Customer Reviews

Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is a great book for anyone interested in women's issues and current feminist thinking, for anyone wanting to know what it means to be a feminist today. This book (particularly the "Doing Feminism" section) brings women's studies outside the classroom and into the real world, with essays on alternative rock, fake porn, and being a "Rrrabbi Grrrl." Catching a Wave is super smart and a lot of fun.

Catching A Wave is a fine addition to the burgeoning cottage industry about Third Wave feminism or young feminisms. The editors have done a great job of assembling some outstanding entries that cover topics varying from hip hop feminism, arab feminism, grrrl studies, to activism in other areas. Race, gender, sexuality, and class are discussed as well.

This book doesn't read like the typical academic tome and would be best used by those familiar with women's studies, sociology, or cultural studies. This book strays away from just relying on personal anecdotes and includes discussion about cultural mores and politics.

If you like, the Third Wave Agenda, you'll equally like this book.

I found Catching a Wave to be a great introduction to the feminist movements, past and present. Coming in to this book with little knowledge but great interest in the subject I really enjoyed the style. It is comprised of a collection of essays from different feminist writers from a range of waves and specific streams within the movement. The authors also vary from the well-known Gloria Steinem to other contributors such as one of the authors daughters. This left room for a lot of open interpretation and for many different perspectives to be heard. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn more about feminism or just wants a refreshing and inspiring read on an important social movement.

or anyone interested in feminism or wanting to come to a better understanding of "3rd wave" feminism.

Much of it, as the title suggests, focuses on the waves of feminism, the controversy amongst them, bridging the gap between the latter two (2nd and 3rd), etc. It's in essay form, with different authors writing the essay, which I think is its strong point. I find it a lot better to have say a 2nd wave feminist writing about 2nd wave feminism than an outsider of the movement commenting on it. Many of the essays have response essays, allowing for a more unbiased collection of essays (i.e. being too pro-3rd wave/anti-2nd wave [a problem with a lot of recent feminist books]).