Our Shared Self

I’m no extreme feminist, however in the last year or so Twitter has heightened my interest in feminism. After months of observing boys on Twitter making bold statements such as “girls shouldn’t be able to do this or that” or “girls with no tits are basically men”, I started to get a little fed up. I know that Twitter shouldn’t be the base of my feminist outlook but sometimes I think it does help to expose you to the problematic views of women today.

My knowledge on modern feminism is not particularly impressive as you can probably guess, but I am certainly a believer in equality. So when I heard about Emma Watson’s upcoming feminist book club I was excited to say the least. An opportunity to learn more about feminism, and to be taught by the almighty Emma Watson? Very exciting. Although, the only names she’d come up with for the book club thus far were ‘Emma Watsons Book Club’ or ‘Feminist Book Club’, but hey-ho. What a wonderful idea!

Emma announced the news on her Twitter, requesting some ideas from her fellow Watson-fans. In the midst of all the chatter of feminist puns, literary ideas and Hermione-based suggestions, Emma dropped the bombshell that she’ll be inviting JK Rowling. What a relief. So, a whole day of Twitter-mention-tennis went by, and Miss Watson finally decided on a name, ‘Our Shared Shelf’. The exciting news is that all you have to do is create an account on Goodreads and then join the ‘Our Shared Shelf’ group. If you’re a book-fanatic then download this app ASAP. You can then get all the literar-y and feminist-y discussions you like! It’s a bit worrying how excited I am about this, really.

“The plan is to select and read a book every month, then discuss the work during the month’s last week (to give everyone time to read it!)” Emma explains. “I will post some questions/quotes to get things started, but I would love for this to grow into an open discussion with and between you all. Whenever possible I hope to have the author, or another prominent voice on the subject, join the conversation.”

Gloria Steinem is the first author on Emma’s list

I don’t know about you, but I really love the idea of a group discussion on books and feminist topics just at the click of a finger. I love an old-fashioned book, but when I’m busy sometimes picking up a novel seems a task, and seeing as I’m always on my phone and laptop, this idea of Watson’s makes sense to me.