Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

18 reviews

jeggert10's review

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challenging dark hopeful informative medium-paced

4.25


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bethan182's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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stabilesero's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0

An incredibly important and relevant read. As part of a very online generation, I knew a little about the communities online that breed misogynistic views and opinions but I never knew how much of an impact it had on society and "offline" in the real world. 

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devynreadsnovels's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

5.0


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hayyyyyden's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0


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crybabybea's review against another edition

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challenging informative medium-paced

5.0


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cdubbs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0


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alexbalmer's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

4.5

This was a hard read. Not because of the writing style or even the length of the book itself (just shy of 350 pages šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø) but just the topic in general was constantly jarring. I had to just stop and close the book on multiple occasions and rethink many encounters with men in the pastā€¦

Itā€™s something I was aware of throughout recent years, terms like ā€œincelā€ and ā€œmanosphereā€ have popped up in memes/tiktoks but the size of the groups mentioned and the real life examples threw me off. To see how many mass shootings and other heinous crimes can be directly linked back to the ideology of these groups is shocking, saying how little you hear the word misogyny used in a serious, non-mocking way in the media. (Usually paired with jabs at ā€œfeminazisā€ and groups that are trying to HELP MENšŸ˜’)

STRONGLY encourage anyone who spends a decent amount of their lives online (and on any form of social media) to read this. Even if youā€™re a bit older and feel like you have a grasp on how to interpret content/news/facts online.  

One thing that I will say (not necessarily a complaint or a mistake) but when checking the Notes at the back of the book for references on certain facts a lot of the time it would be news articles. Nothing really wrong with that except that throughout the book it is said how the media is quick to jump to conclusions when they havenā€™t done much research. Iā€™m guessing Bates has looked into each sources thoroughly. Maybe itā€™s my own preconceptions that make me pause before referencing Channel 4 in a debate?

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mindintheskies's review

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challenging informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

There's so much detail in this book that I didn't expect. I was triggered by a lot of the statistics and real, lived stories that were shared of women suffering at the hands of incels and incel-sympathisers. I guess that's the reason why it's taken me 4 months to get through it all. The book doesn't only cover examples on women, but marginalised communities, Muslim men and women and others. In fact there's a respectable amount of focus on Islamophobia and the discrepancy in media reporting of crimes committed by incels, and crimes committed by people belonging to the Muslim community. The book is on extreme communities of misogynists and repeatedly states that the vast majority of men don't hate women, without denying the fact that a large group of men who do hate women exist and are spreading that hate through online grooming, interactions, in institutions, the media and police covering up crimes, and so many other platforms e.g. YouTube on a daily basis. It's so scary that people actually believe women are subjects of hatred, especially when it comes from young people. It's given me a lot of knowledge and understanding of how these incel communities are set up, run and how they survive. The book also covers a chapter on men who hate men who hate women which I found really interesting. As expected there are a lot of examples that I've either experienced myself or know someone who has gone through the extreme examples mentioned in the book, so it gives me a sense of validation and acceptance that it's a reality that women live in this world, and that there's the awareness of it through this book and other resources similar. I have also listened to parts of the audiobook and listened to the interview at the end, which was very insightful.

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notthatcosta's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

2.5

I tend to struggle with books that were written by journalists, because I find that their storytelling skills are lacking when it comes to creating a whole book. Even though Laura Bates is not a journalist, Men Who Hate Women falls foul of similar traps that I've seen previously in non fiction books of this type.

Most of the chapters feel unnecessarily padded out, often with repetition of previous points made that don't serve to create a cohesive narrative thread. Even in more successful chapters like 'Men Who Don't Know They Hate Women', half way through it veers off into a tangent about the 2016 election. 

I understand that the topic at hand is very broad, complex and wide reaching, but the lack of focus makes it frustrating to read beyond the frustrating subject matter. With better and tighter editing I think this could have been a great book, but it ends up feeling like an unfocussed and cluttered collection of ideas and case studies with some paraphrased 4Chan posts sprinkled in. 

I probably would have preferred it if the book just centred on what Laura Bates heard during her school visits and talks, rather than the need to try and summarise what she read on manosphere forums.

 

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