The Pocket Guide to Feminism

A woman’s life is different. This is clear when a stranger’s catcall makes her feel targeted in the street. When politicians make off-the-cuff sexist remarks. When media commentators wade in with their condemnation of free, unrestricted abortion. When a father is praised to the skies for attending parents’ evening while the mother’s attendance is taken for granted. When they fire her because she’s pregnant. When they dismiss her medical symptoms as anxiety. To counter sexism today, we need to learn the art of self-defence. Today, feminism is more alive and more necessary than ever because discrimination against women has become more subtle and difficult to detect, yet it retains its paralysing power. With combative energy and acerbic wit, Bel Olid explains the key concepts of the current feminist struggle in a smart, radical and often counterintuitive way.

To Be or Not to Be

Machine Guns

Not All Men

Raped Bodies, Rapable Bodies

Misfits

Don’t Wash Your Dirty Linen in Public

Love Doesn’t Kill

Together We’ll Take Back the Night

#Onsónlesdones

The School of Life

We Don’t Want to Wear the Trousers

Being Nothing to Be Everything

Feminist mini-lexicon: 25 words for naming reality


Sources "An extraordinary, provocative book that raises important questions about compulsory sexuality and verbal and physical violence against women. It dismantles stereotypes, sometimes with humour, and challenges gender categories. A must-read for everyone."
Aurélie Vialette, Yale University

"Bel Olid’s lucid feminist insights are more relevant than ever and show how patriarchy works in the world at large."
Carol Hay, author of Think Like a Feminist: The Philosophy Behind the Revolution Bel Olid is a Catalan writer and translator who stopped trying to be the woman the world demands and started trying just...to be.