Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes [Paperback]

Guerrilla Girls (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2003

Whatever life a woman leads, from biker chick to society girl, there's a stereotype she'll have to live down. The Guerrilla Girls, notorious for their outrageous take on women's issues, now tackle the maze of stereotypes that follow women from cradle to grave. With subversive use of information-and great visuals-they explore the history and significance of stereotypes like Old Maid, Trophy Wife, and Prostitute with a Heart of Gold. They tag the Top Types, examine sexual slurs, explain the evolution of butches and femmes, and delve into the lives of real and fictional women who have become stereotypes, from Aunt Jemima to Tokyo Rose to June Cleaver. The Guerrilla Girls' latest assault on injustice towards women will make people laugh, make them mad, and maybe even make them change their minds.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous feminists with a Web site and a taste for taking on gender discrimination, have merciless fun with the idea of female stereotypes in this campy illustrated book. From Ballbreakers and Vamps to Hags and Dumb Blondes, they outline all the archetypes that have managed to find their way into popular culture, thereby "saving the world from sexists and misogynists everywhere, and having fun along the way." By reclaiming these negative terms, and even celebrating them, the words lose their pejorative power, the authors' argue. At times, their material seems too unwieldy to be compressed into such a thin tome. The history of womankind in pop culture, from the iconic Aunt Jemima to quintessential tomboy Babe Didrickson, is obviously an encyclopedic undertaking, and the authors struggle to keep up. But readers have to admire the book's spirit and over-caffeinated pace, as well as its aggressively kitschy layout. With their philosophy-lite deconstruction of the worst slurs society has to offer, the Guerrilla Girls have turned discrimination on its head-and fashioned an entertaining read at the same time.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

The Guerrilla Girls are a bunch of anonymous females who take the names of dead women artists as pseudonyms and appear in public wearing gorilla masks. Their work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, and Bitch. They are the authors of two books and in their spare time they show up in jungle drag at schools all over the country to inspire and provoke their legions of fans to fight discrimination wherever it lurks.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 26, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142001015
• ISBN-13: 978-0142001011
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Go read it in the bookstore!, December 1, 2003

By 

Lisa Marie "Lisa Marie" (Southern New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes (Paperback)

The Guerilla Girls are cool. I am not disputing that. I am also not disputing that what they say in this book is true. It is.

I just wouldn't waste my money on it. It's sort of like cotton candy. By the time you're halfway through eating it, you're sick to your stomach and mad you wasted your money. There's nothing new in this book. It's not very indepth; on the contrary, I found it too simplistic.

Instead of calling it "intelligent," I would call it "cute." It might be okay for someone who is "just starting out" in feminism, so to speak, but if you've read a dozen books or more it's going to be the same old same old and you probably won't like it.

I didn't buy it. I read it sitting in the bookstore. And I'm glad I didn't waste my money.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some misinformation, but overall very good, April 18, 2004

By 

Edward Aycock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes (Paperback)

I love the Guerilla Girls site and I love what they stand for. The new book about stereotypes of women is fun and informative. The section on Tokyo Rose is enlightening and rather sad, and kudos to them for exposing some of the myths of the "sainted" Mother Theresa. These things need to be said and recorded.

But in the book they also make the statement that about 8 million women were put to death from the Europe witch hunts. HUH??? Who is their fact checker? Check population statistics of Europe from that time and you'll see that with 8 million gone in 200 years would have led to a PRECIPITOUS decline in population - a decline that did not happen.

From on source on witchcraft comes this:

"Church persecution of witches occurred in England,
France, Germany, Italy, Scotland, and Spain. In
1431, Joan of Arc, the French national heroine, was
condemned to death as a witch by the English and
was burned at the stake. From 1484 to 1782,
according to some historians, the Christian church
put to death about 300,000 women for practicing
witchcraft. Many of these women suffered such
terrible torture that they confessed to being
witches simply to avoid further torment. "

300,000 is a huge amount but not nearly as large as 8 million. Guerilla Girls are about truth, and I'd hate to have their credibility questioned by those willing to poke holes in any argument you make. The book has another error in that it says the Stonewall Riots were in 1968. Actually, they were in 1969.

This said, the book is well-designed, but just be wary about accepting everything at face value as two errors already jump out. I hope that the Guerilla Girls will continue to spread truth and education but I also hope they do their research first.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book! Don't be put off by the topic or by its brevity, November 23, 2003

By 

Al-V-s "alvis1515" (Wanamassa, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls' Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes (Paperback)

Whether you are male or female, pro-feminist or not you will enjoy this book.

Most of the observations are right on the money, and the use of images mixed with text to illustrate their case makes for engaging reading.

Consequently, this book says more and says it better in its 96 pages than many other "scholarly" works have tried to do in ten times that many pages.

You don't have to agree with everything the authors say to enjoy this book (My personal thoughts are that men can be just as negatively harmed by stereotypes as women can be, and that not all of the stereotypes they describe are as negative as they make them out to be), but most will find this engaging and enlightening reading.