Jessica Valenti interview in Salon

Jessica who runs Feministing is being interviewed in Salon about feminism and her new book Full Frontal Feminism

As far as explosive signifiers go, there are few more combustible than the word "feminism." It was forged through suffrage and the ERA and Roe v. Wade, and has survived through first and second and third waves to the tunes of Helen Reddy and Ani DiFranco. Dogged by the image of a spectral harpy with hairy legs and an apocryphal burned bra in her hand, it has been declared dead, then resurrected, then declared dead again. But god bless it, there's life in feminism yet.

Salon readers may recognize the name Jessica Valenti; she has been an oft-quoted source and a contributor to this magazine. The 28-year-old New York native is the founder of 3-year-old Feministing.com, and arguably the most prominent young feminist online today. Her combination of brains, charisma and a willingness to mix it up with critics has already brought her attentions both flattering and horrifying.

This week brings Valenti's first book, the energetic "Full Frontal Feminism" (Seal Press), a scrappy ode to the movement to which she's dedicated herself, designed to win over young women she fervently believes are feminists but just don't know it yet.

"Full Frontal Feminism" is not your mother's "Our Bodies, Ourselves," unless your mom's copy was annotated with phrases like "I shit you not" and "Tell me that's not royally fucked up." (Which it might reasonably have been.) Valenti's message is very much of its time: She is trying to win over a population of women she believes might think to themselves, "I'm not a feminist, but it is total bullshit that Wal-Mart won't fill my birth control prescription."

It's a pretty good interview, and I will certainly get hold of that book. Don't read the comments though, unless you have a high tolerance towards anti-feminist retorics. One of the themes of the comments is that there is not real gender gap, to which I replied with this comment, which is a c&p of th relevant part of this post. I don't think that the fact that I site actual studies will make any difference to the anti-feminist trolls though.