Gifts for Budding Feminists

Your favorite budding feminist’s name will go down in HERtory if you buy her these awesome gifts, we swear! At the very least, she’ll never say she’s “not a feminist, but…” again.

Field Trip.

How about a visit to the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY? LaComtesse highly recommends it: “Honestly, this is what pushed teenage LaComtesse into actually identifying as a feminist.”
Free! [nps.gov]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Box Set.

Looking for a funny, resourceful, brave and all-around kick-ass female protagonist for your budding feminist? Look no further.
$168 for the complete series [Amazon]

Feminist Card Games.

“Buffalo” is a card game that asks you to “name-drop faster than your friends” to win. How is that feminist? Well, it was developed as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project called “Transforming Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) For Women and Girls: Reworking Stereotypes & Bias.” Soon your recipient will be able to name more impressive ladies than you can.
$19 [Tilt Factor]

Gift Certificate for Martial Arts Lessons.

Rhetoric8d wrote, “I know something I would have loved as a young student – a gift certificate for martial arts lessons! I was traveling alone for school in those days and wasn’t very street-smart. I always felt I would have had much greater confidence and felt less vulnerable if I knew a bit of judo or something but always balked at the prices on my student budget.”

Feminist Rulers.

Rich Frog makes rulers with famous women on them: in sports, art, music, etc. They’re super cheap, so buy her a bunch! (P.S. Don’t you always wish you had a ruler handy? I do. And I never do! Someone buy me a Rich Frog ruler, please?)
$1.95 [Eco Mom]

Full Frontal Feminism.

I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve told me that Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters “opened their eyes,” as cliche as it sounds. The Purity Myth is also a fantastic Valenti choice.
$11 [Amazon]

Feminist YA.

Here are clareapparent’s recs:

There is some really fantastic YA being produced by feminist writers, where the MCs have agency and the plots have romance but don’t revolve around it. There are a lot of options depending on taste, but I recommend:

Across the Universe by Beth Revis (Wall-E meets The Giver meets a murder mystery… in space)
Divergent by Veronica Roth (Harry Potterish but w/o magic & with lots more violence & ass-kicking)
Cinder by Marissa Meyer (futuristic steampunk cyborg Cinderella with a plague & killer moon colony!)
Adaptation by Melinda Lo (X-File-y sci-fi w/ a bisexual MC)
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (beauty queen satire meets Lost with racial diversity & lesbian/bisexual/trans characters who actually have romantic storylines and agency.)

Rookie Yearbook One.

Man, do I wish Rookie was around when I was in high school. For the olds: Rookie, Tavi Gevinson’s online magazine, is like a more genuine (and glittery) version of Sassy. For the youngs: needs no introduction.
$16 [Amazon]

Madame Curie T-Shirt.

Ivriniel recommends a Madame Curie T-shirt. Yes, please!
$21 [ThinkGeek]

Image via Kzenon/mangostock/Shutterstock.