Oh, I was hoping you would be smiling in it. But still it is lovely.

Jessica, I really respect your intelligence and your abilities as a writer, as well as all the great work you do here. So I really do hate to say something negative before the book is even out, but I do want to demur a little bit on the cover. The title, though perhaps a little saucy for my tastes, is I think fine because it has a double meaning, a sexy one and a confrontational one. But the cover picture just looks to me like Objectification 101. I don't see any of the ironic reappropriation of the obscenely gesturing mud-flap girl. (Maybe if the belly-button had at least been an outie.)

Again, I'm sure it will be a great book, I just think you're too intelligent to need that kind of marketing. But, quite seriously, feel free to dismiss this as the dyspeptic rumblings of a gingivitic insomniac. And, again quite seriously, I freely admit to being probably the biggest prude ever produced by "the male species," to paraphrase Gerardo (that's right, of "Rico, Suave" fame). So I may just have the wrong perspective. (Or maybe I'm just upset that you didn't pick picture #3.) In any case, I want to end by underlining again that I think it will be a great book, and my dyspeptic rumblings have nothing to do with the content.

Cool--when's it coming out? (Make sure to send Ann althouse plenty of smelling salts first...)

I have to agree with hera about the cover. I'm a little uncomfortable with it. However, since it's a) unlikely indicative of the feminist nature of what's between the covers, b) has the potential to draw in readers who might pass on a more, eh, "demure" cover, c) owns that sexuality is in fact entirely feminist and d) suggests that women should be proud (not ashamed) of their bodies, I can get behind it nonetheless.
Also, given the title, you could have conceivably gone with a pair of giant breasts (with the nipples strategically covered by the lettering).
I'm sure Althouse would have loved that.

You know, I figured some people wouldn't love the cover. But I'm really trying to reach out to younger women who are freaked out by the "f word" and who aren't all that familiar with feminism. I think that an edgy cover is a good way to grab their attention.

That said, I'm hoping folks will like the content of the book more than the cover... :)

I'm not that crazy about the cover either. Truth be told, I don't like it. I do like your explanation of your choice though: younger women who are freaked out by the word feminism would probably NOT be freaked out by the cover.

It still doesn't totally reconcile my own freak-outedness, but I respect your choice (and its risk) and understand that the book isn't necessarily for me.

That being said, I can't wait to read the content!

Just to counterbalance the reactions here, I really, really like it.

I am personally exploring the class action false advertising angle concerning the front title/cover.

As for grabbing attention, I would have suggested maybe a group picture of young feminists of all body types and colors... clothed, of course, in their everyday wear.

Whitney is mostly right here. The purpose of the title and cover illustration is not to live up to any movement's ideals, but to sell more copies of the book.

I love it.

Feminism with alot of 'tude.

It is ironic because young women are already superexposed like this and reappropriating it with some rad feminism is subversive.

/done with "ironic" and "subversive" trips

I think the cover works. The hand on the hip to me signals a matter-of-fact nudity not a titilating one.

I feel incredibly torn. On the one hand, you are explicitly using a sexualized image of a woman's body as advertising to grab attention. Which is... the sort of thing I would usually see mocked and criticised on this blog. I mean, Althouse is awful, but she thought there's something wrong with photos of women in t-shirts and this site's ironic finger-flipping logo. Here, the pun in the title suggests the image is at least partly *meant* to be a way of using sex to grab attention.

On the other hand, if we didn't live in a society that objectified women's bodies such images would not be degrading, and after all isn't there something sexist about finding a photograph like this to be sexual and offensive, as opposed to just a form of expression that identifies the book with women? And besides, the cover is subversive in that someone prompted to skim the book by it might then see it in a different light. The book's cover might be remembered as an ironic icon of the work.

In conclusion, I look forward to actually reading it. ^_^

I like the cover, and I think it will help draw readers who are new feminism.

* new TO feminism

My problem is not with the nudity but with the fact that it is a standard, conventionally beautiful body, just like the ones on women’s magazines.

I have several reactions to the cover.

Some men will buy book that otherwise might not. To the extent they get past the first few paragraphs, realize it is not a titalating tale, and consume the actual content, that's a good thing.

Some people, looking for serious reading, won't buy the book because the cover and title are clearly sensational.

Some will like what they take to be the irony between the cover and the subject matter. Others will find that obvious and tiresome contemporary marketing.

The cover will get a mention in every book review -- and will be featured in the negative reviews.

