Reviews tagging 'Islamophobia'

Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

48 reviews

mindintheskies's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Sexual assault, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Xenophobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Stalking, Violence, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Hate crime, Islamophobia, Murder, Misogyny, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Racism, and Rape

notthatcosta's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Moderate: Antisemitism, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Bullying, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Transphobia, Body shaming, Sexism, Hate crime, Homophobia, Rape, Cursing, Death, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Child death, Islamophobia, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Violence, and Xenophobia

nugenmak000's review

I plan to pick up this book later when I'm in a stringer mental headspace. This book is dark and covers the different layers of the manosphere and their groups. It covered misogyny and crimes against women/general hate of women. It also mentioned manifestos of crazed misogynistic murderers like Elliot Rogers. This book is overall very heavy and difficult to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Violence, Gun violence, and Sexual violence

Minor: Antisemitism, Murder, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Islamophobia, Mass/school shootings, Pedophilia, and Rape

milesjmoran's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Sexual violence, Violence, Rape, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Mass/school shootings, Sexism, and Islamophobia

titan_reads's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

5.0

Very informative, but dark. A great place to start reading about misogyny and sexism, though it does quickly introduce some of the worst of the worst which can be quite shocking. The author mentioned real violent and abusive acts that have been committed against women and also shared posts that contain unfiltered threats to commit these acts throughout the book. 

I felt it was a good mix of showing the daily struggles women face just existing but also being empathetic towards the real problems men face. The last few chapters made me want to encourage the people in my life to take a more active role in the lives of the vulnerable people around them. 

I did have trouble reading this book not because of the writing but because I recognized so much of what was depicted in my own personal experiences with people online and in-person. I read something more upbeat alongside it and took breaks when I needed them. If you're in the right headspace it is worth the read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Islamophobia

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Hate crime, Slavery, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, and Physical abuse

Minor: Torture and Trafficking

dollyshouse97's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Reflecting all the interactions I’ve had with men on and offline 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Racism, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Sexual harassment, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Islamophobia, and Domestic abuse

znvisser's review

dark informative slow-paced

2.5

This is an important book and the author did the research to provide insight in the addressed problems - and eventually an attempt at solutions as well. Even though I knew about most of these communities, this book still provided me some new insights. That being said, I had a hard time plowing through it and wouldn't have finished it this soon (or maybe at all) if it weren't for the January daily reading challenge. To me this information would have been presented more effectively as a series of journalistic articles, as in its current form it became repetitive quickly and felt too preachy to the choir to have a real impact. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Stalking, Bullying, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, and Murder

Moderate: Transphobia, Antisemitism, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Racism, Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, and Sexual assault

th18's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

Amazing book and incredibly eye opening. Hard to read sometimes because of the emotions I felt but I think this is a book that everyone should read atleast once, especially men. Highlighting these issues hat we as women and half of the population face is extremely difficult but I feel that Laura did an amazing job. I've definitely been motivated to spread this information to others and do my best to educate men around me in order to prevent as much as possible their becoming of incels. I cannot stress enough how educational this book has been. Will definitely reread.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment, and Violence

Minor: Emotional abuse, Islamophobia, Suicide, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Religious bigotry, Toxic relationship, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Hate crime, Bullying, Mental illness, Mass/school shootings, Pedophilia, Death, and Racism

bookishbrenbren's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.0

I thought this book was really great but it would've benefitted from a heavier-handed editor crossing out repetitive or superfluous information.

It starts very strong with informative and compelling chapters on the incel community, pick-up artists (PUA), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), and MRAs, which (even for someone who felt fairly well-informed before going into the book) were all by turns very shocking and very elucidating. I thought the author's argument of how and why this online extremism is causing offline harm was strongest in these early chapters and I found myself marking the most number of pages in this section.
The subsequent chapters, on trolls and domestic violence provided diminishing returns to their inclusion and could've been shortened - or rather, the domestic violence chapter could serve as a primer to the book, more of an introduction if anything, as knowledge of the misogynist foundations of our society is sort of necessary background information.
The following chapters, "Men Who Exploit Other Men" and "Men Who Are Afraid of Women", which cover, respectively, the ways the most powerful and recognizable misogynists - the 'face' of misogyny, if you will - benefit from the support of online misogynists (and how online misogynists are empowered by their public representation) and the strong misogynist backlash against the #MeToo movement and the sudden popular interest in false rape allegations. Again, I thought these chapters were out of place after 6 chapters of sketching how the extremist misogynist online community looks and acts. There were pages explaining how Donald Trump and Piers Morgan benefit from misogyny... like... did the author and editor assume their readers not only exist in the year 2020, and then not only bought THIS book (not likely by accident, given the title), but somehow also made it through the first 200 pages of this book without understanding what these  men and their slavering followers have done to bring misogyny mainstream? Or did they think that these readers would be the folks who need convincing that the backlash to MeToo was misogynist in nature? To me, it seemed silly. If readers didn't know this information beforehand, it seems unlikely their worldviews would have allowed them to get through the first chapters of this book. Needless to say, I felt very bored by these chapters and what started out as a very exciting 5-star read for me became mired in "yeah yeah yeah"s. 

Then the final two chapters, on young men and the ways they are captured by the online extremist community and men who are working against the very outdated societal standards of masculinity, were a return to extremely informative and extremely compelling writing, and I was very glad I didn't give the book up sooner. Thus, I am torn. If I could edit about 60 pages out of this book, I think it would be a 5-star read. But as it stands now, it's only 'good'. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Mass/school shootings, Sexual violence, Rape, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Violence, Sexism, Suicide, Xenophobia, Stalking, Religious bigotry, Racism, and Homophobia

lawmixitup's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

5.0

Challenging and hard to finish. I can't say I enjoyed this book but I will say it's important. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Racism, Islamophobia, Violence, Sexual violence, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Rape, Sexism, and Gun violence