Andrea Dworkin’s Woman Hating  is an early radical feminist book that looks at how misogyny is built into Western culture. Dworkin argues that women learn from a young age—through fairy tales, religion, and social norms—that they are meant to be passive, obedient, and available to men. She shows how these stories and institutions shape what women can do and how they are treated. A striking part of the book is her discussion of people who don’t fit traditional gender roles. Dw

In this quintessential work of queer theory, Jack Halberstam takes aim at the protected status of male masculinity and shows that female...