Feminism for Women: The Real Route to Liberation. By Julie Bindel (Constable Press, 2021, 248pp. £12.99 pb)

Abstract

In the 1980s, radical feminism was part of criminology, but somewhere in the 1990s, it left. The focus shifted slowly away from male violence and women’s experiences of injustice towards a descriptive analysis of the various ways that gender (as a performance) related to offending and the administration of justice. Now, nearly 40 years later, radical feminism in criminology might just be making a comeback and we can thank Julie Bindel for that. Her latest book is a must read—even for those who disagree with her. Bindel’s book is written from the perspective of a 40-year long history of research and activism. It is an uncompromising defence of radical feminism as a theory and politics that is rooted in the idea that women’s oppression is related to their status as a sex class. Women here are defined as biologically female. These days, this is not always a popular position to take in the face of the political drive to expand the definition of woman to include those who identify as such. Each of the eight substantive chapters moves between empirical facts and stories from Bindel’s activism and working life. The book is written in Bindel’s characteristic style. She pulls no punches to get her points made.