Roxane Gay attempts the impossible with her impressive The Portable Feminist Reader. All the major writings of feminists show up here, both historical and contemporary. The Portable Feminist Reader includes 65 impactful thoughts on women, feminism, and the state of our culture. Can one book summarize the condition of Feminism in the 21st Century? The Portable Feminist Reader is about as good as it is going to get.
It would be hard to imagine a more thorough survey of feminism. Roxane Gay includes classic pieces like “On Women’s Right to Vote” by Susan B. Anthony and less well known pieces like “The Black and White of It” (from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases) by Ida B. Wells.
I was most intrigued by the SEXUAL POLITICS essays starting with “Manifesto of the 343 Sluts” by Simone de Beauvoir. Roxane Gay also includes the famous “If Men Could Menstruate” by Gloria Steinem.
My only quibble is the paucity of thoughts about the future of feminism. Trump and his minions are waging war on DEI and that will spill over to women’s rights. What can women do to protect the rights they’ve fought for? We’ll find out… GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Roxane Gay — ix
A Note on the Text — xvii
THE PORTABLE FEMINIST READER
Part I: Laying a Foundation
“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” by Kimberlé Crenshaw — 3
“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh — 11
“Derailing for Dummies” by Unknown — 18
“No More Miss America” by Various — 31
“Feminism Is So Last Week” by Jessica Valenti — 36
“Women’s March Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles” by Various — 42
Part II: Early Feminist Texts
“Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex” by Henricus Cornelius Agrippa — 51
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies by Marie Astell — 55
A Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws concerning Women; Together with a Few Observations Thereon by Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon — 58
“Are Women a Class?” by Lillie Devereux Blake — 72
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman — 75
“The Higher Education of Women” by Anna Julia Cooper — 93
“On Women’s Right to Vote” by Susan B. Anthony — 111
“The Black and White of It” (from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases) by Ida B. Wells — 113
Part III: Multicultural Perspectives
“Under Western Eyes” by Chandra Talpade Mohanty — 123
“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?: Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others” by Lila Abu-Lughod — 143
“Why Do They Hate Us?” (from Headscarves and Hymens) by Mona Eltahawy — 151
“La Guera” by Cherríe Moraga — 160
“La Prieta” by Gloria E. Anzaldúa — 170
“Growing Up as a Brown Girl: My Chonga Manifesto” by Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez — 181
“I Am Woman” by Lee Maracle — 185
“Sovereignty of the Soul: Exploring the Intersection of Rape Law Reform and Federal Indian Law” by Sarah Deer — 190
Part IV: Feminist Labors
“The Laugh of the Medusa” by Hélène Cixous — 205
“The Politics of Housework” by Pat Mainardi — 211
“I Want a Wife” by Judy (Syfers) Brady — 216
“Women and the Myth of Consumerism” by Ellen Willis — 219
“A Question of Class” by Dorothy Allison — 226
“The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist” by the Guerrilla Girls — 248
“Men Explain Things to Me” by Rebecca Solnit — 250
Part V: Gender Considerations
“A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” by Donna J. Haraway — 257
“The Woman-Identified Woman” by Radicalesbians — 265
“Women Like Me” by Wendy Rose — 272
“We Are All Works in Progress” by Leslie Feinberg — 274
“Girl” by Alexander Chee — 284
Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein — 291
“Being Female” by Eileen Myles — 310
“Volcano Dreams” by Gabrielle Bellot — 315
Part VI: Black Feminism(s)
“The Combahee River Collective Statement” by Various — 323
“Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex” by Angela Y. Davis and Cassandra Shaylor — 334
“The Uses of Anger” by Audre Lorde — 356
“Holding My Sister’s Hand” by bell hooks — 366
“In the Name of Beauty” by Tressie McMillan Cottom — 381
“The Problem with Sass” by Brittney Cooper — 399
“The Meaning of Serena Williams” by Claudia Rankine — 404
“Black Girls Don’t Get to Be Depressed” by Samantha Irby — 412
Part VII: Sexual Politics
“Manifesto of the 343 Sluts” by Simone de Beauvoir –419
“Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” by Gayle S. Rubin — 427
“The Sexual Geopolitics of Popular Culture and Transnational Black Feminism” by Janell Hobson — 448
“Rape Joke” by Patricia Lockwood — 454
“If Men Could Menstruate” by Gloria Steinem — 458
“Assume the Position” by Patricia Hill Collins — 461
“Hooters Chicken” by Lizz Huerta — 495
“I Used to Give Men Mercy” by Terese Mailhot — 502
“Happy Hookers” by Melissa Gira Grant — 511
“Your Ass or Mine” by Virginie Despentes — 516
“To the Man Who Shouted ‘I Like Pork Fried Rice’ at Me on the Street” by Franny Choi — 525
Part VIII: Feminist Praxis
“Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health” by Greta Gaard and Lori Gruen — 531
“Gendered Geographies and Narrative Markings” by Mishuana Goeman — 537
“Slow” by Susan Stinson — 571
“Feminism and Disability” by Jenny Morris — 574
“Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability” by Susan Wendell — 583
“Sick Woman Theory” by Johanna Hedva — 589
“Making Space Accessible Is an Act of Love for Our Communities” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna- Samarasinha — 603
Part IX: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
“Sisterhood Is Powerful” by Susan Brownmiller — 609
“Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness” by Sara Ahmed — 625
Acknowledgments — 629
Suggestions for Further Reading/Watching/Seeing/Listening — 631
Credits — 645
History is an ongoing cycle of marginalized groups getting enough power to affront those at the top of the pyramid so that repression/oppression/repression starts anew…until the next wave of marginalized rises up. Depressing but essential accurate. As I’ve said before, I’m glad I’m old.
