Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay published this essay collection in 2014, and its title captures her central idea, that you can care about feminism while still enjoying things that seem to contradict it. Across the essays she writes about her own life, including her experience as a Black woman in academia and survival after sexual assault, and she analyzes movies, music, books, and reality television. She refuses the pressure to be a perfect representative of any cause and argues that it is better to be a flawed feminist than not one at all. Gay's tone moves easily between humor and seriousness, and her cultural criticism is sharp and accessible. The book helped make her a leading voice in American commentary and remains widely read in classrooms and book clubs. It treats contradiction as honest rather than disqualifying.
Also by Roxane Gay
What you might want to know about Bad Feminist
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A collection of essays in which the writer admits her own contradictions while examining gender, race, and pop culture.
Gay calls herself a bad feminist because she holds feminist values while also enjoying things that may seem to clash with them. Her point is that being imperfect beats opting out.
It is a collection of essays, but many are personal and draw on Gay's own life, blending memoir with cultural criticism.
Bad Feminist was written by Roxane Gay, published in 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers.
Bad Feminist is 324 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Bad Feminist takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Bad Feminist is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
