Review: Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

Full Frontal Feminism

Jessica Valenti
Published by Seal Press 2007
Genre: Non-fiction, Feminism

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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 propagated as founder of the popular website, Feministing.com.

This revised edition includes a new foreword by Valenti, reflecting upon what’s happened in the five years since Full Frontal Feminism was originally published. With new openers from Valenti in every chapter, the book covers a range of topics, including pop culture, health, reproductive rights, violence, education, relationships, and more.

POSITIVE THOUGHTS

• This book is the perfect introduction into what feminism is and what it means to be a feminist. Of course, everyone can take it as far ar he/she wants, and that's totally fine, but this book just provides the basic things that feminism deal with. And it is specifically written for young women, which you can derive from the language the author used. She talks to the reader as if we are her girl friends. Which I thought was fine, I found her quite funny and times, but I suppose some readers might find it a bit annoying.
• I loved how this book covered everything but not in great detail. When you just want to know more about feminism in general, this is exactly what you need. It questions how things are done in society and it questions how we think about women. The author does use a very strong voice to sort of persuade the reader into becoming a feminist, but personally I didn't find that disturbing at all. But maybe that's because I already was a feminist when I read it and I already agreed with everything anyway.

NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

• What annoyed me was that, of course, this book is very centred on the US and all the examples of laws or research or any specific things are US only, which of course isn't all that relevant to me. I do understand that feminism has to be spread world-wide and that every feminist should feel that way, but it's just the plain truth that I'd rather be interested in reading about unfairness that happens, for example, in my country. Maybe even just Europe, that would already hit a bit closer to home. Not that I don't think it's absolutely terrible and unfair that all these things are really going on in the US. It's just a disadvantage for a reader who doesn't live in the US. 

Do you consider yourself a feminist? Would you consider reading books on feminism?