Pleasure, Play, and Politics

Kirsten Leng is an associate professor in the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Sexual Politics and Feminist Science: Women Sexologists in Germany, 1900–1933.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Recovering the History of Humor in U.S. FeminismPart 1. Humor and Feminist Activism1. “Laugh a Lot and Sing a Lot”: Kicking Ass with Flo Kennedy2. Turning Tricks and Throwing Balls: COYOTE and Carnivalesque Politics3. Sardonic Feminism: The Guerrilla Girls’ Insurgent Irony4. Humor, Rage, and Spectacle: The Lesbian Avengers’ Fearless FumerismPart 2. Humor and Feminist Culture5. Feminist Spaces for Feminist Stand-Up: Women’s Music and Comedy Festivals6. Identity, Politics, and Community: Queer-Feminist Cartoonists7. Parody, Pleasure, and Desire: The Yeastie Girlz Play with Punk CultureConclusion: Humor in Troubled TimesNotesBibliographyIndex

"This is not your mother's humor—or maybe it is, and you just didn't know it? Revealing the hidden history of second- and third-wave comedic pranksters like Flo Kennedy, the Lesbian Avengers, and the punk trio the Yeastie Girlz, among so many others, Kirsten Leng brings into sharp relief a rich history of humor and the unconventional feminism that continues to transform the body and body politic. Leng's study of feminist humor shows us not only where we have been but where we need to be and how to get there."—Julie Willett, coauthor of Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth“This critical rewriting of feminist historiography puts humor front and center. Kirsten Leng writes with the witty aplomb of the activists at the heart of her path-breaking study, modeling their sense of urgency and bringing feminist humor alive on the page.”—J. Finley, author of Sass: Black Women’s Humor and Humanity “Pleasure, Play, and Politics makes a significant contribution to feminist history, cultural studies, humor studies, pop culture studies, and gender studies. It is a joy to read a book of rigorous scholarship that is also lively and enjoyable. This is a brilliant and much-needed book.”—Linda Mizejewski, author of Pretty/Funny: Women Comedians and Body Politics “Kirsten Leng rewrites the history of U.S. feminism and what a blast it is! While the misogynist and the patriarch rant and rail against the feminist who can’t take a joke, the joke is on them. Feminists’ dirty little secrets, their weapons of choice, the fuel of their politics, the fumes of their anger, are lit by laughter. . . . This is a groundbreaking work of scholarship and a contagious history of fun. At the end of reading this book, one could only hope for more chapters from a future of feminism to come.”—Cynthia Willett, coauthor of Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth “When the state of politics appears as glum as ever, Kirsten Leng’s book serves as an important reminder of the long history of feminist fun. Laughter may be fleeting, but this book aggregates its ephemera as evidence of activist pasts to be gleefully built upon.”—Jed Samer, author of Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s