Review & Giveaway: Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

Despite my review fatigue at the moment, I knew within two pages of starting Full Frontal Feminism that it was going to be the kind of book that I would want to give to everybody I know for at least the next year. I will admit this is mostly due to how much Jessica Valenti swears in it, but because the swearing totally reinforces her points rather than clouding them in gratuitous bad language.

I've always identified myself as a feminist to greater and lesser degrees - it started off as backlash against growing up among Catholics who thought my ambitions weren't important as I'd only be working till I had kids anyway so why bother even having aspirations? (Just to clarify, I'm not talking about my family here, who are kick-ass, but just random others...) I have to say part of me hates myself for liking the idea of staying at home with Benji, and how much I like cooking and want to earn my living through crafts, but then another part of me understands that it's fine for me to make those decisions, because, and here's the most important thing, I am making them for myself, not having them made for me.

Full Frontal Feminism is pretty much an answer to all those people who say things like 'oh but we don't need feminism anymore, because women are equal now'. Just to clarify, they aren't. Really, really aren't, and if you want all the statistics and information about just how much they aren't, you should be reading this book. I will say that it's very U.S centric, but just because things seem to be a lot more extreme over there, doesn't mean that we don't have a lot of the same problems over here in the U.K. and they aren't just problems for radicals and man-haters, they are problems that all women need to be thinking about and engaging with so we can keep making the world a better place for us and our kids.

I liked the message of the book, which is basically that you should always be aware of your motivations for doing things so that you know when you're doing them for other people or because society expects you to, rather than because you want to, and that we can help make things better and that it's pretty easy to get involved.

Some bits I particularly liked:
"Don't diet. Fuck them and their bullshit beauty standards. Eating can be a powerful act when the world wants you to disappear"
"You're not too fat. You're not too loud. You're not too smart. You're not unladylike. There is nothing wrong with you"
"Shouldn't getting married be about, well, the marriage rather than the party?" (YES!)

• There's a group in America who released a study which says if you have sex before you're 18, you're more likely to be poor and divorced.... Just wow.
• Many interesting points are made about how society defines masculinity and how much pressure there is on men to 'be men' (angry wrestler noise). I hadn't really thought about it all that much before but actually I've known people in the past who are seriously messed up because of how hard they're trying to 'be real men' and 'not be girly'.

I don't want to rant on too much. There is some seriously interesting and important stuff in this book about rights women should (and often don't) have and about safety issues and suchlike and I can't really do Valenti's writing justice, but if you are at all interested in living in a world where women and men actually are equal and nobody thinks they're entitled to more than anybody else for purely anatomical reasons, you should be reading this book.

Which is whyyyyyy...... I'm hosting what will very probably be my last giveaway for a while! You can have your very own copy of Full Frontal Feminism, as long as you live in a country which The Book Depository ships to! Just fill in the form and spread the word! :-)
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