The portable feminist reader

The portable feminist reader

Book - 2025

"A dynamic and strikingly relevant look at a feminist canon as expansive rather than definitive. For Roxane Gay, a feminist canon is subjective and always evolving. A feminist canon represents a long history of feminist scholarship, embraces skepticism, and invites robust discussion and debate. Selected writings in this volume by ancient, historic, and more recent feminist voices include Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, Anna Julia Cooper, Kimberľ Crenshaw, Dorothy Allison, Leslie Feinberg, Eileen Myles, Mona Eltahawy, bell hooks, Sara Ahmed, Cher̕re Moraga, Audre Lorde, Guerrilla Girls, and many more. With an introduction, headnotes, and an inspired list of multimedia recommendations, Roxane Gay presents multicultural perspectives, ecofem...inism, feminism and disability, feminist labor, gender perspectives, and Black feminism. Through The Portable Feminist Reader, readers explore the state of American feminism -- its successes and failures, and what feminism looks like in practice -- as a complex, contradictory, personal and political, and ever-growing legacy of feminist thought" --

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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 305.42/Portable (NEW SHELF) Due Nov 21, 2025
Subjects
Feminism.
Féminisme.
feminism.
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
Published
[New York, New York] : Penguin Books [2025]
Language
English
Item Description
Place of publication from publisher's website.
Physical Description
xvi, 649 pages ; 20 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [631]-644).
ISBN
9780143110392
  • Introduction
  • A Note on the Text
  • The Portable Feminist Reader
  • Part I. Laying A Foundation
  • "Demargi'nalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex"
  • "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
  • "Derailing for Dummies" by Unknown
  • "No More Miss America" by Various
  • "Feminism is So Last Week"
  • "Women's March Guiding Vision and Definition of Principles" by Various
  • Part II. Early Feminist Texts
  • "Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex"
  • A Serious Proposal to the Ladies
  • A Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws concerning Women; Together with a Few Observations Thereon
  • "Are Women a Class?"
  • "The Yellow Wall-Paper"
  • "The Higher Education of Women"
  • "On Women's Right to Vote"
  • "The Black and White of It" (from Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases)
  • Part III. Multicultural Perspectives
  • "Under Western Eyes"
  • "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?: Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others"
  • "Why Do They Hate Us?" (from Headscarves and Hymens)
  • "La Guera"
  • "La Prieta"
  • "Growing Up as a Brown Girl: My Chonga Manifesto"
  • "I Am Woman"
  • "Sovereignty of the Soul: Exploring the Intersection of Rape Law Reform and Federal Indian Law"
  • Part IV. Feminist Labors
  • "The Laugh of the Medusa"
  • "The Politics of Housework"
  • "I Want a Wife"
  • "Women and the Myth of Consumerism"
  • "A Question of Class"
  • "The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist"
  • "Men Explain Things to Me"
  • Part V. Gender Considerations
  • "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century"
  • "The Woman-Identified Woman"
  • "Women Like Me"
  • "We Are All Works in Progress"
  • "Girl"
  • Gender Outlaw
  • "Being Female"
  • "Volcano Dreams"
  • Part VI. Black Feminism(s)
  • "The Combahee River Collective Statement" by Various
  • "Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex"
  • "The Uses of Anger"
  • "Holding My Sister's Hand"
  • "In the Name of Beauty"
  • "The Problem with Sass"
  • "The Meaning of Serena Williams"
  • "Black Girls Don't Get to Be Depressed"
  • Part VII. Sexual Politics
  • "Manifesto of the
  • "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality"
  • "The Sexual Geopolitics of Popular Culture and Transnational Black Feminism"
  • "Rape Joke"
  • "If Men Could Menstruate"
  • "Assume the Position"
  • "Hooters Chicken"
  • "I Used to Give Men Mercy"
  • "Happy Hookers"
  • "Your Ass or Mine"
  • "To the Man Who Shouted 'I Like Pork Fried Rice' at Me on the Street"
  • Part VIII. Feminist Praxis
  • "Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary Health"
  • "Gendered Geographies and Narrative Markings"
  • "Slow"
  • "Feminism and Disability"
  • "Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability"
  • "Sick Woman Theory"
  • "Making Space Accessible is an Act of Love for Our Communities"
  • Part IX. Looking Back, Looking Ahead
  • "Sisterhood Is Powerful"
  • "Killing Joy: Feminism and the History of Happiness"
  • Acknowledgments
  • Suggestions for Further Reading/Watching/Seeing/Listening
  • Credits
Review by Booklist Review

