Cristen Conger

Unladylike is very well designed and very long, and it has many one-page informative biographies of crusaders for women's rights who have not fallen out of favor with young feminists for one reason or another. I felt that it would have been okay to include a biography of, say, Margaret Sanger, who has arguably accomplished more for equal rights than anyone, and qualify it with information about her views on eugenics.

Since the book is loaded with the very latest terminology, it could really use a glossary. I consider myself a feminist but found a great deal with which to disagree, but the book is nevertheless a fair field guide to what young feminists are thinking these days. My problem with third wave feminism (or are we on the fourth?) is that feminism now seems to be comprised of two things:

First and foremost, you must use the latest in vogue terminology or be damned and shamed. I am not sure who is coining language that is mandatory for all progressives, but the terms are coming from somewhere, and if the Powers That Be settle on a universal gender-neutral pronoun such as ze next week, you'd better be prepared to adopt it.

Proper verbiage is far more important than whether you are doing anything at all to advance feminism other than to push your personal brand and to label it feminist and amass as much wealth and attract as many eyeballs as you can.

Second, every individual's right to define feminism for herself is sacrosanct. If you feel empowered by what you're doing, it doesn't matter whether it advances the cause of women's rights or not. For example, you are an "empowered sex worker" even if an abusive pimp gets most of your earnings, as long as you claim to be an empowered sex worker on social media.

One new feminist term covered in the book is "c-section shaming." Here's a great new feminist cause. A third of birthing women in the U.S. are getting surgical births at the hands of a powerful, rich, male-dominated profession, and non-white women are getting surgical births at far higher rates than white women. Whose side are the latest wave of feminists on? The side of the male-dominated profession, as long as women feel empowered under the scalpel. As long as they believe they are making a choice and controlling their destiny. When do birthing women start to feel less empowered as a group? At a 40% cesearean rate? How about 50%? Black women in some parts of the country are already there.

Unladylike pulls every feminist idea out there into an attractive and colorful graphic, including the Free the Nipple movement (while simultaneously griping about the Male Gaze) but it's shallow on analysis, selective on history, and political action is left until the very end.… (plus d'informations)