Feminists Don't Wear Pink (and other lies): Amazing women on what the F-word means to them

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Now I will just say, I’m not new to reading about feminism, and so that’s probably contributing largely to my disappointment in this book. Maybe it needed curating some more, or even just spread out in a slightly different way…but it quickly became a tad monotonous, which breaks my heart to say. She curated the Sunday Times bestselling Feminists Don't Wear Pink and other lies, which won the National Book Award 2018.

The Observer'Pick it up and read one story from your favourite columnist or actress, but I guarantee you'll end up reading the full, illuminating collection, and you'll possibly finish it knowing more about your own personal stance than you imagined. But some are anecdotes, some are fictional short stories, some are simply lists of thing, there’s a random poetry break halfway through…it made my brain hurt. It's a down-to-earth, funny, inclusive and non-judgmental exploration of what feminism means to many different people. This week on the Feminists Don't Wear Pink podcast, Scarlett Curtis meets actor Keira Knightley whose raw piece on childbirth in the book attracted so much attention last year when the media immediately pitted against the Duchess of Cambridge who gave birth on the same day. This book contains thoughts, essays and poetry from some truly motivational and frankly, fucking amazing women.

It seems to frame the idea that "periods are solely a female issue" as equal to "periods are a human issue" - which it isn't (both in feminism and in general). It was good to see how inclusive it was, but I would still very much recommend reading it with a critical eye (not that you shouldn't always do that). As mentioned before, the diversity is something I’m intensely glad for in this book, and it was definitely the topics relating to race, transgender experiences and lesser talked about topics (like FGM) that caught my attention. But, because periods don't affect men and we live in a deeply patriarchal world, they are shrouded in shame and apology. Stigma itulah yang coba untuk dikupas dan dibahas oleh beberapa aktivis kesetaraan gender dalam buku ini.

Feminists don’t wear pink (and other lies): Amazing women on what the F-word means to them is a selection of thought pieces written by 50 very different women, discussing feminism on their own terms. The content is modern and inclusive too, feminism is not exclusive to gender issues anymore; it its directly connected to issues of race, ethnicity, faith, sexuality and class.

Feminists truly believe that if we lived in a world without gender-based oppression, we'd all be so much happier - so, even if you're only joining for purely selfish reasons, we'd love to have you as part of the gang! It is still the absolute last thing I would recommend to newbie feminists for the main reason that a lot of these women didn't seem to know what feminism is themselves. But I do know one thing for sure: just because you identify as a feminist, does not mean your ideas are worth publishing. Some of the essays didn't even really seem to be directly about feminism at all, but rather on only tangentially related issues--for example, the reason why the cover of this book is a specific shade of pink.