Published in 2020
254 pages
7 hours and 6 minutes
Julie Bindel is a journalist, author and feminist activist who has campaigned against male violence against women and girls since the age of 17. She has written extensively on rape, domestic violence, sexually motivated murder, prostitution and trafficking, child sexual exploitation, stalking and the rise of religious fundamentalism and its harm to women and girls. In 2007, Bindel broke the story of the grooming gangs in towns and cities across the north of England, which led to an independent inquiry in 2013 into child sexual abuse in Rotherham.
In 1990, Bindel co-founded Justice for Women, an organisation that supports, and advocates on behalf of, women who have been convicted of murder, when they have killed in circumstances of resisting male violence and abuse.
Bindel is the author of Straight Expectations (shortlisted for the Polari Prize) and The Pimping of Prostitution; she is also the co-author of Exiting Prostitution and The Map of My Life: The Story of Emma Humphrey, and has written numerous book chapters on violence against women, sexuality, gender and feminism.
What is this book about?
Feminism is a quest for the liberation of women from patriarchy. Feminism strives for a world in which women are not oppressed. Feminism prioritises exposing and ending male violence towards women and girls.
This is Julie Bindel’s feminism, a definition born of 40 years at the front line of the feminist movement. Why then, she asks, is feminism the only social justice movement in the world that is expected to prioritise every other issue before pursuing its own objective of women’s liberation? Why does the movement appear to be moving backwards, accommodating the rights and feelings of men and leaving women in the cold? Women make up half the global population, yet why is feminism still treated as a minority movement?
In this searing and groundbreaking book, Bindel deconstructs the many pervasive myths about feminism – Do women really want what men have? Can men be feminists? Are women liberated by sexual violation? – assessing whether feminism has achieved its goals and debunking theories that second wave feminism is irrelevant and one-dimensional.
Bindel shines a light on the most important issues, including pornography, sexual violence and prostitution. Drawing on Bindel’s own experiences, as well as countless interviews with women and girls of all ages and backgrounds (as well as contributions from commentators such as Gloria Steinem and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), Feminism for Women presents a clear-sighted view of why feminism is a proud social movement that every woman on the planet benefits from.
The invisible forces of misogyny affect us all.
This book is a call to arms to reclaim feminism for all women.
Only together can we resist and overcome.
