Feminism Series: "The Equality Illusion"

From watching the video in my previous post, entitled "Beyonce run the world LIES", and doing lots of research, I was really inspired to find out more about feminism, gender inequality and female empowerment. I want to know what it really means to be a woman in the twenty-first century, I want to know what it was like for women in the sixties; I want to learn about the women who burnt their bra's or tied themselves to railings to be allowed to vote. It just seemed to trigger something within me. I figured out that I needed to read more; my plan was to read more books over summer, real books; from getting sick of Economics textbooks (as much as I love the subject).

So I began to look on amazon and stuff for books on feminism, and I compiled a MS Word document of all the stuff I want to read. I've made two separate lists; one on feminism, and one on economics, which includes books on capitalism. The stuff is just fascinating. Only God knows if I will actually get through this list, or even manage to read one! I have been known not to finish books and get bored of them. I used to love reading, but I just can't seem to come across anything that floats my boat in terms of ficiton. But now I want to read up about real issues. Educate myself, not just learn for exams, and read for the sake of revising.

So, today I went to pick up one of the books on feminism from my local library. It is called "The Equality Illusion: the truth about women & men today", and is by Kat Banyard.

To make sure I keep reading it, I will, InshaAllah make notes as I go along, and any gems I read I will post on here, under the feminism series tag. At the end, I will write an overall review of the book, and let you know if I think you should read it too. So all the books I read on feminism will be tagged under the "feminism series" thingy, and I hope it becomes a regular thing.

About the book

Today it is believed that women and men have achieved equality. This is quite simply an illusion. In the equality illusion, campaigner Kat Banyard argues passionately that women still face inequality in almost every aspect of their lives, and that feminism is still one of the most urgent and relevant social justice campaigns of today. Banyard sets out the makor issues for twenty-first century feminism, from the growing power of the sex industry to the widening pay gap to the myths and taboos which still surround rape and domestic violence. At the heart of the book are more than a hundred interviews with a diverse range of women who have been affected by gender inequality. Their stories show how sexism is intimately woven into people's everyday lives, and how it hurts both women and men. Banyard also draws on her own campaign experience as well as academic research.

About the author

Kat Banyard was born in 1982 and is the founder of FEM conferences, an acclaimed series of national feminist conferences. She is one of the founders and Co-Directors of UK Feminista, a new feminist activist orginastion, and until recently was the Campaigns Officer at Fawcett Society, the UK's leading campaign for women's rights. Prior to her work at Fawcett, Kat worked for a refugee organisation in Sheffield, setting up wonmen's groups. She now lives in London and this is her first book.

*New comment system*- some of you may have noticed I changed my comment system to DISQUS recently. I did it so that anybody anywhere can comments not just people on blogger, and it also means I can reply to each individual comment- yay!. But it's gone and deleted all my old comments from blogger :(( so it looks like I'm a loner who has no comments! I got all your comments on my Beyonce post, and I enjoyed reading them all by the way, glad you liked that post.