Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon has written a book It's A Jungle Out There. The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments. I read it with lots of enjoyment. Amanda is really very funny in the book, so despite it's depressing topic the book is not at all depressing. It's breezy and well written and takes us all on the kind of adventure a young feminist in Texas and then on a feminist blog might experience. Well, not just any young feminist, but someone like Amanda Marcotte. A warrior gal, though with the Mona Lisa smile.
The book packs an astonishing amount of information into its pages. It also mentions this blog in the Appendix which demonstrates Amanda's excellent taste.
I think the intended reader of Amanda's book, as also of the earlier book by Jessica Valenti (of the Feministing.com): Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters, is a teenager or young woman, one who is not sure if coming out as a feminazi is worth all the hassle and all those nasty attacks that an out-of-closet feminist still faces. Whether the books work for that particular audience is something I really cannot say, given my ancient standing as a feminazi of the highest degree. But I hope that they work.
Do you think that Amanda's and Jessica's books might be the beginning of a new wave of feminism as a respectable and womanly thing to do? I sure hope so.