Feministing's Jessica Valenti will be on with Stephen tonight -- she's one of us, more or less. It's so much harder to write this up when I'm already fairly familiar with the guest! Without going into too much background, Jess is the feminist blogger who dared bring her breasts along when she went to the meet-up with Clinton -- and if she reads this, she might hate that I brought that up, but if you only sorta kinda vaguely recognize her name, I bet mentioning that episode will clear things up.
She blogs at the group site Feministing (which I read most days, although I tend to skip the comments), and I found her in a couple other places as well. There's a whole lot of stuff around about her and her work, including a few interviews with 'real' media, but I didn't find any mainstream mention of her book, "Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters" But it could have been hidden in the blogospheric fog, because boy, has there been a lot of talk about that book. And the cover. I'll even skip over the existence of a lengthy subtitle, because that's so minor in comparison. Plus, it makes the point.
The book? She's called it her love letter to Feminism. From Amazon:
Feminism isn't dead. It just isn't very cool anymore. Enter Full Frontal Feminism, a book that embodies the forward-looking messages that author Jessica Valenti propagates on her popular website, Feministing.com.
Covering a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more, Valenti provides young women a primer on why feminism matters.
Valenti knows better than anyone that young women need a smart-ass book that deals with real-life issues in a style they can relate to. No rehashing the same old issues. No belaboring where today's young women have gone wrong. Feminism should be something young women feel comfortable with, something they can own. Full Frontal Feminism is sending out the message to readers — yeah, you're feminists, and that's actually pretty frigging cool.
I read it, and while I'm not it's target, I think it does a decent job of reaching out to a certain demographic. It's not universal, and some of the criticism of it is valid (without the vitriol, please), but baby steps... and there is a great bibliography in the back.
So, go Jess! Try not to drool on Stephen too much in front of the cameras. Complete sentences. Think in. Try real hard. And then write all about it for us to read tomorrow.
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