Against White Feminism

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

An essential, comprehensive account of what white feminism is - and an empowering manifesto for revolution

For readers of Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women and Florence Given's Women Don't Owe You Pretty

Feminism is supposed to be the fight for the freedom and equality of women. And in the past 200 years it has made incredible gains: paving the way for women to advance economically, handing them back control of their own bodies, and advocating for their needs and their experiences.

But not for all women.

Since its very beginning, mainstream feminism has catered to a particular group of women: middle class, cis-gendered, Western, and above all, white. And the exclusion of everyone outside this narrow category is not merely an oversight, a coincidence, a slip. It is baked into the way feminism works.

This must change. White supremacy is killing feminism. Until all of us are free and equal in society, none of us are.

The power to transform it lies with each one of us. It starts with understanding how we got here in the first place.


Eye-opening, timely and impossible to ignore, Against White Feminism traces the connections between feminism and white supremacy from the earliest stirrings of the women's suffrage movement to the 'fourth wave' we see today, demonstrating how an idea based on equality has been corrupted by prejudice and exploitation from the start. Rafia Zakaria issues a powerful call to arms to every reader to build a new kind of feminism which will light the path to true emancipation for all.

'Necessary, warm-hearted and sharp-eyed... [Zakaria] brings compassion, intelligence, and a steady drumbeat of change to redefining feminism... This book is going to light fires everywhere, so if you are prone to combust, get right the hell out of the way' Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2021

© Rafia Zakaria 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

  • Bracing and compassionate… Make room beside Audre Lorde and Angela Davis on your shelves

    Chicago Review of Books
  • A thoughtful and provocative collection calling for a sharper feminism… It is a must-read

    Roxane Gay
  • Against White Feminism is the book I have been waiting for. This landmark work will forever change how we view the feminist movement and our place in it

    Sonia Faleiro, author of 'The Good Girls'
  • What does feminism look like when it centers on Black and Brown women? And when it doesn’t hold hands with colonialism? Rafia Zakaria makes a clear case for intersectional feminism that puts power in a different place

    Washington Post
  • Zakaria is a warm-hearted and sharp-eyed writer who brings compassion, intelligence and a steady drumbeat of change to redefining feminism… This book is going to light fires everywhere, so if you are prone to combust, get right the hell out of the way

    Lit Hub - Most Anticipated Books of 2021
  • A brilliant, bracing, and deeply necessary text. Showing how feminism had systematically centred white women’s voices, and excluded others’, this is a polemic that couldn’t be more urgent in improving feminism as a movement

    Kate Manne, author of 'Down Girl'

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