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Jun. 4th, 2009 02:29 pmI've been reading Dale Carlson's Girls are Equal Too, an American feminism-for-teenagers book from 1973. While it talks a lot about structural and material discriminations, its focus is mostly on highlighting how gender is constructed, and that the innate rubbishness of girls is not actually a fact.
While it's perfectly true that you have excellent legs for standing or running on and an able mind to think with, avoid using them at all costs. Use only the hands, to clap with. And when you get tired of clapping for your boyfriend or eventually your husband, don't worry. You can always have sons and clap for them. (Not your daughters, however. Remember, they, too, have to learn to be stupid, inferior, and passive.)
( Some vague half-thoughts. )
Girls are Equal Too is the earliest feminism-for-teenagers book I've looked at so far. My favourite, probably, is Feminism for Girls: An Adventure Story, a British collection from 1981.
( Feminism for Girls: An Adventure Story. )
I'm not aware of any particular youth texts from pre-second wave eras at all. They really form a key part of later feminisms, proliferating in the 1990s, and starting to be written much more by actual girls/young women instead of by older women.
I didn't ever read a book like this when I was growing up, and I don't think I know of anyone who became interested in feminism in this way. Conversations with people on lj mostly seem to have people reading things like The Female Eunuch or The Second Sex, rather than anything particularly for young people. I don't really know how useful/effective I think they are - if there is actually a need for what are essentially recruitment/evangelical texts. I certainly have problems with how they try to sell feminism to people, and what is considered acceptable to jettison in order to have a smooth, glossy mass-market appeal.
While it's perfectly true that you have excellent legs for standing or running on and an able mind to think with, avoid using them at all costs. Use only the hands, to clap with. And when you get tired of clapping for your boyfriend or eventually your husband, don't worry. You can always have sons and clap for them. (Not your daughters, however. Remember, they, too, have to learn to be stupid, inferior, and passive.)
( Some vague half-thoughts. )
Girls are Equal Too is the earliest feminism-for-teenagers book I've looked at so far. My favourite, probably, is Feminism for Girls: An Adventure Story, a British collection from 1981.
( Feminism for Girls: An Adventure Story. )
I'm not aware of any particular youth texts from pre-second wave eras at all. They really form a key part of later feminisms, proliferating in the 1990s, and starting to be written much more by actual girls/young women instead of by older women.
I didn't ever read a book like this when I was growing up, and I don't think I know of anyone who became interested in feminism in this way. Conversations with people on lj mostly seem to have people reading things like The Female Eunuch or The Second Sex, rather than anything particularly for young people. I don't really know how useful/effective I think they are - if there is actually a need for what are essentially recruitment/evangelical texts. I certainly have problems with how they try to sell feminism to people, and what is considered acceptable to jettison in order to have a smooth, glossy mass-market appeal.