Deb, marginalized groups are going to have a Tough Time during this Trump era.
I have always been impressed with Roxanne Gay.
Patti, I’ve enjoyed Roxanne Gay’s books. THE PORTABLE FEMINIST READER must have been a massive project for her…and Gay did a great job!
I don’t know about feminism. I do know that I cringe with shame at the treatment women of all ages receive at the hands of society, government, their peers, and those with the Y chromosome. I try to offset that a little bit with my actions but that can never be enough.
Jerry, many times during an action movie, Diane will whisper to me: “They always kill the woman.”
I watch and listen to the infantile conversations of all of the women ogling the latest romance and romantasy titles at the bookstores (Pretty!!”) and I can’t help but be reminded of the “Time” magazine cover with a photo of Ally McBeal and the headline: “Is feminism dead?”
From the eighties through late late nineties I didn’t have a woman friend or woman I was dating who didn’t have strong feminist convictions. From the aughts on I’ve seen all of the younger women I interact with regress to an arrested adolescent mentality that is completely absorbed with childish pop culture. It’s pretty much impossible to meet a woman under the age of 60 who has a clue or care about where this country is headed, and don’t even get me started on men.
I’m convinced that you could strip women of every right they have right now and the all of them from middle age down would shrug without putting down their phones.
Byron, mass culture in the U.S. centers around social media and cell phones. The U.S. has become a narcissistic nation (Trump is the Prime Example) and “influencers” on the Internet warp the minds of the people who listen to them. There are so many cross-currents in our culture with education being attacked and devalued, the threat of Artificial Intelligence causing mass unemployment, and the fragility of romantic relationships.
Nonetheless, Byron, you’ve been hanging with the wrong people under 60. Or painting them all with a very broad brush.
George, it’s a lot easier to get stupid, resentful people to vote for a stupid, resentful candidate than it is to get the rest to realize how dangerous letting that voting bloc have its way is, even if the shallow neoliberal running against them might not be a vast-enough improvement. Getting in early to help better candidates helps, but voting defensively helps as well.
Todd, right now the Republicans are trying to redraw the voting maps in Texas to help Trump hold the House in 2026. There’s plenty of plans to “primary” sitting politicians who Trump views as “weak.” Clearly, the political strategy is to produce robots who will follow Trump’s Agenda without question.
The main target of DEI attacks, IMHO, is not black people or any other minority group, but women. That’s why Trump picked the misogynists poster boy, Pete Hegseth, President of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, as Secretary of Defense. The major threat to American men, in their mind, Iran “uppity” woman who doesn’t know her place. Believe me, if Hegseth had his way, The Handmaid’s Tale would be a documentary.
Jeff, the NY TIMES had a front page story yesterday about the havoc Hegseth is wrecking on the Pentagon. Our National Security is at risk with Hegseth’s shenanigans!
Deb and Jeff are right, if anything kind. DEI is all about every stupid scrap of chauvinism and reverting to whatever Drumpf thinks was marvy (including polluting the planet beyond recovery)…the almost likely downfall of Drumpfism in the wake for his lust for abusing women and younger teens can’t be sweeping enough, and the better Dems need more support in their neoliberal mire of a party.
Todd, the Democrats need to connect with voters. A 19% approval rate in the latest polls show how the Dems are considered losers by the voting public.
I’d like to see how the poll is conducted, though the number of Ds who aren’t speaking out at full volume is more than a shame.
I’ll be sure to order a gross of these and hand them out to every guy I know! When pigs fly!!!
Bob, you personify irony!
As a libertarian socialist, I encouraged the invite of libertarian capitalists to a discussion forum sponsored by the Progressive group at our campus, essentially about liberation movements…among the guests invited were members of the OFF OUR BACKS magazine collective, bell hooks (on campus that year but couldn’t come), Carol Moore (of DECENTRALIZE! among other projects), and Donald Lavoie, a libertarian capitalist of renown, a tenured prof there…he refused, on several grounds, any payment, but was gratified when we subscribed the campus library to the magazine LIBERTY with funds he declined, while also adding some other titles…
Just to depress myself further, I reminded myself of what killed hooks and Lavoie…his was pancreatic cancer at 50, hers kidney failure at 69. Perhaps it was something in the water in Fairfax County. As my age lies almost exactly on their median…
Todd, Western NY has high rates of thyroid disease, melanoma, and heart problems. No doubt due to environmental issues.