Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

13 reviews

clarawmarcia's review

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informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.25


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papreasaurus's review

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It was incredibly challenging to know the following things;
1. People that Laura talks about in this book exist in large, hidden numbers
2. They could be anyone

This book contains extremely important and helpful information. It is something I think everyone should take a gander at least once in their life - regardless of their gender, sex or orientation. Because this is a reality we all face and interact with, even if it is on very different levels from one person to the next. But it honestly gave me so much anxiety listening to the audio book, that I need to make sure everyone is aware that it is a very difficult read / listen, and it is okay to read it in small doses.

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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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takin492's review

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dark informative sad medium-paced

3.0


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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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rewitr's review

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challenging dark informative

5.0


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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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annieaktike's review

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challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

5.0


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daddycat96's review against another edition

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challenging informative tense slow-paced

5.0

Laura Bates doesn’t hold back and at times I needed to put the book down and breathe because I was that horrified by what I was reading. But she eloquently and clearly provides the reasoning and proof and links between the different segments of the manosphere and explains the real life, offline impacts of this supposedly online only world. It’s a hard fucking read and has many a triggering topic but it is definitely worth the read.

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