<![CDATA[The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability]]>

false <![CDATA[The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173404823m/283773.jpg 283773 3 In the female psyche nowadays, “contradictions speckle the landscape, like ingrown hairs after a bad bikini wax.” So writes Laura Kipnis, author of the widely acclaimed polemic Against Love. With “the gleeful viperish wit of Dorothy Parker” (Slate), Kipnis now offers a fresh and provocative assessment of the female condition in the post-post-feminist world of the twenty-first century. For every advance toward sexual equality on the part of women in recent years, she argues, some new impediment just “seems” to appear. Ironically, feminism ran up against an unanticipated opponent: the inner woman. An ambitious and original reassessment of feminism and women’s ambivalence about it, The Female Thing brims with bracing and funny social observations informed by psychological acuity. For all the upbeat “You go, girl” slogans, women remain caught between feminism and femininity, between self-affirmation and an endless quest for self-improvement, between playing the injured party and claiming independence. Feminism is bedeviled by the same impasses and contradictions it seeks to rectify. But rather than blaming the usual suspects–men, the media–Kipnis takes a hard look at culprits closer to home, namely women themselves and their complicity in upholding male privilege, even as they resent men deeply for it. Which makes relations between the sexes rather thorny at the moment, and Kipnis serves up the gory details of the mutual displeasure between men and women in painfully hilarious detail. In the tradition of The Feminine Mystique and The Female Eunuch, this is a pathbreaking work. As audacious as it is historically and socially grounded, The Female Thing explores age-old quandaries: the war between the sexes, what women “really” want, and to what extent anatomy is destiny after all. 275298 1 10 2006 The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability total:153|5:25|4:65|3:41|2:16|1:6| 153 546 310 35 3 3 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 06 15:08:35 -0700 2007 Mon May 07 13:43:33 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 2 false false Tue Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 09:33:27 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 10:44:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 24 07:59:37 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 24 10:21:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Jan 24 06:51:18 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 10 05:46:15 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 10 05:48:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 17:35:24 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 17:51:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 07:40:23 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 19:46:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Oct 16 06:19:52 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 16 06:44:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 31 10:27:32 -0700 2007 Thu Nov 08 05:48:44 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Oct 30 09:11:06 -0700 2007 Tue Feb 26 11:38:01 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Jan 29 13:44:11 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 13:52:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Mar 17 09:17:50 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 10 23:15:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 true false Fri Feb 06 14:44:38 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 14:52:05 -0800 2009
You don't need to agree with her every opinion or point of view to learn about the female condition -- today and throughout recent history.

~Kate, The Book Cellar bookseller]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Feb 21 22:24:12 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 21 22:25:21 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 19:40:17 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 19:45:50 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Oct 30 05:09:23 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 02 07:43:02 -0800 2008
b) This is a great book. I appreciate very much Kipnis' willingness to sit down and play around with the contradictions and the weird perspectives that come up when there's so much pounding on patriarchy. Made for a...more...]]> 1 0 true false Wed Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 11 18:40:45 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 11 20:05:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 25 09:14:48 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 07:12:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu May 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 29 08:35:06 -0700 2008 Thu May 29 08:39:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 07 11:55:27 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 07 11:58:01 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Mon Aug 13 10:01:43 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 13 10:27:35 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=283773