On a personal level as a 50 year old man I'm quite tired of being assaulted by sexual images and phrases used to market everything from soup to nuts, but I'm also aware that publishers will do anything to make a book stand out from the crowd. In the end, it's the content not the cover matters.

Go, Jessica, I hope your book is a great success.

I like it a bunch, but then, being a guy I would. Given the popularity of magazines like Vogue, I doubt it will chase off many women readers, and it will definitely catch the eye of most men readers strolling by in the bookstore. Us males should read up on this feminism business too, it's good for everybody.

Okay, here's a completely unsolicited idea for your next book cover. The book could be called "F-bombs," and the cover could feature a fighter jet from WWII with one of the those pin-up girls painted on the nose. But, upon closer inspection, one sees that the pin-up girl is pointing a machine gun or some such thing at the viewer. Then again, this may not be so popular with the rest of the world, which seems to lack my 4:1 ratio of Thanatos to Eros.

A question: do we think men will read this just because it has a picture of an attractive female body on the front? I mean, I know many of them *claim* to read girlie magazines "for the articles" but quite honestly I have doubts about the literacy of many such men. What I can *see* happening is them picking it up, like "oo, shiny" and maybe even buying it, but once it gets into anything too substantive or hard for their pea-sized neanderthal brains, using it as a paperweight.

Not trying to criticize, just saying I'm not sure it will draw in male readers. Although I do agree, interesting enough, it will likely draw in female readers. Just my two cents' worth.

All that said, go Jessica!! :)

I don't know if the book will bring in male readers, but I do think it'll bring in those females who see feminism as a "bad" word. It'll give them an avenue to understand why being a feminist matters and should matter to them. And as the old saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover."

I agree with sojourner. The cover makes me very, very sad.

I sympathize with sojourner's point. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the bare skin (I think we go down a weird road when we say nudity in a commercial context is always antifeminist), and I don't think the cover speaks badly of anyone, but this was a missed opportunity to put a real woman's body on the cover. A little bit of pubic hair sticking up at the bottom, if nothing else. A navel ring. A scar. A birthmark. A tiny bit of a paunch. Something. Heck, at least she could have been a woman of color--or a white who didn't have exactly the perfect amount of tan, with no tan lines. I've just never tickled a naked tummy that looks like that. I don't think the vast majority of people have.

So I suppose what I'm saying on this, which happens to be Love Your Body Day, is that while the cover certainly doesn't make me sad, and the person the abdomen belongs to is probably a happy, confident woman we might all be happy to know, it had the potential to make me--and, more importantly, to make a lot of people--happy. It doesn't send a bad message, necessarily; it just doesn't send a good one either. It sends no message. It's not shocking or provocative in any way. If it were your belly, it'd be different, but it's not.

People talked, during the Althouse mess, about your friend in the tank top. I love that picture because there's a woman, a beautiful, confident woman, who actually looks like people I know--no photoshopping, none of that silly stuff, but a real, living, breathing person.

Then again, I don't know how much control you have over cover design. I remember one of my books was going to have a cover that I strongly objected to--I can't say why here, because I'm reasonably sure I signed a confidentiality clause about this--and I had it replaced with one that was much blander, probably cost us a few thousand sales, but one that I felt better about. I almost lost that fight, and if I had, I wouldn't have been at liberty to say so.

I'll still be buying the book and reading the book and helping to draw publicity to the book, anyway; I'm sure that the stuff inside it will be much less bland and cliched than the cover. And I'm sure that given ten minutes, you could easily find some truly great books with worse covers. But you usually do much better than this, and I suppose one of the drawbacks of setting a high bar is that when you thaw out the frozen meatloaf, people are more apt to notice.

Cheers,

TH

(One thing that may take some of the sting off this for some people: The photo is "objectified"--e.g., no face--for a very good reason: Any face would be presumed to be the author's. Most readers casually looking at the book would assume, I suspect, that this is the author's belly, and seen as such, it doesn't send the same kind of message that it would if it were, say, a Calvin Klein ad, because people are going to associate the picture on the cover with the author photo and the text inside and assume they all belong to the same, whole person. So in practice, this is not really a good example of objectification. What it is, I think, is a missed opportunity. But this is only Jessica's first book. Cheers, TH)

Although I expressed dissent above, I think that I "get it" after hearing Jessica's explanation. My sense (although I could be wrong) is that the book is aimed at young women repelled by what they think feminism is, and maybe even young women who aren't especially reflective or critical about "society" or such things. These women would be turned off by even a slight bit of symbolic politics, like a hair or birthmark or what have you. The cover is supposed to look like a generic fashion photo (right down to the white-breadedness), to send the message, you can be a feminist without giving up Vogue and whatnot. Then, once they let their guard down and start reading, whammo! Jessica will radicalize the hell out of them, to the point that they realize that if they wax their hoo-haahs, they're antichristos. Okay, that last part was a joke, but my sense is that the book is aimed at young women who would be put off by a book cover that telegraphs the kind of concerns we've been discussing. It's meant as bait to lure them in.

