It’s Women’s History Month (and International Women’s Day tomorrow) which has got me to thinking about the shoulders of the giantesses that we stand upon. I think, in the current climate, we’re sometimes hasty to dismiss ‘outdated’ feminist ideas and texts, or tear them apart with the benefit of new knowledge and hindsight, without balancing those criticisms with respect for the barriers that they knocked down or the subsequent revolutions they inspired. So, here’s a look back at some classic feminist books that, yes, have been superseded with better and more inclusive texts, but still helped form the foundations of feminist thought today.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë was once told by Robert Southey that “literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life: and it ought not to be”. She sure showed him! Jane Eyre is a blatant proto-feminist call to arms. Brontë doesn’t even try to hide it in layers of metaphor, like so many other writers of the time. She literally tells us, through Jane, that she thinks women are equal to men and it is absolute bullshit that they aren’t treated as such. She has since been called the “first historian of private consciousness”, and she was one of the first to explore classism, sexuality, religion, and feminism in fiction the way we do today. Read my full review of Jane Eyre here.
Of course, any contemporary reading of Jane Eyre as a feminist text should be accompanied by Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys’s retelling of the classic feminist book from the perspective of the “mad wife in the attic”.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins
One of the first classic feminist books to illustrate the ways women are controlled and oppressed through the mechanisms of a patriarchal society was The Yellow Wallpaper. Styled as a series of journal entries by an unnamed woman, the story depicts her physician husband’s “treatment” of her “temporary nervous depression [and] slight hysterical tendency”. Confined to her room, isolated and forbidden from working, the narrator slowly descends into true madness, the “cure” proving worse than the disease. It’s a powerful metaphor that, looked at from a distance, still rings true today.
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex was once so controversial, full of ‘dangerous’ feminist ideas, that it was banned by the Vatican, and censored in Francoist Spain – so you know it must be good! In this 1949 treatise, existentialist philosopher de Beauvoir explores the treatment of women throughout history to her present day. She posits that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, a thesis that we’re still debating today. It’s one of the foundational feminist books of the 20th century, that went on to inspire countless others (including a few on this list).
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings depicts a radical transformation, from a nervous young girl subjected to racism and abuse to a self-possessed young woman with hope and determination. At many critical junctures, books and literature provide solace to Angelou, and it’s through the power of the written word that she reclaims her own agency and makes sense of her bewildering world. It’s a powerful coming-of-age story, especially for fellow bookworms, and it’s still widely read as a classic text of intersectional feminism. Read my full review of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings here.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood challenges readers to look at what would happen if casually misogynistic attitudes (prevalent in the ’80s, at the time of writing, and sadly still today) were taken to their logical extremes. Atwood has also famously said that nothing in her speculative fictional world of Gilead hasn’t already happened at some point in human history; contemporary critics have pointed out that it was/is often women of colour who bore the brunt of this maltreatment, an aspect markedly absent from Atwood’s novel. Still, there’s a reason this book re-surges on the best-seller lists whenever a misogynist is elected to an office of power. Read my full review of The Handmaid’s Tale here.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Color Purple is a testament to the strength and power of relationships between women, especially Black women. It is through her relationship with Shug, and her persistent belief in the strength of her bond with Nettie, that the central character Celie is able to overcome the forces that oppress her. The women in her life are a salve to the wounds inflicted by men and their violence, as Celie herself is a salve to the wounds inflicted on the women she loves. It manages to be both moving and empowering, honouring the multidimensionality of Black women’s stories, making it an essential classic feminist book. Read my full review of The Color Purple here.
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
The Vagina Monologues has become something of a shorthand for strident contemporary feminism, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one of the classic feminist books worth reading. It’s an episodic play, first developed and performed by Eve Ensler in 1996. As the title suggests, it explores everything vagina-related, especially those topics that might make us squeamish: sex, body image, genital mutilation, reproduction, menstruation, sex work… As feminist Gloria Steinem says in her foreword: “On every page, there is the power of saying the unsayable,” (page xvi). Read my full review of The Vagina Monologues here.
All About Love by bell hooks
If you’re looking for more uplifting and empowering classic feminist books – less ‘look how terrible things are’, and more ‘here’s how we fix them’ – pick up All About Love. Feminist and cultural critic bell hooks offers “a proactive new ethic”, an expansion of our definition of love and a proposal for how we can use it to overcome the polarisation of a loveless society. She proposes “a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and for a nation”.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Most feminists have had at least a period of brief obsession with The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s only true novel, published just weeks before her own death by suicide. In addition to mirroring her own mental health struggles through those of her character Esther, Plath questions the role of women in society, and the constraints of gender roles for women in mid-20th century America. It’s practically impossible to read this book without, on some level, searching for insights into Plath’s real life and death. Still, for the sake of feminism, we should really try, because there’s a lot more to find there below the surface. Read my full review of The Bell Jar here.
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Building on the work of Simone de Beauvoir and other pioneering second-wave feminists, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1969. In it, she endeavours to describe and define “the problem that has no name”: the patriarchal institutions and mythology that kept women confined to the domestic realm and undermined their intellectual capacity for more. This classic feminist book “captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives”.
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