Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation [Paperback]

Barbara Findlen (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

This collection of writings, featuring the voices of today's young feminsists, the "Third Wave", explores and reveals their lives. Their impassioned essays take on such topics as racism, AIDS, sex, identity, revolution, and abortion.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Vibrant, combative and broad-ranging, the new voices in Listen Up are the best proof yet that the next wave of rising feminists is magnificently equal to its task of creating a movement that should be, in terms of its ideas, always renewed. -- Naomi Wolf, author of Fire With Fire

From Publishers Weekly

The face of feminism is not only that of Gloria Steinem or Naomi Wolf. It's no longer a luxury limited to the white, affluent and professional. This zesty collection of essays by young feminists, edited by Ms. executive editor Findlen, demonstrates that those feminist lessons of pride and self-determination have been thoroughly absorbed. Spunky and original, these women reveal their difference up front. The writers are lesbians and bisexuals, feminists from every ethnic group, teen mothers, rape survivors, disabled women, aerobics instructors, anorexics, self-described "chicks" and punks?whose involvement in the movement signals feminism's evolution from within. The book wants to weave an "identity tapestry," to borrow one essay's title, and each piece uses some real experience to delineate the ways in which the writer's life and self have been informed by the logic and language of feminism. Virtually all depend on the experience of being stereotyped. This collection enlarges feminism's self-image. If the voices here threaten to atomize a collective movement into numberless discrete and personal feminisms, for now they hold and work together, and it's important that they be heard. QPB selection; serial rights to Mademoiselle, Ms., Girlfriends magazine and Cosmopolitan.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Seal Pr; First Edition edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878067613
• ISBN-13: 978-1878067616
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #417,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good read for feminists and non-feminists alike, August 7, 2001

By 

Shannon B Davis "Nepenthe" (Arlington, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (Paperback)

But you must be interested in women or social politics . . .

Even if you think you know what feminism is all about, one of this book's essays should give you a new perspective. It consists of collections of essays from the many different women that call themselves feminists. From lesbians, straight women, bisexuals, african-americans and caucasians, aerobics instructors to full-time writers . . . there is a lot of variety. One section made me cry and I can't forget what I read in there. Another section made me understand a feminist perspective that I had never understood before. If you are a feminist, some of this book may be self-affirming. If you are not yet a feminist, maybe you will learn that you can be one without losing any of your ideals. There is room for everyone in this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a pleasure to read., November 11, 2000

By 

Laura A "lauraaaa" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (Paperback)

this is one of the first books i've read about feminism, so i don't proclaim to be an expert, but i really enjoyed reading so many different perspectives about feminism. these women's opinions were interesting to read. i read it straight through one afternoon and was sad to put it down. i particularly enjoyed the essays by curtis sittenfield, abra chernik, nomy lamm, laurel gilbert, jennifer myhre, and cheryl green. the essays seemed a little short to me, though. but my one beef with the book is that every single one of writers was a well-educated woman who had gone at least for her bachelor's. what about women who weren't able to go to college? the book seemed to emphasize varieties of feminism but that varieties of education wasn't taken into account surprised me. there are feminists out there with merely a high school education or even less. i hope maybe someday to see a sequel to this book where those factors are taken into account.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars *right-on shifting growth-tales of young women*, July 1, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (Paperback)

I didn't agree with all the writers compiled in _Listen up_ and some of them pissed me off. But that wasn't the point; there's enough preaching to the choir around here as it is. As a feminist (whatever that means to you) I got angry with the woman who talked about her "quest for the perfect body" and shook my metaphorical fist in the air in support of Nomy Lamm's essay on fat oppression. Looking at this broad spectrum of women who consider themselves "feminists," I was pleased with the diversity; readers of Listen Up will probably find their preconceptions challenged. But as a personal support I feel it has the most value; despite the goofy pink cover, it felt like my life. Right on.