One of the finest books on Feminism. No. It doesn't preach but pricks your mind with the riveting incidents and experiences of women from all walks of life sharing their life turning moments. The book is divided into 5 chapters and each chapter is hard-hitting. We read about sexual abuse, LGBTQ issues faced child abuse, sociopath partners, discrimination, racism, gender bias etc.

Read this book. Give this book. I honestly wish we could create a "required reading list" for humanity. The fact that this book exists makes me so happy and a little hopeful. It is such an amazing jumping off point for someone just accepting their feminism, but it's also so important for those of us who have maybe grown a bit jaded with ours. I'll stop gushing now. Just read this. Please. ( )

[The Future is Female] It's a bad sign when the German translation is given a title in English that is nothing like the original title. However, I kept trying for 100 pages. After all, in an anthology it is quite possible that the first article is really bad, but the rest are good. Even the first two or even three? And I will admit, they haven't all been as ghastly as those first few, but they aren't really good, either. I give up. ( )

What is Feminism for you? 52 women write about what Feminism is for them, what it means to be a feminist, how they found out that they were feminists and how it changed their lives. In addition, at the end of the book there are some blank pages where you can explain what it means to you to be a feminist, or what the concept “Feminism” means to you, or to just write a story you've lived that involves Feminism.

Personally, I’m still not sure what Feminism means to me, it’s so many things that I still have to order and sort them, to know exactly what it means and what it is for me. But while we discover it it’s good to know that we’re not alone, that there will always be women by our side to help us go through this journey.

This book is far from being an essay about feminism, but sometimes you don’t need philosophical or sociological essays to learn and to know what Feminism is, sometimes what you need is to live it yourself, to experiment it, to discover it by yourself or by listening to your girlfriends, your mother, your aunt, your cousin, your sister’s stories. Sometimes it’s better to know your own feminism and to be it, because the essays might show you some shades of Feminism, but to truly understand something you have to go through it, to live it.

With that, I’m not trying to tear down all the Feminism essays, they can be interesting and educative, and they are the base of the movement, but reading them is not a must to become a real feminist. If you’re a woman, if you want equality above all, if you want all the voices to be heard, then hey, you’re a feminist, welcome to the movement! Because the future is not male, and of course the future is not female, the future is equal.

One of the many things I’ve learned and realized by reading this book is the fact that women by nature are not smarter than men, we just have to be. Women have to work twice as hard as men to be heard, to be seen, we have to demonstrate that we really deserve what we want, what we’re fighting for, on every step we take to our goal. And all because of that glass ceiling the patriarchy has built. But we’re strong enough to break it, we only need to stay together and push at the same time, and that ceiling will break into a thousand million pieces no man will be able to rebuild.

“Acknowledge that the patriarchy is a cult that so many of us have been enrolled without our consent and de-programming may take a while.”
― Dolly Alderton

We’re all together in this fight, so stay united and don’t let anyone destroy what many generations of feminists have been fighting for. We deserve equality, we want our voices to be heard, don’t let anyone silence us now. ( )

This is definitely a great starter kit for people who don't yet quite know what feminism means and offers a broad scope of what being a feminist may encompass.

That being said, there's not really anything new on offer for people like me who have already read quite a bit about feminism. I also wanted a lot of the pieces to be longer - so many of them touched upon intriguing backstories and sometimes I felt like context - which would've heightened the impact significantly - was missing.

I enjoyed that it covered such a wide variety of women speaking about their experiences. We got anything from world-famous actors to activists in Africa, and I especially liked that young people also had a place in here. Overall, while I personally may not have gained much from this collection, I think it works really well as a first dip into feminist nonfiction for teenagers. ( )