At least that what I'm extrapolating from what Jessica said above, but I could be wrong.

I'll just quote one of the civil servants in the pilot of Yes, Minister (I think Sir Arnold but I'm not sure). When asked by the Minister's private secretary why the civil service's new memo is entitled Open Government when the civil service intends to implement nothing of that sort, Sir Arnold explains (rough paraphrase) "You always get rid of the difficult bit in the title. It can do less damage there than in the body."

I don't know. I read Jessica's defense, and I understand the point she's making. But I still can't swallow that tired standardized-beauty-pill on this issue. Younger girls who are afraid of the f-word are still seeking validation for the bodies they have - and they most likely don't look like that one. I love the pose, I don't object to the belly-shot, but give it a few more grams of fat or something. I think it can make your point even better without selling out.

Come to think of it, that should be "antichristas" above.

So my take on it is that it almost entirely depends upon at whom the book is aimed. The title and Jessica's explanation seem to indicate that it's for newbies to feminism. Hooray! What a sorely needed book! I can see where Jessica's highly intelligent and engaging writing could really appeal to and affect this audience (amongst other audiences). And I can agree that the cover will not freak I'm-not-a-feminist-but type people out so much.

Too bad, though, that a picture like that is so... culturally uncharged. A picture of a 'real' person would be so political, but fembots are totally normal. I don't know whose body this is and if it actually has been digitally altered, but it looks so similar to the Clinique ads and Target underwear inserts that I assume it is.

I think that this is a good marketing choice, especially concerning the stated demographic, but a difficult compromise. The cover made me, personally, very uneasy, and I admit that I'd likely pass it on the shelves simply because of what I perceive as another brainless (no head!) sexualized woman's body on the cover. That is, if I didn't know that the author was amazing!

However, I think that since this is Jessica's book and she is (we all agree!) a very intelligent and self-aware woman, that there must be more to it than my outsider's perception. Jessica, I really hope to hear more about the book, the cover choice, and the conception of the book. I will most certainly be buying it for myself and then probably passing it on to my little sister, who needs it more than me!

Congratulations, and I really look forward to reading it!

A Young Woman's Guide To Why Feminism Matters. If this is for teens the cover makes sense. I see them at the bookstore or mall and what they read and are into. Teen girls seems shallow, to put it bluntly so I think this will bring results which is what matters.

I like the cover. The picture shows a part of the body that is uniquely feminine -- the curve of the hip. It is a symbol of femininity without being boobs or butt or some other "uniquely feminine" body part that is usually depicted as large, perfectly tanned, barely clothed, and just waiting for the man to come along and get off on it.

I don't mind that the stomach is nice-looking. First of all, I'm not the target audience. I'm already paying attention to these issues. A member of the target audience would look at a too-fat or scarred picture of a stomach and squeal "EEW! Gross! Look at that ugly [scar, fat, whatever]!" and then put the book back on the shelf without reading it. The book won't really do much good if feminists are the only ones who read it.

I'm also a bit perplexed by the implication that if you are publishing something feminist that includes a picture of a body, that it MUST be imperfect. I'm just as sickened as everyone else here about how advertising and the media brainwashes people to think that female bodies must be flawless. But I thought that feminists made it a point to not push women into one box or another.

The only thing that turns me off about the cover is the font. It's not, um, "serious" (I guess) enough for me. But then I'm not the target audience.

why didn't you just call it, a young WHITE womans guide to WHITE feminism.

this is wack.

i'm sorry. the naked torso of a woman is offensive AND the naked WHITE torso of the young woman pisses me off.

I can't say I like the cover because it's too reminiscent of chick lit, and if I saw that cover in a bookstore, I likely wouldn't take any of its contents to heart or buy it. Check it out at a library, maybe, but I wouldn't buy it.

But, since I'm familiar with some of your treatments on feminism, I'll read it before deciding to buy it when it hits the library shelves. (That's actually how I make most of my book selections.)

But piggybacking off Nubian, the very white, very thin stomach on the cover would shut out a significantly large portion of the young women of color demographic.

