Your Syllabus for: Third Wave Feminism

Continuing on from last week's list of second wave feminism, here is your syllabus for third wave feminism. For those that don't know, third wave feminism started around the early nineties. Some say it's still going on, others say we've actually already entered into a forth wave around 2008 or so (some say it was around 2014ish. There's much debate). I have no idea if we are in the forth wave or not. I'm not in charge of deciding these things. I can tell you, I feel like there's been a bit of a shift of focus at least in books, these last few years. But I'm not sure if that means we're in a new wave of feminism. For the sake of this list I'm doing feminist books published between 1990 and 2011. I'm going to do a final list next week that wraps up all the more recent feminism books. I'm doing this because in the last five years or so, there has been a huge boom in feminist non-fiction and I don't want to miss any due to post length.

The Beauty Myth">The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Revolution by Barbara Findlin and others

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Tortall series and the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler

Women Who Run With Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archtype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes-Note, the Our Shared Shelf group is reading this now for book club, if you decide pick it up and need to discuss it.

Earthseed series (and other things) by Octavia Butler

Fun Home and The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought by Beverly Guy-Shefthall and others

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks (and honestly read all the rest of her books too.

Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism by Daisy Hernandez

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

In the Time of Butterflies (and others) by Julia Alvarez

Daughter of Fortune (and other books) by Isabel Allende

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future by Jennifer Baumgardiner

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Feminity by Julia Serano

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins by Emma Donaghue

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti-Any Valenti book is probably going to be a good look into third wave feminist thought, but this is one that put her on the map.

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape by Jacklyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti

Half the Sky: Turning Opression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine by various authors (Bitch is a great feminist magazine out there for those that don't know.

Persopolis comic by Marjane Satrapi

Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory: Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Feminism and Pop Culture by Andi Ziesler

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins

Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work is Done by Susan J. Douglas

Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists by various authors

Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion by various authors


Some books published recently dealing with third wave feminism:

We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to Covergirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement by Andi Zeisler

This deals a lot with the 90s and 00s. If you're looking for a peak at what was going on in the world during this time, this is a good book to look into.

Next week: Modern Feminist Books