Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

37 reviews

notlikethebeer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

As someone deeply interested in critical true crime, feminism, and denied victimhoods, this has been on my to-read list for ages - and I would say that, for the most part, it delivered! Prior to reading this, I knew next to nothing about Jack the Ripper, other than that he killed sex workers. Evidently, that's just not true, as this book so excellently explained. I really appreciated getting to know each of the women, learning about the facets of their lives in a way that victims are so often denied. I'm not much of a historian, so I also really appreciated the extent to which the author contextualised and explained the features of the time.

Reading The Five is really difficult. At each decision each woman makes, you want to cry out, to warn them off. As well, reading about the challenges they faced is incredibly hard when knowing where their stories will ultimately play out.

I do think I'm a bit conflicted about the way that the deaths themselves were approached. It was the underlying aim to provide agency and narrative, rather than focusing on their deaths, and so it's understandable that the actual deaths were somewhat glossed over. At the same time, those deaths are (tragically, horrifically, awfully) what made the women known to us today. More importantly, those deaths were part of their stories. I wonder whether removing the women from the narratives of their deaths is, in a way, another way of removing agency? I don't know.

I would also probably have appreciated a bit more reflexivity. There was some of this, but I think it could have been expanded upon further. It's not a coincidence or accident that the women continue to be known as sex workers: there is so much room for exploring the function of this. Similarly, so much of what was featured in this book was conjecture: "would" and "should" were used so much. It would have been useful I think to explore how many gaps there are, and what we can understand of this. And, whilst Jack the Ripper was intentionally not the focus of this book, I wonder what we can make of the assumption that there could only have been one killer, what that might mean. Then again: what is an important book if not one that provokes further questions?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence and Murder

yossy_cookie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

3.5

An interesting look at the victims of Jack the Ripper. This is not true crime, there is nothing at all about the killings but this focuses on the lives of the women. It is an interesting insight into what life was like in Victorian London and the attention to detail is superb. It is, however, slow paced and quite heavy going 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Sexism, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Classism, Trafficking, Death, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Addiction, Murder, Misogyny, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

will_cat_books's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Addiction, Child death, Murder, Classism, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

mahmabaer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

4.0

I enjoyed it for the most part and the author's basic theory

that all the women were not prostitutes

, does give one something to consider.  I do wish she hadn't been so heavyhanded in her attempt to find no blame towards the women themselves, as it makes it come across as if she is less interested in telling the stories of the five victims and more interested in proving her point.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Death, Emotional abuse, Dementia, Bullying, Death of parent, Addiction, Grief, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Violence

abi_sarah's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.0

An expertly written documentary of the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. The amount of research that went into writing this book is clear from the offset and the writing is engaging, emotional and empathetic. You really start to grow attached to the women and feel a profound sadness and heartfelt sympathies for the way society dictated that they lived their lives and subsequently the end that met them. 

Hallie Rubenhold really sets the scene of Victorian London and effortlessly introduces each of the victims with the societal norms and prejudices which forced them - in most cases - to live largely unhappy lives. She describes what it’s like to live in workhouses and what little privacy there is for those who live in them - perhaps explaining why now we value privacy so much as a society.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Addiction

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, and Drug use

Minor: Physical abuse, Rape, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Chronic illness, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, and Grief

tlholmes's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Women’s history, non fiction 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, Trafficking, Classism, Death, Grief, Sexism, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, Pregnancy, Murder, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Alcoholism

thinkingcatss's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, Classism, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Sexual content, Rape, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Trafficking, Death, Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Medical content, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Child death, Alcohol, Grief, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Violence

laurareadsbig's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Infidelity, Murder, and Child death

beebeewin's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

As someone who had heard of Jack the Ripper all my life, it is a sad realization that until this book I hadn't thought about who his victims were. We embrace him as this thrilling mystery who deserves to be remembered, while the victims of his crimes are just demonstrations of his prowess. This book flipped that narrative on its head. With poetic writing and unflinching honesty, Rubehold gives voice to the five women and the society, with values that are eerily similar to modern society values, that put them in harms way. It was a society that failed to see them as anything but prostitutes deserving of their fate, something still echoed today. As said by Rubenhold, "By embracing him [Jack the Ripper], we embrace the set of values that surrounded him in 1888, which teaches women that they are of a lesser value and can expect to be dishonored and abused. We enforce the notion that 'bad women' deserve punishement and that 'prostitutes' are a subspecies of female." Allowing ourselves to paint over the fact that these women were complex mothers, friends, wives, lovers, and  humans, gives Jack the Ripper the power once again over women who were already powerless.  "Insisting Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes also makes the story of a vicious series of murders slightly more palatable." We get to ignore that these were human beings who were poor, disenfranchised, and misunderstood, to instead "gawp at and examine this miracle of malevolence... by figuratively stepping over the bodies of those he murdered, and in some case, stopping to kick them as we walked past." It was heartbreaking to here the story of Annie, Kate, Elizabeth, Mary Jane, and Polly and know that many women today like indigenous women, sex workers, trans women of color, are judged in the same fashion with violence against them being unnoticed or ignored. I will never see Jack the Ripper the same. I would say my biggest complaint was keeping all the names, dates, places, etc. straight. I almost wish there were more figures, timelines, or maps to help with context. I think for such a researched and thorough book it would have helped me absorb and understand more easily. That said I would definitely recommend this book to those true crime lovers, history buffs, and those looking for an informative yet tragic read. Your perspective will be forever changed. 


Othe great quotes:

Shein anyone???- "Poor women's labor was cheap because poor women were considered expendable..." 

One women, Elisabeth, was reported to police as a sex worker so she had to weekly strip and have her body searched for STIs along with other women, in public, and in the cold. "For a young women who had been raised in a religious community... the indignity of this experience would have been shocking. However, as Elisabeth was pregnant with a illegitimate child, is is likely that she, like so many women of her era, would have internalized the punishment as a justifiable one. Society and the church would have her believe she sinned against her parents, her community, herself, and God." Barf.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Murder

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Violence

Minor: Child death and Sexual violence

slinders's review against another edition

It just god too sad

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Death, Violence, and Classism