News flash: we can read, and we wouldn't necessarily identify with that. And if feminism is for all women, a picture like that allows women of color to assume for whom feminism matters and what type of issues the book will probably treat. Just from that picture.

nubian and skyanide, I understand your concerns, but see my comment above about the cover as camouflage (if you're so inclined). I think the cover, including the white-breadedness, is intended to allow it to pass for the sort of advertising that appeals to young women. And I assume even with the disproportionte amount of white skin in such adverts, they're aimed at and effective among young women of color. So I think this cover photo is like a Trojan horse, getting the book into the young ladies' hands. Then, the feminists arguments slip out and hack their attachment to patriarchy to pieces. Well, okay so maybe it's not quite that dramatic or violent. But something like that.

I realize I'm sort of speaking for Jessica here, but that's not my intent. I've just become attached to the theory I presented above (and I'm procrastinating).

nubian - If it was a black torso, would you have called it "A Young BLACK Woman's Guide To BLACK Feminism"? Does the appearance of white skin automatically exclude all other races?

Nubian goes on to explain why "this is wack".

http://blackademic.com/?p=155

I'd love to hear Jessica respond to nubian's complaint, actually, because I think it's legitimate; even if what one wants to do is to appeal to 'young people' (and I understand the need/desire to choose one's audience), why choose to use an actual body at all if part of what that will inevitably do is get fewer people who don't identify as the person on the cover to read the book? Is it worth the 'extra' readers you may get by having something 'edgy' (uh...is bare torso edgy, really?) really worth the readers who are people of color that you will lose?

I'll probably get the book and read it, because I really respect Jessica's opinions and writings, but... please please please change the cover. I'd prefer it to be changed to something else, but even just changing what you've got a leetle bit would at least help -- get a more centered, confrontational angle, not this coy barely-in-the-picture stuff. Put some suggestion of pubic hair where there should be some. Give her an outtie belly button, stretch marks, freckles everywhere, give her -something-. (And maybe make the text a little less doodled-in-my-9th-grade-bio-notebook?) For my part, I kind of wish this could be disposed of entirely and replaced with a much more matter-of-fact cover...

(N.B. -- I'm saying this as a 23 year old, with a fair amount of friends as young as 18. The kinds of marketing that goes on towards my demographic is always condescending and insulting to our intelligence, please please please do not fall into that trap. We are not this dumb).

At the bookstore, I see teens leave Teen People and Teen Cosmo and much worse everywhere. Maybe I haven't talked to many of them lately.

If I were in my teens or early twenties and aware the white cover would hurt my feelings a little. On political awareness, I never see teens or early twentysomethings in the women's studies, ethnic studies or current events section. Feminism is a hard sell.

"why choose to use an actual body at all if part of what that will inevitably do is get fewer people who don't identify as the person on the cover to read the book? Is it worth the 'extra' readers you may get by having something 'edgy' (uh...is bare torso edgy, really?) really worth the readers who are people of color that you will lose?" - jpjesus

This is really interesting. Does the appearance of white skin really mean "people of color" won't read it? Isn't that kind of racist (them, not you)? I can't imagine choosing not to buy a book that would otherwise interest me just because the cover model is a different race then me.

I usually agree with Nubian, but in this case I'm not sure where she's coming from. She says it wouldn't be any better if it had been a woman of color; that being the case, why complain about the model being white? I mean, I happen to think it would have been better if the model had been a woman of color, which is what I would imagine Nubian to be suggesting if she's saying that the issue is that the woman is white. The argument just doesn't make sense to me.

She also seems to be zeroing in on the bare flesh, which also strikes me as weird. The bare flesh is not a problem unless we're supposed to say that the use of women's bare skin in advertising is always antifeminist and always wrong--in which case some of the images on some of the blogs Nubian has linked to, including one that featured a completely nude woman as a background image, would certainly run equally afoul of this standard. As would an image she had on her own site of a person's naked back.

I'm sorry, Nubian, you know I love you and your blog to pieces, but your argument in this case makes no blooming sense to me at all.

Cheers,

TH

It's not about racism; it goes back to what Tom was talking about in the Clinton blogging luncheon comments. If you want non-white people to come to your meeting/read your book, you have to market it to non-white people and make it inviting, not just assume that black women will pick up your book in a sort of tacked-on way after you market it to white women (Jessica, please note, I'm not accusing you or your book of this--as I hope I'm gonna make clear in about a minute!). White people have the privilege of not caring about race, because we have the illusion that it doesn't affect our lives. Black people don't have that luxury; consciousness of the effects of racism is inescapable, so in the same way that I, as a white woman, do not feel included by a movie or ad or book that addresses the plight of "everyman," because I'm not a man, so, I imagine, do black people not feel included by images of "average" or "regular" folks who, surprise surprise, are white.

