her original tone quite a bit, particularly by admitting her unintentional exclusion of transfolks, and felt like a welcome step back from the constant "MEN HAVE CONTROLLED US FOR MILLENNIA, NOW LET'S STOMP THEM!" vibe of the original edition. ( )

this is both entirely relevant and totally dated at the same time. i wish i had read it 20 years ago. even 15, when the way she wrote it wouldn't have irked me at all (the language and way she writes is annoying to me now, but not so bad that it interfered with my reading; but i do think it would turn people off, although i guess anyone that would be truly bothered by her use of "fucken" probably wouldn't pick up a book called cunt) and i was more into the radical ideas that she proposes, but that now actually seem mostly unrealistic in this world. that said, some of what she's talking about is still totally great and important. we're still told by corporations run by men that we should use "feminine hygiene" products to mask our natural scent and it's just as sexist now as it was then. etc. there are ideas here worth exploring, but like the book i just read before this one, it approaches gender in a way that is pretty transphobic (but like that book, was published in 1998 so needs to be updated because she'd probably want to respectfully adapt it). i feel like dr jen gunter on twitter is the natural progression of this book, but she's a doctor and has real stats and knowledge to back her up. (not that this grass roots approach isn't worthy as well.) the fact that we're still needing to talk about this stuff more than 20 years later just shows how radical it must have been at the time to put this book out at all.

it surprises me that she doesn't seem to take the position that most of what happens in prostitution is rape, and instead glorifies the prostituted woman. i certainly don't want to vilify her, but to goddess-ify her and talk only about her sexual power while completely ignoring the reality of what prostitution is for most women in the life (i.e. not a choice they'd freely make if they didn't have to) is surprising in the context of the rest of this book.

i'm mixed up about this. overall it's valuable but would have been more so had i read it closer to when it came out. even then, though, i wouldn't have agreed with all of it (like the whore section and her thoughts on the scum manifesto, for example). i think much of the messaging still needs to be out there, but in updated fashion. her writing can take a minute to get into, but her honesty and passion is obvious, and welcome.

a quote that i loved from Soraya Mire, about our society: "Men are the mirror."

an even better quote, from Anne Jardim: "The ceiling isn't glass, it's a very dense layer of men."

"Every iota of power women claim and use to the advantage of our sisters brings the destructive patriarchal age that much closer to its timely, timely, timely end." ( )

Excellent book, but she's really pissed off. I get tired of that brand of feminism sometimes. ( )

This is a pretty important book for a cisgendered heterosexual woman.

For everyone else...not so much.

The entire architecture of the book hinges on belief in the myth of binary gender. The second edition of the book has an updated chapter addressing the erasure of transgender people in the original edition. But it is apparent that Muscio isn't available to provide the measure of advice and resources for transgender women as she is for cisgender women. I recommend it, but think critically about what might be missing in messages of empowerment. ( )