Although Jennifer Mathieu’s Moxie is a little over-stuffed with feminist issues, the book’s mission is accomplished with a good dose of humor and heart.
A synopsis:
Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.
Viv’s mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the ’90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother’s past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She’s just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.
Moxie contained so many scenarios our own daughters experienced in high school: the shaming during random dress code checks, the “bump & grab” by boys in packed hallways, and the administration either covering up or aiding bad behavior in order to protect the image of boys on the football team (though not to the extent done in the book).
Nothing in this story hasn’t happened on a high school campus, though maybe the author didn’t need to put *every* single thing in the plot. And she maybe didn’t need to make every single adult in power so absolutely wretched.
Still, I appreciated the examination of feminism here: what does feminism mean to different people, especially girls? How do girls either subtly or overtly sometimes work against their own best interests? How does working for the security of *all* girls help them cross social and racial lines? How do boys who are aware and supportive fit into the picture?
I loved the oomph and fight in this book, served with just enough nuance to be thoughtful and just enough simplicity to be a good feminist primer for teenage girls.
BOOK:30 