Jill Filipovic interviews Amanda Marcotte on her new book It’s a Jungle Out There, in AlterNet:
Jill Filipovic: What inspired you to write It’s a Jungle Out There in the first place?
Amanda Marcotte: Well, with the very personal nature of blogs I get a lot of questions on how to fight back against sexism on a personal, day-to-day level. I also live in a red state, albeit in a blue city in a red state, so I felt like I had a unique perspective on how to confront the sexism that’s still out there, since I feel like I get it more often than a lot of other feminists do. I came up with a survival guide, a la The Zombie Survival Guide. I thought that it would just be a fun book for feminists to read and have a laugh at the unending sexism we address on a daily basis.
JF: Is the book aimed at nonfeminists too?
AM: I tried to address the issue of women who don’t call themselves feminists but who are in fact feminists by kind of making fun of the whole debate. If you’re afraid to call yourself a feminist, it’s probably an unfounded fear. So I would hope that women who don’t like sexism but who are still scared to call themselves feminists read this and walk away identifying themselves more accurately. But there are other books that address the issue more thoroughly, so I didn’t want to deal with it too much.