Which books turned you into a feminist?

Lovely article in the Guardian asking feminists which books inspired them and made them feminists - I love Jessica Valente's story about Naomi Wolf. So: which books made you a feminist? For me, I'd say Little Women had a big effect when I was very young indeed, showing how women have to make an effort to show that they're as good as men - and that this is what they should do. When I was older, The Female Eunuch was brilliant not so much because it showed me new things about the world but because it showed how much my experiences of the world were part of a big, meaningful, connected whole - and also showed me both how far we'd come since the seventies and how far we still had to go.

What books made you a feminist? The Guardian would like to hear (books@guardian.co.uk) - but do comment below as well...

Ladyfests and the third wave

A couple of really interesting Guardian articles I've been meaning to link to for a while. I really love the idea of Ladyfests and was wondering whether we'd have the time to do one at some stage. Maybe that possible Rape Crisis fundraiser we were talking about...

And another article about third wave feminism and where we're going next. I really liked the closing paragraph:

It is time to stop deploying rigid and vapid cliches - damsel, good girl and slut - and fixating on the alleged excesses of one contested aspect. We need to keep our eyes on the wider array of women's issues. May the stripping pole go the way of the charred bra, a quaint reminder of how those calling it from the sidelines got it very wrong.

Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild by Deborah Siegel , also sounds really interesting, if treading a little on old ground...

More on pink for girls, blue for boys

Thanks to Sorcha for the link to Ben Goldacre's excellent article criticising the recent study claiming that there may be a scientific basis behind the pink for girls, blue for boys stereotype. He links to a few more interesting articles: a history and discussion of the pink/blue tradition at gentlebirth.com, an American natural birth website; an interesting discussion of the relationship between colour and gender, reviewing the studies done of male and female colour preference; and a really interesting article about the phenomenon of little (in this case, American) girls refusing to wear any colour but pink.

Feminist fightback conference - 20th October 2007

Link in title to a socialist-feminist conference being held in UEL in October - a friend is an organiser (or at least she was last year). It's free to attend although you have to register and the topics being discussed look very interesting.

For those of you on Facebook it also has a Facebook page.

Guerrilla Girls on YouTube

Great exerpt from a talk by the Guerrilla Girls at New York's MOMA about the origins of the group and how far women have come in the art world since then. Depressingly, not very far...