Drawing on a wealth of research and personal interviews, Natasha Walter, author of the groundbreaking The New Feminism and one of Britain's most incisive cultural commentators, gives us a straight-talking, passionate and important book that makes us look afresh at women and girls, at ... more

Going beyond identity politics and the pleasures of plumage, Femmes of Power captures a diverse range of queerly feminine subjects whose powerful and intentional redress explodes the meaning of femme for the 21st century.
Femmes of Power features both every-day heroines and many queer feminist icons, including Michelle Tea, Virginie Despentes, Amber Hollibaugh, Itziar Ziga, Lydia Lunch, Kate Bornstein and Valerie Mason-John.
Femmes of Power unsettles the objectifying "male" gaze on femininity and presents femmes as speaking subjects and high heeled theorists. Look closer - these powerful, sexy and sincerely ironic feminine figures are larger than life, bravely challenging femininity's negative connotations and replacing femme invisibility with a fresh new face for femme-inism.

First published 2008.