Tag: Feminism

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Reader, I devoured this book on my road trip to visit my in-laws over Mother’s Day weekend. It is, as the author admits, something of a ridiculous novel: a contemporary of Jane Eyre’s contemplates the similarities between their lives even as she herself, the titular Jane Steele, solves problems by means of murder, and finds …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/05/15/jane-steele-by-lyndsay-faye/

The Just City by Jo Walton

I love so much how my experiences with Jo Walton’s books just get better and better. I spent the climactic scene of The Just City with one hand clutched to my breast, knowing something terrible was coming and feeling a kind of horror and relief when it finally did — horror because it truly was …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/08/30/the-just-city-by-jo-walton-2/

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

I completely abused the Highlight function on my Kindle when reading this book. A vital, sensitive exploration of her childhood and youth, heading into maturity and fame, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl is written by Carrie Brownstein (and ONLY Carrie Brownstein) with a wit and honesty unusual for the vast majority of celebrity memoirs. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/01/05/hunger-makes-me-a-modern-girl-by-carrie-brownstein/

Treatise on the Diseases of Women by Lydia Estes Pinkham

Fascinating insight into the world of medicine and health at the turn of the 20th century. Lydia Pinkham was certainly a pioneer in her frank discussions with women regarding their health. Essentially a collection of the advertising material created for her medicines, this book presents the most up-to-date (for the time) science regarding women’s health …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/treatise-on-the-diseases-of-women-by-lydia-estes-pinkham/

One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville

So how to describe this book without devolving into a slew of Personal Issues that had me sobbing so hard at points in the book that I had to set it aside and just cry from the relief of knowing that someone, somewhere, experienced the same pain and came out intact and even, dare I …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/one-life-my-mothers-story-by-kate-grenville/

St Joan Of Arc by V Sackville-West

What student of English literature hasn’t felt the slightest prurient interest in the personal lives of the Bloomsbury group? My fascination with Vita Sackville-West stems, of course, from her role as muse to Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, but I found her own novel, All Passion Spent, to be tedious rather than reflective. But here in this …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/10/03/st-joan-of-arc-by-v-sackville-west/

Stop Saying Vagina

A while ago now, I jokingly (sort of) declared a desire to create “Say Vagina Day”. It was a reaction to an apparent reluctance and distaste for speaking the word. New Zealand society mildly imploded in on itself when the word ‘vagina’ was spoken on a television commercial. Grown women appeared to be more comfortable …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/08/09/stop-saying-vagina/

Femininity by Susan Brownmiller

Like most works of feminist literature–and I have read quite a few–I can find little to argue with in this book. Brownmiller’s arguments make sense to me…but that is because I am a man, and as a man I can readily agree that functionality is superior to ornamentality, that reason is superior to emotion, that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2009/09/12/femininity-by-susan-brownmiller/