“It’s the same with feminism as it is with women in general: there are always, seemingly, infinite ways to fail.”

So begins a recent New Yorker story by Jia Tolentino. Tolentino’s subject is Jessa Crespin’s Why I Am Not a Feminist, on sale today.

Writing that “for Crispin the decline of feminism is visible in how easy the label is to claim,” Tolentino goes on to observe:

Crispin’s argument is bracing, and a rare counterbalance; where feminism is concerned, broad acceptability is almost always framed as an unquestioned good. “Somewhere along the way toward female liberation, it was decided that the most effective method was for feminism to become universal,” Crispin writes. And the people who decided this “forgot that for something to be universally accepted, it must become as banal, as non-threatening and ineffective as possible.

Read Tolentino’s complete write-up here.

Why I Am Not a Feminist is a cat among the canaries of contemporary feminism, a movement Crispin argues has become too well-behaved and complacent to affect the radical change we urgently need. It’s already stirring up passionate conversation — and, as of today, it’s on sale everywhere. Here’s one more link to Tolentino’s response. And click here to read more about the book.