#FeministOrchestra Book Club Review: I Call Myself a Feminist



This book was the first pick for the Feminist Orchestra BookClub started by Jean on Bookishthoughts on Youtube. It consists of essays from 25 women under 30 on various aspects of feminism. Interspersed are quotes from other people on the subject, so you really get a lot of different viewpoints throughout this book. 

I enjoyed reading this book. The essays are quite short and between essays there are a few short quotes, so you can get through a lot of pages in a short time. I found most of the essays interesting and relevant, but there were definitely some I connected to more than others. As for the quotes, there were a few, where I didn’t really see the connection to feminism, but mostly they were quite poignant. 

The essays tackle a number of different subjects form out-and-out sexism, acid attacks, religion and feminism, rape jokes, why we still need to fight, the underlying sexism in language, how girls are conditioned to care about “beauty” etc. All the essays spring from personal experience of the writer, and this causes some repetitiveness, but not overwhelmingly so. 

I think this book is a good place to start if you are new to feminism. It definitely whetted my appetite for more. That is also the only real problem I had with this book. I wanted more from it. The essays are usually very short, and sometimes they feel a little too short, just scratching the surface of the particular issue. I get that a book like this is supposed to be a short introduction to a variety of subjects under the umbrella of feminism, but sometimes I felt like the subject was only just mentioned briefly and then the essay was over. 

As a woman over the age of 30 I also wonder why the essays were all written by women under 30. Maybe it’s to show that feminism is not a thing of the past, that it doesn’t belong to the bra-burning, hairy-armpitted women of the 1970s, but that it belongs to everyone, no matter how young, but still, I would have liked to see someone older weigh in on the debate. Have we achieved something since those happy, free-boobing days, are they still fighting, how do they feel about their legacy and this new generation of fighters? 

I gave this 4 stars out of 5 on Goodreads and would definitely recommend it as a starting point for anyone looking to learn more, but it is just that; a starting point. After reading this you need to continue reading to really educate yourself on the topic. This is a great introduction to a number of writers and a good jumping-off point for delving deeper into the subject of feminism. And if you feel like reading and learning more about it, why not join the Book Club. Here is a link to the Youtube announcement video, the video of the first few books on the reading list and the Goodreads page. 


BTW: I call myself a feminist!

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