Noted cultural critic and essayist Gay (Opinions, 2023) assembles a new canon of more than 50 pieces of feminist work by renowned and lesser-known writers in this excellent, expansive collection. Acknowledging that canons are often static and invariably subjective, Gay argues the feminist canon is "always evolving" and hopes her selection launches "a vibrant and vigorous conversation about historical and contemporary feminist thought." She has certainly succeeded in choosing pieces by a wide array of intelligent and compelling voices, covering topics from sexual politics and gender roles to labor, ecofeminism, and disability politics. Split into nine sections, the works range from essays to poetry to manifestos; they are deadly serious, unsettling, and raucously funny. Readers will recognize iconic activists including Ida B. Wells, Gloria Steinem, and Angela Y. Davis; beloved literary figures like Audre Lorde and bell hooks; and contemporary writers such as Rebecca Solnit, Alexander Chee, and Samatha Irby. They sit alongside emerging writers including Franny Choi, Johanna Hedva, and Gabrielle Bellot. Readers will be engrossed by this dynamic and engaging collection.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

For Gay (Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business), feminism is a both/and proposition--something that defines her, even as she defies, denies, or denudes it. In her introduction to this collection of historical and recent feminist texts, she suggests that such complexity is woven into the stories people tell themselves about feminism and feminists. Designed to be an expansive--not definitive--feminist canon, the volume includes writings from various genres and authors of varied backgrounds. Highlights of the book include Kimberlé Crenshaw's "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex" and Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." The book also situates texts by widely recognized feminists, such as bell hooks, Gloria Steinem, Audre Lorde, and Angela Davis, alongside standout essays by less-0famous authors, such as Franny Choi's "To the Man Who Shouted 'I Like Pork Fried Rice' at Me on the Street." This book makes feminism urgent, perhaps more than ever before. VERDICT Worth picking up for Gay's introspective yet inclusive introduction alone, this new collection provides accessible entry points into feminism and offers even advanced scholars new ways of viewing the complex, intersectional histories of feminist thought, literature, and action.--Emily Bowles

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A compendium of feminist perspectives. Essayist, memoirist, and fiction writer Gay represents the history, scope, and challenges of feminism in a judicious selection of 65 pieces, some written by iconic feminist writers (bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Susan B. Anthony), others by collectives, and still others by lesser-known voices. Citing "dynamism" as her guiding principle, Gay has chosen works that are articulate, diverse, and hard-hitting. "I believe there is a feminist canon," Gay writes, "one that is subjective and always evolving, but also representative of a long, rich tradition of feminist scholarship." The pieces are grouped into eight thematic sections. Foundational texts include a statement of guiding principles for the 2017 Women's March; early feminist texts begin with 16th-century scholar Henricus Cornelius Agrippa's defense of women's superiority and includes Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Anthony's argument for women's right to vote. Other well-known pieces include Judy Brady's wry "I Want a Wife," a 1970 essay reprinted in the first issue ofMs. magazine; Rebecca Solnit's "Men Explain Things to Me"; and Gloria Steinem's "If Men Could Menstruate." There are also fresh surprises: "The Woman-Identified Woman," a manifesto written by six women calling themselves Radicalesbians, argues that lesbianism is central to feminist politics "as an identity of political, cultural, and erotic resistance to patriarchy." In "Girl," novelist Alexander Chee reflects on gender fluidity, remembering being mistaken for a girl when he was growing up and revealing the beauty he finds when he puts on drag. With its capacious perspective, the collection speaks to a range of feminist concerns, past, present, and future. As Gay notes, "women's bodies, movements, and choices are contingent on the whims of men in power. We have made progress but we are not yet free." A timely, spirited collection. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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