Feminists Don't Wear Pink (and other lies): Amazing women on what the F-word means to them

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I’m so thankful for the relative diversity of experience – it’s a decent specimen of intersectional feminism. I would however have liked to have heard more from trans women in particular. As a girl I went to a highly academic all-girls school in Oxford and I traversed my teenage years fed up of with feminism. The 'girls are better than boys' and 'down with the patriarchy' -flavored spiel that underpinned on average at least two of our three weekly assemblies really didn't sit right with me - the men in my life were lovely and there was never any suggestion that I would be any less successful than my male counterparts so what was all the fuss about? Coupled with the fact that I was surrounded by brilliant-minded girls, well on their way to academic and professional success, I don't think I ever really believed that sexism was a real issue in the UK. Simply put, I had a privileged upbringing.

i think this would be a wonderful book to have in school curriculums, to talk and share and discuss from a young age that it means to be a women or seen as feminin and why do many of those aspects are still seen as something negative and to be looked down upon instead of celebrated or at least simply accepted as something that’s okay to have/be. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge shortly after their Prince Louis’ birth. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA As a feminist who loves pink, I give this brilliant book of essays an enthusiastic "YES"" - Mindy Kaling I get (literally) cornered by two very drunk, older men while working. They ask me to join them after the event. I politely decline. They corner me in more tightly and ask again. I politely decline again. They keep pressing me for another 10 minutes. Eventually I catch the eye of the manager, who can clearly see how distressed I am. He does nothing. Finally, the men leave (bored of pestering and getting thirsty). My manager came up to me five minutes later and asked me "What's with the resting bitch-face?" I explain about the two men and he tells me that I should have agreed to go out with them. With a range of contributors, from Hollywood actresses to teen activists,writing about their personal experiences as women, Feminists Don't WearPink is Rebel Girls for a teen audience.However, if your feminism is solely motivated by how it benefits you then it's extremely fragile, as a) it only takes someone else with a conflicting experience to devalue it, and b) it makes you much more susceptible to acting only in favour of you and people like you, rather than recognising the challenges facing people who are different - challenges where you may actually be part of the problem. I have to say that it did feel a bit repetitive at times, because the writings were organized in different collections, such as 'epiphany', 'anger', 'poetry break' and such (also I'm not a *huge* fan of poetry, but that's another matter altogether). As it's a collection, I loved some of the writings (especially those about lesser talked about topics), when I wasn't convinced by others. As 50 women contributed to this book, I wish some pieces had been longer, because they did feel a bit rushed at times, and I didn't get as much out of them as I did from others. Moreover, as I'm not new to reading about feminism, I feel like I only learnt something new from a minority of writing pieces, so that was a bit of a let-down, but the book isn't at fault in that! Like I said, I think it's a great introduction to feminism, but as I already knew quite a bit about that topic, I wanted to learn more new things and I didn't.

The book does feature an essay by a trans woman ( A Brief History of My Womanhood - Charlie Craggs) as well as an essay by a woman born without a womb ( If In Your Mind You Are Born A Girl - Tasha Bishop). However, I question the choice of placing their essays next to those of cis women singing about the intrinsic connection between periods and womanhood, with absolutely no context or analysis. It seems to frame the idea that "periods are solely a female issue" as equal to "periods are a human issue" - which it isn't (both in feminism and in general). Dalam kompilasi tulisan ini, Curtis membaginya menjadi beberapa bagian menurut efek yang mereka terima ketika mengenal kata "feminisme": Epiphany, Anger, Joy, Poetry Break, Action, dan Education. Di akhir, Curtis memberikan "sedikit" edukasi kepada pembaca mengenai sejarah gerakan feminisme. Cukup membantu untuk mereka yang menyangka bahwa gerakan ini muncul baru-baru ini. Padahal sudah ada seiring dengan Revolusi Industri yang pertama. this is a wonderful collection for a huge diversity of authors and voices and defiantly a great read for teens that need to understand why feminism is important and what it can mean and what it isn’t (the hate for any and all things male as do many many people believe feminism stands for). Unfortunately, it was just very hit and miss. Some of the writings just went over my head entirely, leaving me sat there thinking “ok…but why did I just read that?” The end message of the book is to take action and push feminism and yet after reading, I’m still not sure how. Especially when a lot of the essays just repeated a lot of what’s shouted about on the internet already, so…what can I do beyond that? I don’t know. Was I meant to know after reading this? I think we’ve reached a point where, in balance to the super serious texts about gender equality, feminism and intersectionality, there are also a lot of books that are fun and funny, whilst also being informative. In contrast to those books this fell short for me.Readers beginning their feminist journey will find Claire Horn’s ‘A Short History of Feminist Theory’ especially useful, summarising as it does the movement’s origins, multi-stranded history and contemporary incarnations. Diverse, empowering, and united by a spirit of sisterly solidarity, these essays are a motivational, supportive rallying call to young women. This is frustrating for several reasons. For example, feminists (and women in general) do talk to their sons about sexism - perhaps now more than ever. If mothers (and why only mothers?) just talking to their sons solved sexism, I think we'd be a lot further on than we currently are. However, despite this I've still to this day been wary of putting my name next to any feminist material because of the man-hating, bra-burning stigma that so often seems to go hand in hand with descriptions of the average feminist. I don't hate men. I don't believe 'at home mums' should feel ashamed or like they are somehow lesser women for not having full-blown careers and I don't want to walk around bra-less, wearing tampons as earrings.

Published in partnership with Girl Up, the UN women’s foundation, Feminists Don't Wear Pink (and other lies) is an exhilaratingly empowering anthology of essays by 52 women written in response to the question: what does the F word mean to you? The contributors’ answers are as varied and individual as womankind itself, with the book innovatively divided into sections covering Epiphany, Anger, Joy, Poetry Break, Action and Education, followed by helpful Further Reading recommendations and rousing Last Words essays. Now I will just say, I’m not new to reading about feminism, and so that’s probably contributing largely to my disappointment in this book. I’ve heard a lot of what’s said in here before, and while it’s important to keep pushing these topics until something’s sorted, I was hoping for something more (hence my main interest coming from the intersectionality of this book). As an introduction to feminism, I do think this could be a fairly informative place to start, so maybe I was just the wrong audience for it *shrugs*About once a month, I find myself stretched out on the couch, helpless as my uterus reenacts Game of Thrones' Red Wedding in painstaking detail. I do not enjoy my period. I do not look forward to my period. I could wave goodbye to my period and still feel like a woman.