Reclaiming the F-Word: the launch

Yesterday I attended the launch of Reclaiming the F-Word, the new book on feminism by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune. I've been so looking forward to getting my hands on a copy ever since I heard about it and just from flicking through the first few pages, it's obvious that so much hard work has gone into the book. Back in 2008 when I was up in Sheffield for the day, attending the FEM 08 conference, I completed the survey Catherine and Kristin undertook to find out about the state of the women's movement in the UK today and it's nice to finally see the results in full.

After briefly getting lost in Mayfair after missing the turning to get to the University Women's Club, I had a great evening catching up with a few people and meeting some internet acquaintances for the first time - Sarah of Uplift Magazine, Jamie of MrXStitch, Mary aka MsKitton and Helen of Bird of Paradox fame, to name just a few! It was also good to meet Catherine and learn more about Kristin, whose work I didn't know much about but am now incredibly interested in (always intrigued by people who do work on women and religion).

The book has already had fantastic reviews and although I've only read the first chapter so far, i can't wait to read the rest. The 'new feminist movement' described in Reclaiming the F-Word has had a huge influence on me personally and really impacted my life in recent years so it's wonderful to read a book which really celebrates this and is an encouragement to women (or men!) to get involved, do whatever they can and build each other up, rather than simply providing a depressing list of facts about the terrible state of the world. We know things are bad and that this can't be ignored, but at the same time we need to counter the messages given out by the media - that feminism is dead and buried, outdated, pathetic and ridiculous. This book shows us exactly why this is not the case.