Part of this is the place of not only privilege but normalcy that dominant groups occupy. We talk about "the man on the street"--"man" is the default, normal setting. Similarly, the default racial setting in our culture is white, and everything else is treated like some kind of deviation from a white norm.

But I can see why Jessica would not want to put a non-white woman's body on her book. As a white woman myself, I would feel like doing that would imply that I consider myself to be able to speak for black, Asian, Latina women, when I have no right to that position. It also would feel like using a black woman's body, for instance, to sell something, would be a kind of appropriation, in that historically, in this country, white people have made use of black people's bodies for their own benefit (white people's benefit), and that's not a dynamic I'd want to be invoking.

Um, by "It's not about racism," I meant to be responding to noname, and saying that non-white people who feel excluded by marketing that uses white models only aren't being racist.

I think nubian didn't care for either the patriarchally prescriptive nudity or color.

"Um, by "It's not about racism," I meant to be responding to noname, and saying that non-white people who feel excluded by marketing that uses white models only aren't being racist." - EG

How could it not be racist? They would be making a decision based purely on the race of the model.

Anyway, it is not a very big deal, so I'll drop it.

Congratulations on the book, Jessica.

"This is really interesting. Does the appearance of white skin really mean "people of color" won't read it? Isn't that kind of racist (them, not you)? I can't imagine choosing not to buy a book that would otherwise interest me just because the cover model is a different race then me."
No, it doesn't mean that people of color won't read it--if people of color restricted what they read to books with covers that didn't depict white people, they'd severely cut the list of things they might read. But I think it does mean that it's likely that fewer people of color will read the book than if there had been no picture of any person on it at all, for instance.

We are visual creatures to whatever degree, and representation means a lot--consciously and subconsciously. You may in fact not use identification in your choice of books to read, but some people do; furthermore, you may think that such imagery has no effect on what you read, but it may very well have a subconscious effect on what you *notice*.

"How could it not be racist? They would be making a decision based purely on the race of the model."

I disagree. They're not making a decision based purely on the race of the model--they're making a decision based on the race of the model within a larger social context that places people of some 'races' above people of other 'races'. They include not only the race of the model, but other facts about the world, such as the fact that white is the default.

(By the way, I'll be buying the book. Complaining about the cover doesn't mean I don't think it is likely to contain lotsa good content. Congrats on the book!)

nubian: i'm sorry. the naked torso of a woman is offensive

The sight of a woman's body offends you. Now there's a Taliban sentiment. Do you bathe in the pitch dark?

AND the naked WHITE torso of the young woman pisses me off.

I'm so God damn sorry to have offended you with my involuntary white-itude.

why do i even bother commenting here? everything that i say is always misconstrued, negated, and eventually called "racist."

i never said this image was racist. i don't tend to use that word lightly, yet, people love to assume that's what i'm always saying.

tom--at this point, i don't care if you love me or not and whether or not you agree with what i say. the point of the matter is, i don't feel that the book cover needs to sexualize ANY female body in order to represent feminism. look at this image--it's so highly sexualized it's insulting. it's not the fact that it is "bare flesh" that upsets me, it is the fact of the ideas that are attributed to that particular bare flesh. in this case, ideas of "real" femininity are once again atrributed to the white body.

but the fact of the matter is, there IS a body on the cover and it is a WHITE body--that is not going to change. therefore, it upsets me that a white female body symbolically represents feminism.

and never once did i want it to be a woman of color on the cover. i don't know where you got that from because those words were never spoken by me.

Jessica - it seems you really don't even need to release the book. Just release the cover and we will all talk about it incessantly. We'll talk about the symbolism of the model and the female form. How maybe you did or didn't have any choice in the cover. And how each of us would have obviously done it better. Maybe later you could release different versions of the same cover and we could talk about how each applies to society from every imaginable view of feminism.

Can't wait to read the book.

Huh. Go away for a day and all shit breaks loose on this thread. Well I'm sorry to all who don't feel like the cover is appropriate or that I'm "selling out" to the patriarchy by having a (white) woman's body part on the cover. I don't agree.

It's one of these situations where I can't make everyone happy. My cover choices were limited as it was, but I think I went in the right direction. I just think it's unfortunate that folks could extrapolate so much about the content of my book through the cover.

