Start your radfem library with these must-have Spinifex Press books
If you’ve recently discovered radical feminism and would like to read more about the core issues - prostitution, surrogacy, pornography, misogyny in all its forms - here are some books we’d like to recommend. And to get you started, simply enter code FREEPOST at the website checkout and we’ll throw in free delivery to all Australian addresses. Use the links below to the books, read more about them, and add them to your cart. We’ve also put together a special bundle of all five books. Buy all five and save.
Let’s start your radfem library with the classic Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed edited by Diane Bell and Renate Klein. Since the 1960s radical feminists have worked to articulate a vision of the world in which all women are safe and are acknowledged as human beings in their own right. Their projects include Take Back the Night campaigns, establishing women’s refuges, rape crisis centres, health centres, organising against pornography and developing courses in Women’s Studies. The richness of the practice and the theory of radical feminism is often misrepresented or unknown. Radically Speaking tells this important story. It’s a good starting point and has been described as an ‘incredibly powerful collection of articles by radical feminists about radical feminism.’
Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, edited by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, documents the reality of prostitution revealing the cost to the lives of women and girls. For too long the global sex industry and its vested interests have dominated the prostitution debate repeating the same old line that “sex work” is just like any job. In large sections of the media, academia, public policy, Government and the law, the sex industry has had its way. Little is said of the damage, violation, suffering, and torment of prostitution on the body and the mind, nor of the deaths, suicides and murders that are routine in the sex industry. This important book refutes the lies and debunks the myths spread by the industry through the lived experiences of women who have survived prostitution. These disturbing stories give voice to formerly prostituted women who explain why they entered the sex trade. They bravely and courageously recount their intimate experiences of harm and humiliation at the hands of sex buyers, pimps and traffickers and reveal their escape and emergence as survivors. Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade will strengthen and support the global campaign to abolish prostitution, provide solidarity and solace to those who bear its scars and hopefully help women and girls exit this dehumanising industry. As one reviewer said “these narratives should serve as a rallying cry for action to end this modern-day slave trade.”
Informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade is a compelling and exceptional read from beginning to end…
— Midwest Book Review
Misogyny Re-loaded is an explosive manifesto against the resurgent sexual fascism of the new world order. By exposing the casual acceptance of snuff pornography in gore culture through to the framing of rape as slapstick, Abigail Bray links the celebration of sexual sadism to the rise of an authoritarian culture of militarised violence. Arguing that a meaningful collective resistance has been scattered by the mass destruction of genuine social and economic security for ordinary women, Misogyny Re-loaded presents a scathing critique of the political drool of mainstream billionaire-friendly feminism.
According to a New Statesman article by Victoria Smith @glosswitch feminists first started to express concerns about the development of reproductive technologies and the associated commoditisation of pregnancy during the 1980s. Spinifex Press speaks out about the multitude of harms caused by the practice of surrogacy around the world. As Robert Jensen asks in an article on Feminist Current how did we get here - an allegedly civilized world which treats a woman’s body as a commodity. And even polite liberal circles find it not only acceptable but a sign of being progressive, and celebrated — not only among many men but also many women, even among some feminists!
Start reading more about surrogacy with Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out. Who are the faceless, nameless women who nurture and give birth to these babies? These women who are left with empty arms and leaking breasts after delivery? Surrogacy-dealing companies call them ‘special angels’ who ‘make miracles possible’, giving ‘an extraordinary gift’. IVF clinics call them ‘gestational surrogates’. The intended parents have promised them healthcare, full reimbursement, and ongoing contact with the baby. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Because surrogacy violates the human rights of the women whose bodies are used, and the children who are born. Because it is a fundamentally flawed and misogynist concept to imagine that women are interchangeable. And it is wishful thinking that watertight legal contracts and counselling can fix this.
In Broken Bonds, strong and courageous women from the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, India, Austria and Russia share their true stories of becoming 'surrogate' mothers out of kindness and compassion (or need for money), only to be deceived, neglected, abused, harassed, or abandoned by ‘baby buyers’, clinics, and lawyers. Their stories are tragic, shocking, and revelatory of a profit-driven industry that preys on desperation and women’s compassion. You won’t look at surrogacy the same way after reading it.
Lastly, your radfem collection requires a book on pornography and we’d recommend Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray. With contributions from leading world experts and activists, Big Porn Inc offers a cutting edge exposé of the hidden realities of a multi-billion dollar global industry that promotes itself as a fashionable life-style choice. Unmasking the lies behind the selling of porn as ‘just a bit of fun’ Big Porn Inc reveals the shocking truths of an industry that trades in violence, crime and degradation. This fearless book will change the way you think about pornography forever. Contributors include: (Australia) Maggie Hamilton, Nina Funnell, Christopher Kendall, Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys, Caroline Taylor, Meagan Tyler, Robi Sonderegger, Caroline Norma, Renate Klein, Helen Pringle, Betty McLellan, Melinda Tankard Reist, Abigail Bray, Melinda Liszewski. (International) Gail Dines, Catharine A MacKinnon, Melissa Farley, Diana Russell, Robert Jensen, Jeffrey Masson, Chyng Sun, Julia Long, Diane L Rosenfeld, Linda Thompson, Hiroshi Nakasatomi, Anne Mayne, Ruchira Gupta, Asja Armanda, Natalie Nenadic, Anna van Heeswijk, Matt McCormack Evans.
Look out for a future post to highlight the next lot of books for your radfem collection and important books from Renate Klein, Julie Bindel, Rachel Moran, and many more. And if you’re interested in learning more about the books we publish please sign up to our newsletter and follow us on social media. Links in header above.
Spinifex Press books can be ordered directly from this website, from all good bookshops, online booksellers and ebook etailers. And please ask for them at your library.
