FemResThe Living Review

Media index

Media Representation CritiqueBooks

15
items
01

Books · Feb 2025

The Male Complaint: The Manosphere and Misogyny Online

Simon James Copland

A comprehensive analysis of the online manosphere and its relationship to contemporary misogyny. Copland examines how digital platforms have enabled the formation of misogynistic communities that blend historical male grievances with modern technological capabilities to create new forms of anti-feminist resistance.

02

Books · Jan 2024

Mean Girl Feminism: On the Performative Power of Whiteness

Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and GirlbossKim Hong Nguyen

A sharp deconstruction of contemporary white feminism, revealing how the performance of 'sass' and 'girl squads' serves to consolidate privilege rather than dismantle oppression.

03

Books · Mar 2023

Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide

Hawon Jung

Former AFP Seoul correspondent Hawon Jung provides a firsthand account from the frontlines of South Korea's feminist movement, documenting how tens of thousands of Korean women sparked a MeToo wave, ended abortion bans, fought spycam crimes, and shattered Western stereotypes of 'docile' Asian women. Named one of The Economist's Best Books of 2023.

04

Books · Mar 2023

Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women

Victoria Smith

A sharp work by feminist writer Glosswitch exploring why women in their forties and beyond seem to enrage almost everyone. In an era of identity politics, middle-aged women are portrayed as bigoted, entitled, and morally inferior. Smith traces history to reveal why this specific form of misogyny is so rampant today. Shortlisted for the 2023 Nero Book Awards.

05

Books · Sep 2022

Year of the Tiger

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's LifeAlice Wong

Alice Wong's memoir braids Asian American identity, disability activism, family, humor, media work, and community building into a personal archive of disability justice.

06

Books · Mar 2021

Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All

Laura Bates

A groundbreaking investigation into the online world of extreme misogyny, exposing how incel communities, pickup artists, and the broader 'manosphere' radicalize men against women. Bates reveals the dangerous real-world consequences of digital hatred and its impact on society as a whole.

07

Books · Jun 2020

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

Alice Wong

Edited by Alice Wong, Disability Visibility gathers first-person writing by contemporary disabled people, bringing disability culture, media representation, embodiment, law, art, and everyday life into public view.

08

Books · Sep 2019

Know My Name

Chanel Miller

In 2015, when Stanford University student Brock Turner sexually assaulted a woman known as 'Emily Doe,' this case became a symbol of unity for women across America. Because of the worst thing that happened to her, Emily Doe became one of the most famous women in the world - yet no one knew her real name. This all changed in 2019 when Chanel Miller revealed herself as 'Emily Doe' and published this memoir, telling her story as an act of reclaiming narrative identity.

09

Books · Sep 2017

Trap Door

Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton

This anthology examines the paradoxes of trans visibility in art, museums, media, performance, and cultural production.

10

Books · Aug 2014

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay

A collection of essays that explores the complexities of contemporary feminism with humor and honesty, acknowledging that feminists can be contradictory and imperfect.

11

Books · Nov 2013

Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

Lila Abu-Lughod

Lila Abu-Lughod dismantles the rescue narrative that turns Muslim women into a uniform victim class and uses their suffering to authorize war, humanitarian intervention, and moral superiority.

12

Books · Oct 2007

Mothers, Monsters, Whores

Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry

Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry analyze how violent women in global politics are explained away through gendered stories of motherhood, monstrosity, or sexuality.

13

Books · Jan 1991

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

Susan Faludi

Susan Faludi's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning work deeply analyzes the 1980s American backlash against feminist progress, revealing how media, culture, and politics collaborated to create the myth of 'women's unhappiness.'

14

Books · Jan 1990

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf's 1990 classic feminist work reveals how the 'beauty myth' in modern society has become a new mechanism of social control used to restrict women's freedom and development.

15

Books · Jan 1990

The Beauty Myth

Naomi Wolf

Exposes how beauty standards have become a new tool for controlling women, analyzing the impact of consumer culture on women's bodies and psyche.