(Part 3) Top products from r/SRSWomen

Books my son has loved:

• "That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown". Queen Gloriana the Third tries every trick in the book to get her hands on Emily Brown's rabbit Stanley, but Emily Brown isn't giving her best friend away, not even for all the toys in the world. This is my son's favorite book ever. Great story, both main characters are female. The text is just right - a few challenging words/phrases which are repeated often, the rest easily understood by 3-4 yr olds. Illustrations are funny and awesome.
  
  
• "Falling for Rapunzel" - A fractured fairy tale (my favorite kind) in rhyme. The prince thinks Rapunzel needs his help and rides to her tower to rescue her, but she keeps mishearing his request to "let down her hair". Text is a bit challenging for 3-4 yr olds, and you might need to stop to explain the meanings of a few words, but my son loves the rhyme and LOLs a lot at the story. Nice illustrations too!
  
  
• "Where the Wild Things Are" - a classic, I'm sure you are familiar with it. When we read this book, I make sure the wild things are often "she". :)
  
  
• Several Dr. Seuss books, such as Green Eggs and Ham, and The Cat in the Hat. Some Dr. Seuss books are boring for my son, especially the ones with a LOT (just pages and pages) of nonsense words - entertaining for a bit but it's a chore to get through the book. We like the ones with a story. With Dr. Seuss, you need to be extra vigilant about gender of the characters, there are almost no female characters in his books. In our home when we read, I make the Cat in the Hat female :) all "she" where it says "he", and so on.
  
  
• any "Dora the Explorer" book. Great for characters of color. I highly recommend Dora in general, it's perfect for 3 yr olds. My son's outgrowing her now that he's 4, though, it's a bit too simple for him.
  
  
• recently we've added a bunch of nonfiction books about volcanoes, planets, dinosaurs, etc. When we read them there's always a discussion of stuff like "what's going to happen if we go to Pluto?" and so forth. Great time to inject diversity education: our astronauts are often disabled!

OK, I had a really small DIY wedding, because my awesome husband and I wanted to spend money on a new house and a nice honeymoon instead. It was so beautiful - handsewn dress, gorgeous and heartfelt details, plus my entire family pitched in along with the tiny desert town where we were married. I cried all day because it was like a dream, it was so perfect.

One of the best books I've read in the past ten years is called One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. It's a solid takedown of the Wedding Industrial Complex and what a shitty thing it is. I recommend it to anyone who ever plans to have a traditional wedding ceremony because it really helps put stuff in perspective.

HOWEVER. I cannot seem to resist TV shows about weddings! I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would choose to spend 8,000 dollars on a dress when that money could buy three weeks in Florence, Italy for two in a gorgeous villa with great food, but I will watch the fuck out of a Say Yes to the Dress marathon. I adore Randy, the stylist. I love the little family mini-dramas that surround the process of choosing "the perfect dress". I love the beautiful, ridiculously overpriced dresses even though I went for something very simple and plain myself. I love the way each woman feels so invested in expressing herself through her choice of dress. Hell, I love the whole damn spectacle of it. WHY IS THIS I DON'T EVEN.

I also have been known to binge on marathons of Four Weddings (AKA Competitive Weddings), and have even been known to gawk at Platinum Weddings, which is generally populated by truly awful people. BUT ALSO SPARKLY THINGS AND PRETTY DRESSES.

I think it's my way of working through my thwarted princess fantasies from childhood or something. That's my rationalization, anyway.

CONGRATS ON YOUR JOB AND PREGGO EGGO! Praying that it comes out happy and healthy as can be!

• My awful cousin and her racist unemployed husband finally stopped taking advantage of my grandmother and moved out! YAY!
  
  
• I bought two Suda51 games that are just awesomely ridiculous.
  
  
• My trip to Florida is only 2 days away and I'll be getting my new septum piercing down there.
  
  
• Just got back from the doctor's and they said my insulin level is down (take that PCOS!)
  
  
• I bought "How To Be A Woman" and I'm excited to read it.
  
  
• Got some beautiful dresses and some new bras that make me look like whoa awesome.
  
  I can't wait for what next week brings!

Right now I'm reading The Talk-Funny Girl, which so far is very interesting.

I also love young adult fiction, I just finished the Maze Runner trilogy and Delirium and Pandemonium, which were all great beach reads.

Recently finished: A visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan -- read it all in about two sittings, this book is amazing!

On now: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach -- really enjoying it thus far, and it is not what I expected.

Next up: Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon -- Pynchon is my favourite author and I've been saving this one for a while because of how long it is.

This one has a pretty good listing of angels. There's also this on someone's website, and I do recommend the Book of Enoch.

The Game of Thrones books (finally!) and an autobiography of Alan Turing called The Enigma, which is taking forever to get through, but is very interesting nonetheless.

Does she like to read? I often recommend "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. It's kind of a life changer, and lays out how to better protect yourself in a no nonsense, very clear way.

You could offer her a copy, say you thought she might like to read it since she's going to be out on her own now, and use the date rape thing as an example of why. That way, the date rape thing sneaks in while you're giving her the book, and then the advice is coming from the book, not you. If that makes sense.

If you're going to read The Tale of Genji, go Royall Tyler or go home. It's the most recent and is more faithful to the original text than Seidensticker and Whaley.

The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams

House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon

Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

I myself just finished re-reading the Sandman, and am now reading At The Hands of Persons Unknown and Good Omens. What is everyone else reading these days?

You really have to start from the beginning. The second trilogy is almost impossible to keep track of if you don't read them one on top of the other.

Jim Butcher my mistake. I've been fatigued as hell all week.

There have been a few books on the subject.

A researcher named Diana Scully went to several prisons and did long interviews with convicted rapists, with responses ranging from extremely remorseful to [MASSIVE TW] shitheads who believe that women have no right to refuse and must submit to all men.

The research led to a paper: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/800239?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101118301507

And a book: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Sexual-Violence-Convicted-Perspectives/dp/0415911087

The book is very eye opening.

The cis-het lean of my choices is unintentional.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler taught me so much about my cycle that I didn't know, and I considered myself extremely well educated about sexual health. Useful info.

Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft is primarily written about male abusers from the perspective of a court-appointed domestic abuse counselor but specifies the information is useful for all gendered situations. I have recommended this book to so many women who do not recognize abusive situations. It elucidated a lot about my relationships and the nature of abuse. It really understands how find yourself in an abusive situation despite your best intentions, but insists you must leave for your safety and is very clear about the ubiquitous escalation from psychological/verbal abuse to physical harm and death. This is an Intervention book if you know someone who needs help getting out of a shitty relationship.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant- so this is a weird choice maybe to be coming from me, an atheist, but this is reimagined Biblical fiction about a daughter of Jacob. It's been a long time since I read it but I remember being impressed by the idea of elevating a woman's voice from Biblical times, giving her agency, and reflecting on the ritualistic ties that bind women together (in this case, menstruation and midwifery). I'm sure there's all sorts of problematic stuff re: that pesky underlying belief system/Bronze Age patriarchy/elevation of motherhood as the epitome of female experience, et al. But I don't remember that? The thing that stuck with me was just a powerful story of womanhood, so that's gotta say something. (If any of you have read this more recently and want to tell me this is actually a terrible choice, I'm willing to concede that I have an awful memory, so the details may sink this one.).