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I don’t even want to review this book, because it was fine, and I don’t want to dissuade anyone from reading it. You SHOULD read it. You SHOULD probably read more literature that specifically addresses the issues that women, the feminist movement, sex culture, and the economy as whole faces. You SHOULD read more literature on the issues that women face in different cultures, in different countries, in your OWN country but who have had a different background than you and face problems unique to their own culture, history, and socio-economic background. You should honestly question yourself and your female relationships within your family, your friendships, with your co-workers, and ask yourself how you could honestly support one another better, understand one another better, and ask how should these relationships be different than ones you have with men, how can they be, and should they be? Have you ever fought against the feminist title? Are you sick of people telling you what feminism is or isn’t?

And if you have done none of those things, that’s okay, and Bad Feminist is a great place to start. I have been lucky and privileged to have taken classes on feminism, to have grandma’s and great grandma’s that have had honest and frank discussions with me in their own ways about their personal histories as a working women, or with their own reproductive histories, and expectations they faced as mothers, sisters, and women. I am privileged that I married into a family that also respects education, my husband’s grandma was the woman that gave me the book that started my own personal journey as a labeled feminist, because really, I was a feminist before that and I just didn’t own it. (Gail Collins, American Woman by the way). I was privileged to be in the United States Army, and I am privileged that I can now look back on that time and when I was 17 and in basic training with women from all over the country, and analyze our interpersonal dynamics. I am privileged that I have the luxury of time to look back on that and analyze it, and time to read more, and time and hopefully a future where I can do more for women.

And that’s why you should read Bad Feminist. It is a good starting point. I agree with almost everything that she says, I just personally didn’t care for the structure of the essays, I wanted MORE. I wanted so much more detail. But, it did open my eyes to several things that I want to investigate further through education, reading and reflection. Her essay on the “face of danger� was particularly strong, though I didn’t care for how it continued stylistically towards the end. I like her emphasis that there is no one way to be a feminist, there are thousands of ways, and there has to be because there are thousands of us. So you should read this, because its funny, and it is smart, and it’s a great conversation starter, and now I really want to play competitive scrabble, and maybe it will get all of us to think a little more, read a little more, and talk a little more (hopefully with empathy and understanding) with one another.

PS I recognize the irony of wanting more, when Gay specifically talks about how we "demand all things" of feminists. Alas.