Sexual Politics by Kate Millett

According to Amazon, this astonishing book was originally written as Millett's doctoral thesis in 1968 and is now widely regarded as a feminist classic. The book looks at American literature including works by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, John Stewart Mill and Jean Genet. Millett examines in depth the structures and values in the literature and the passages she quotes from each text are truly telling of the argument she puts across. The critique and analysis she provides is amazing and its in-depth look at the politics of sex is supported by the provided literature. While the reader can be stunned at these analyses, we can also see hope in the incredibly telling writings of Jean Genet.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it wasn't the easiest read in the world and more or less put me off at least Henry Miller's books for a good while, but at the same time it was incredibly thought-provoking of an area that has largely been overlooked as influencing public opinion of gender relations and sex.

The book also provided an interesting look at gender relations under the law of coverture in the Western world with excerpts from Blackstone's Commentaries - the foremost legal writings of the time included. It also took a look at sexual politics in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia among others. This part of the book was so interesting I almost changed the topic of an essay plan in fascination over it. But I will leave the eager reader to devour its brilliant contents.

As well as this, there was an entire chapter on Freud, psychoanalysis and general beliefs about women's psychology. The social pretension of the concept of "penis envy" is displayed in what is remarkable from a book of the time, when these beliefs about psychology were still so prevalent.

A stellar read I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was asked to speak about women and fiction, these extended essays were the result. The writing in these essays is quite like her fiction: descriptive, perceptive and fair. Woolf argues that women in literature have been more than often portrayed by men. She compares these fictional women with real women living throughout time and illustrates how the fictional portrayal of them brings women to centre stage while the historical reality shows them largely ignored. She also shows that women were only shown in relation to men and never as themselves. As well as this, Woolf also shows that even when women were portrayed by women it was done within the expected role of a woman as fair and virtuous.

Another facet of the book shows the beginnings of women writing fiction. As Woolf stipulates at the beginning "a women must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf looks at women authors including Jane Austen, George Eliot and Currer Bell and shows how their lives were limited by their gender. It can be seen from this that women will only be able to write fiction freely when they are free from financial and societal bounds.

This is a brilliant read and shows a side of Virginia Woolf that is not always clear in her fiction. It is a fairly easy read and makes a good argument about femininity and feminism in general.