Back when I was an eager young first year student at University, a lecturer asked a mixed-gender class who would call themselves a feminist. It was in the middle of a discussion on something else, I forget what. What I still haven’t forgotten was my one, lonely hand, waving in the breeze. That moment of disillusionment, right before the lecturer raised his own hand, declared himself to be a feminist, and turned to the rest of the class: “Why aren’t you feminists?”

It made a nice change.

Perhaps this was an anomaly. It was mixed-gender and decidedly not anonymous which can put some people off. Also, it was a class of probably about twelve people, tops, which doesn’t really count as statistically significant.

In my third year, I enthusiastically signed up for a module explicitly dealing with feminist legal issues. The same question was put to the group of us – about thirteen – in the first class. We were all women, all in theory interested in women’s studies. Once again, I was the only student to acknowledge being a feminist. And once more my spirit momentarily failed.

Only for a moment, though. I haven’t in the years that have passed shied away from calling myself a feminist (although it’s been a word hurled at me – somewhat ineffectually – as an insult). I’ve also managed to meet some wonderful feminists, on and offline, and I know that we do in fact exist. Which is why I was so excited to hear about Reclaiming the F Word: The New Feminist Movement by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune.

It’s split into seven sections, covering: bodies; sexual freedom and choice; violence against women; work and home; politics and religion; popular culture; and feminism itself. It’s a pretty good range of the areas in which feminists are active. While it’s impossible for one book to fully capture the entire range of feminist interests and concerns, this book does a great job of picking out some of the key issues.

Essentially, it’s a book about the relevance of feminism today, and the work that is being done by feminists (individually and collectively) in the UK. As the authors say, it’s a ‘whistle-stop tour’ but no less valuable for that. Based on a survey of 1,265 feminists – with some results included in an Appendix – the authors have incorporated survey responses, and the thoughts and views of other feminists throughout the book.

Each chapter leads in with what the issues are about, what the situation is, and how it’s harmful to women. Inevitably, these passages are the most distressing; but a huge part of feminism is about opening your eyes to those issues, seeing through a feminist lens, recognising the problems so that we can set about really deconstructing them and doing something about it. For instance, in the chapter on violence against women, not just the offensively low conviction rate for rape is discussed, but also the public perceptions and reporting of rape, and what rape victims are like and how they act, and the impact that this has.

As this book hammers home, women’s fights are not yet won. Our sexuality is not our own; we are not protected from violence, we are not believed when we report it; our talents are not recognised on the same level as those of men in the same field; we are not adequately represented in political, religious and other institutions around the world; we are not encouraged to meet our full potential except in terms of an extremely limited ‘physical’ potential that extends only so far as waxing our legs, but not sufficiently far as to recognise the accomplishments of female athletes and sportswomen.

What the writers also show, though, are the huge numbers of women (and men) who keep fighting, in a seemingly never-ending variety of ways. The pages are bursting with the activities and achievements of feminists engaging in a wide range of activism. Some of these I knew about (such as the Pink Stinks campaign), but others were new to me (like Robogals), and I found myself frequently running to my computer to look up more details about particular projects.

So much for all the people just lining up to say that young women don’t care about feminism. The mean age of survey respondents was 31, with the mode being 23.

A feminist friend of mine once told me that “patriarchy works in many ways.” She wasn’t wrong, and those ways can be both horrendously blatant and dangerously insidious; but feminists work in many ways, too, on a range of issues, and are constantly striving to de-cloak more subtle forms of discrimination, and to do something about the effects of it. It’s a tough gig, but someone’s gotta do it. Even better is when lots of people do it, and Reclaiming the F Word tells us that that’s just what is happening, and will hopefully inspire more people to take action, however they choose to do so. There are even ‘Take action!’ sections at the end of each chapter, to get the ideas rolling.

Reclaiming the F Word is a statement of why feminism is still necessary, is a recognition of the amazing work that’s being done, and is a rallying cry to women and men everywhere to get involved. It strikes a great balance between these themes, and the thorough research, clear and honest writing, and unabashed celebration of feminism in all its myriad forms mean that everybody can take something positive away from reading this book.

I know that a fair few people I know are going to be getting some strangely similar book-shaped presents in the coming months.

Saying you’re a feminist in itself isn’t always easy, and it’s even harder to keep learning about the abuses of women in the UK and around the world: to keep seeking out the information; to keep challenging misconceptions and harmful attitudes and actions, especially those of people in positions of power; to keep doing something about it. But it’s necessary, it’s worth it, and you’re not alone.

Reclaiming the F Word is due for release on 10 June 2010. I got my copy from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme. This book counts as part of my reading for the Women Unbound Challenge.