“I’m for equal rights but I’m not some radical feminist.” It is a common sentiment, as people seek to avoid the aggressive, man-hating connotations that “feminist” unfairly carries. For in reality, by far the largest part of feminist activism today is moderate, respectful, and thoughtful, the sum total of a million individual decisions, actions, and encounters.
Beyond Burning Bras: Feminist Activism for Everyone is an antidote to the poison of shock jocks who caricature the women’s movement as a radical fringe of man-haters and paint activists as spoiled hooligans. Two real-life feminist activists, Laura Finley and Emily Stringer focus on the mainstream of everyday feminism, explaining what feminism is really all about and fanning out a spectrum of simple, imaginative, user-friendly ways in which ordinary readers can promote gender equality and social equity in their own lives and in the world around them.
Beyond Burning Bras taps the life stories and first-person accounts of 50 ordinary individuals of every age, sex, sexuality, class, nationality, race, ethnicity, and learning style. All of them tell how they found within themselves the courage to take a stand on the front lines of feminist activism, whether in subtle private ways or in life-changing public ways. After a survey of the history of feminism in the United States, the authors and contributors show in successive chapters how feminism today meshes with other forms of activism relating to the workplace, sexual violence, the environment, politics, human bodies, the arts, youth, empowerment, and mothering.