To those who are disappointed or who think the cover (and title apparently) sucks: Sorry, I do the best I can every day to make feminism accessible and interesting to younger women and this book is part of that work. If you don't like it, or think I do a poor job, that's cool. I'll continue to do the best I can. Thanks.

For what it's worth, I still love you Jessica (in that I just like reading your website and respect your opinions sort of way).

:)

"My cover choices were limited as it was"

What were your other options?

Given all the kerfuffle over the blogger luncheon photo,I find your choice of cover photo appropriate,as is the title.
I would used the one of you,but your call.

I think the cover, including the white-breadedness, is intended to allow it to pass for the sort of advertising that appeals to young women. And I assume even with the disproportionte amount of white skin in such adverts, they're aimed at and effective among young women of color.

But are those advertisements with white as default effective for the right reasons? Does it reinforce positivity about being a member of any race or having any shade of skin color? Or does it end up elevating one racial standards as the ultimate beauty/intellectual standard?

I mean, unless Jessica has written some kickassed deconstructive essay explaining the symbolism of her cover, I think the point of her using it will be lost on the young women, especially the young women of color. I'm not trying to be denigrating; I'm being realistic.

"It's one of these situations where I can't make everyone happy." - Jessica

That is always the danger of putting something like this out for public consumption. It's all good in the end, though. I figure when one of us publishes a book, we can brag about how much better our cover is. ;)

Hi, Jessica, I'm sorry if any of my comments gave the impression of thinking that you "do a poor job" of anything, or even that the cover "sucks." I, and I expect most of the people raising scruples about the cover/title, were just making some minor points about it, not suggesting that it somehow invalidates anything else you've done, or reflects some kind of feminist crapitude on your part. I know that certainly wasn't my intent, and I'm sorry if it seemed otherwise.

"i never said this image was racist. i don't tend to use that word lightly, yet, people love to assume that's what i'm always saying." - Nubian

Did someone claim that you said this image is racist? Who? Where?

skyanide, I understand and completely agree with you. My only point is, first, I don't think the cover is meant to exclude or turn away young women who aren't white. I obviously don't know the details, but I'm sure the book isn't designed to leave its readers in some sort of mindless enthrallment to mass media and its commodification of women (which includes, or is included by, its commodification of race). So I agree with everything you're saying, I just think that this particular image is meant as a Trojan horse. Like I said above, my sense is that the book is aimed at young women who would be turned off or annoyed by a cover that telegraphed the kind of concerns we're expressing here (which obviously doesn't make them irrelevant or wrong-headed, just not the right ones to foreground on the book cover).

Nubian writes:
tom--at this point, i don't care if you love me or not and whether or not you agree with what i say.

Good to be talking to you again, too.

Frankly, if you're willing to turn against the Feministing team and stab them in the back like this, I don't really want you to acknowledge my support. You have their private email addresses. You didn't have to use this as an opportunity to pull an Althouse and promote your own blog at Jessica's expense.

And enough with the self-contradictory argument. Seriously. Either the fact that it's a white body is a problem or it isn't, but if you say it isn't for the first half of the argument and is for the second, don't throw around racially charged language if someone says that makes no fucking sense--because it doesn't, period, and the fact that I'm a privileged white male doesn't change that fact.

I have backed you up pretty consistently in the past, but you are so far off base here--and with so much cruelty and betrayal thrown in for shits and giggles--that I can't support you, and am frankly beginning to wonder if I had the wrong impression of what you were doing all along. I am an incredibly stupid and gullible man, and my obviously unappreciated loyalty to you and to your blog is Exhibit A.

Cheers,

TH

So...did anyone see that baseball game?

Heraclitus, I'm wondering what those young women would think of the cover once they're influenced by what's inside the book.

Yeah, I see what you mean, skyanide, but I think they could then be critical of it while still realizing that it was necessary to draw them in. I'm sure I would burn with endless shame if I could remember what I was actually thinking when I started reading all the books that have really been influential to me.

What were your other options?

As far as I can tell, the other option was not to publish the book. I happened to meet Lindsay just after the Althouse shitstorm broke. I don't remember the exact words she used to describe how much Jessica fought with her publisher to try getting a better title than Full Frontal Feminism, but "incessantly" and "always" come to mind.

I don't see what's wrong with the title. I do see a problem with the cover photo in that it's a missed opportunity--it's a McBody, basically--but you know, the nastier and more unfair the criticism of Jessica gets, the more it grows on me. If this keeps up, I'll absolutely love that cover by the time the book goes to press.

Cheers,

TH