Goodbye to My Man-Hating Literature

So it's Tuesday (almost midnight PST, just under the wire) but just wanted to get in this eulogy.

International traveling (as well as impending nuptials) have left me with a need to pare down my belongings and make room for the future. Among the many victims of this purge are my bookshelves, which have been overcrowded with many tomes that have gone unopened for years. I freely admit that many of these books are from my undergraduate and early grad school days, and I've hung onto them for ego's sake, as evidence not only that I have read them but that more importantly they serve as a sort of external proof that I am a thoughtful and well-educated person. But it's time to reckon that, though I owe many of these works deeply, it's time to let them go and trust the impact they've made on me.

As these works now sit in a pile on my floor waiting to be sold and shipped to the good people who buy used-book from Amazon.com, I realize this collection contains much of my "Man Hating Lit" as my male friends call it - literature that would scare the pants off of any possible suitor who happened to peruse my bookshelves. I have tried in vain to defend this literature as showcasing my active interest in understanding men and women (and maintain that makes me an open-minded, attractive person, no?) to no avail. While no one of these books contains any sort of misandronist message, apparently the whole lot of them say to the world that I'm a vicous man eater.

And so here it is, a compendium of mini eulogies dedicated to the books that scare the pants off single men. 

Bachelors by Rosalind E. Krauss - recommended reading for an undergraduate history of photography course.

Representing Women by Linda Nochlin - for my gender and representation in 19th and 20th century French painting class. Awesome, but unopened since '98

Male Trouble by Abigail Solomon-Godeau - ditto

Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a Postfeminist Age by Tania Modeleski - Modeleski was a celebrity prof at my school and so this was de facto required reading

Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray - okay, I admit it - any book with "speculum" is bound to scare off men. 

Is Menstruation Obsolete? by Elsimar Coutinho and Sheldon Segal - speaking of scary titles. An interesting argument, but as a lapsed Catholic I will never not panic when I think I've missed my period. The anxiety over a potential unplanned pregnancy is just ingrained in me.

Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader ed. by Charlotte Brundson and Lynn Spigel - a great primer on feminist theory on tv (guess the title kind of explains itself)

Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Ann Fausto - like new! I never did get around to cracking this one (as assigned reading during the last week in a film theory classs chock full of high theory, this became optional reading) 

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks - inspiring but also makes you feel kind of hopeless, like unless you engage in full on revolution, there just ain't no hope. Bummer.

Against Love by Laura Kipnis - purchased this after I saw the author give a talk,  enjoyed it most when I felt my own relationship was doomed. Some women turn to ice cream and Meg Ryan movies; I turned to Kipnis.

Great Women of Film by Helena Lumme and Mika Manninen - receved as a gift. A beautiful black and whote book, but a little more timely than timeless and thusly feels dated. Not doing a good job of selling this one, am I?

Daughters of the Dust: The Making of an African American Woman's Film by Julie Dash -  bought for a production class. Okay, this one may well push me into unshaven leg, bra-burning territory. 

Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving by Betty Dodson - bought this as a sight gag for a short film, and read it years later. Betty Dodson is my favorite old-school blue-haired diva. I want to be like her when I grow up.

The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women by Tristan Taormino - what can I say? I'm just not that into it.

Still keeping some that I just can't let go of - my Feminist Film Theory Reader, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, Linda Williams' Hard Core, Susan Hopkins' Girl Heroes to name a few.