Why I Am Not a Feminist

Jessa Crispin, cultural critic and founder of Bookslut, offers a brilliant rejection of contemporary feminism—and demands something better.

Somewhere along the way, Jessa Crispin argues, the feminist movement sacrificed meaning for acceptance, and left us with a banal, polite, ineffectual pose that barely challenges the status quo. In this bracing, fiercely intelligent manifesto, she demands more.

Why I Am Not A Feminist is a radical, fearless call for revolution. It accuses the feminist movement of obliviousness, irrelevance, and cowardice—and demands nothing less than the total dismantling of a system of oppression.

Review by Ilse Scheepers

Crispin does not hold anything back in her searing, scathing assessment of the current state of feminism. There is a lot to unpack and examine here - both in the book, and for the reader when reflecting on their own feminism and how it may differ from, or exclude, someone else's.

Crispin lacerates everything in her path as she hones in on her target. Her objective is to utterly dismantle the entrenched structures that hold back our individual lives, and she approaches this task without qualm or quarter. What use is feminism if it is not intersectional? Why are we taken in by the sort of feminism that lauds leaning in to established patterns of power that by their very nature are built to exclude women, or force them into colluding against themselves?

Bound to ruffle more than a few feathers, but worth the read for anyone who favours manifestos over truisms.

About the Author

Jessa Crispin is the editor and founder of the online magazines Bookslut — one of America’s very first book blogs — and the literary journal Spolia. She is the author of The Dead Ladies Project and The Creative Tarot, and has written for the New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, NPR.org, Chicago Sun-Times, and Architect Magazine, among other publications. She has lived in Lincoln, Kansas; Austin, Texas; Dublin, Ireland; Chicago, Illinois; Berlin, Germany; and elsewhere, and currently resides in New York City.