by Samantha Scott
Daily Lobo
You are a feminist, according to author Jessica Valenti.
As executive editor and founder of popular Web site Feministing.com and author of a new introductory feminist text, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, Valenti has hard-core blogosphere fans and perhaps even more vocal Internet critics. While you can't judge a book by its cover, this cover was bound to trigger reactions within the feminist community. Beauty culture analysis and criticism are vital components of feminism; the Full Frontal Feminism cover art is a provocative photo of a flat Caucasian tummy, blurred with a slight halftone filter. The title is scrawled, as if in black Magic Marker, across the toned midriff. But I must shamefully admit I would have been less likely to pluck this volume from the shelf if its cover had been less aesthetically titillating or its title less suggestive; sex does sell.
Valenti has created a feminist primer that is much more likely to be embraced by younger readers. If you've taken even an introductory course in feminist theory, the extremely informal, slightly pandering tone of Valenti's feminist discourse is likely to prove a disappointment compared to more serious feminist writ. Full Frontal Feminism is liberally peppered with profanity and penned in a nonchalant yet recalcitrant spirit.
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Full Frontal Feminism begins by attacking gender stereotypes by examining the defamatory terms used in reference to the respective sexes and the common stereotypes of feminists. This entry-level feminist propaganda isn't intended to preach to the converted; these enticements are clearly intended to grab the attention of media-saturated, easily distracted teens and tweens. The necessity of using taboo words and profanity to lure the young reader is easily justified when dealing with an -ism that is constantly under attack by mainstream society. In order to imbue the f-word (feminism), which is commonly associated with terms such as butch, dyke or prude, with a sense of hipness and youthful rebellion, using this literary technique throughout this book seems a venial textual sin.
The succeeding chapters address beauty culture, classism, gendered violence, lookism, motherhood, patriarchy's effect on men, politics, racism, reproductive rights, romantic relationships, sexuality, the media, the working week and the three waves of U.S. feminism. Valenti is an engaging, if slightly white bread, feminist writer. Bloggers of color and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered bloggers have pointed out that while it is obvious that Valenti is attempting to accommodate others' experiences, she falls short in areas. Valenti definitely assumes a position of presumed heterosexuality. For example, she includes "Take birth control" in a to-do list for reproductive rights. A simple shift in language could have included other sexual orientations by changing those lines to "Have safer sex."
But I fervently hope that more copies of Full Frontal Feminism end up in junior high and high school libraries across America than whatever sex-ed primer is being touted in 2007 by federally funded, abstinence-only organizations, such as the Best Friends Foundation.
Full Frontal Feminism
Available now from Seal Press
Grade: B-
