Koa Beck shows how feminism consistently serves White supremacy over sisterhood.

On this week’s episode, sponsored by Amazon Original Stories’ new Faraway Collection, Koa Beck discusses White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind (Atria, Jan. 5), a clear-eyed analysis of the ongoing fight for gender equality and how “feminism” has been coopted and commodified.

As a former editor-in-chief of Jezebel and executive editor of Vogue, Beck has a rare vantage on feminism in media and the world at large; in 2019, she was awarded a Harvard Kennedy School fellowship to study it. White Feminism takes readers on a journey from the suffragettes through second-wavers, Ms. magazine, the #GirlBoss and #MeToo movements, and the boycotts and parades and deals made in between, with a special focus on those left behind by advances in women’s rights.

Kirkus: “The author effectively brings out of the background many of the Black working women who enabled the success of the predominantly White and upper-class women at the center of these stories” (starred review).

Beck and host Megan Labrise talk about White feminism as an ideology that has nothing to do with the lived reality of most women in the United States today, Beck’s conversation with White Tears/Brown Scars author Ruby Hamad, researching the book, the failure of White feminists to recognize how they wield their own power, and much more.

Then editors Vicky Smith, Laura Simeon, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick join with their reading recommendations for the week.

Editors’ picks:

Over the Shop by JonArno Lawson, illus. by Qin Leng (Candlewick)

One of the Good Ones by Maika and Maritza Moulite (Inkyard Press)

The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto by Charles M. Blow (Harper/HarperCollins)

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Also mentioned in this episode:

The stories of Bob Graham

Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City by Wes Moore with Erica L. Green (One World)

Stakes Is High by Mychal Denzel Smith (Bold Type Books)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House)

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.