Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis

29 reviews

aelunny's review

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

I knew I was in for a good book and I'm so grateful for the timing of when I read this. It's incredibly well written and is a page turner (I may have lost the physical book under my bed for 3 months but it really only took me two days of reading). This book is an important resource for understanding intersectionality and questioning the capitalist, and self driven lens we have been subjected to look through within this society.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Classism, Medical trauma, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Hate crime, Racism, Colonisation, Infertility, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexism, Slavery, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide, Death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicide attempt, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Xenophobia

lauraspeechly's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Genocide, Hate crime, Sexism, Racism, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Xenophobia

charlieeee's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Violence, Slavery, Sexism, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Medical trauma

Minor: Rape, Suicide, Sexual assault, Pregnancy, and Murder

dania_'s review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Essential reading for anyone wanting to learn about intersectionality and leftist politics. I was worried at first I wouldn't understand some of it (leftist literature tends to be difficult to discern as a beginner) but Angela Davis writes incredibly well and keeps your attention throughout. Plus, it's not a particularly long book. I highly recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Racism, Sexism, and Violence

readandfindout's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

Style/writing: 3.5 stars
Themes: 4.5 stars
Knowledge/perspective: 5 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Slavery, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, and Violence

achingallover's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Infertility, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Xenophobia

marxlee's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective tense slow-paced

5.0

Primeiramente gostaria de dizer que é uma pequena vitória pessoal finalmente conseguir terminar esse livro que tento ler desde o começo do ano passado (2020) e larguei de mão e voltei a ler do começo em janeiro devido a um projeto.
Agora ao que interessa; na primeira metade do livro acredito que pode ser um pouco difícil algumas pessoas conseguirem cair de cabeça na leitura já que desde a primeira página já temos a menção de acontecimentos históricos dos Estados Unidos que provavelmente não conhecemos, não estamos familiarizados e também com descrições fortes sobre a escravidão (também nos EUA). Já mais pra metade (e final, também) acredito que alguns também possam ficar meio confusos com nomes parecidos e acontecimentos já citados, eu fiquei um pouco. Não é tão confuso quanto eu talvez esteja fazendo parecer, mas pra mim foi um pouco e acredito que se alguém se encontrar com dificuldade de atenção e foco (como eu) encontre um pouco dessas dificuldades (que acredito que sejam mais do leitor que de quem escreveu).
Agora sobre o conteúdo em si, o livro é impressionante nos mostrando como lutas ocorrem, como assuntos se interligam e muitas, muitas coisas. Meus capítulos preferidos são os 4 últimos, são impressionantes!
Recomendo a leitura aos 4 ventos. E a edição é linda demais.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, and Slavery

Minor: Rape and Violence

sweetmusic22's review

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, and Hate crime

Moderate: Misogyny and Sexism

Angela Davis is one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. Her writing style is so articulate here in this book. I'd recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn about the interconnection between racism, sexism, and class structure. It challenges you (the reader) to understand (historically) how black women have always been at the forefront of civil rights and women's rights from the beginnings of slavery, abolitionism to women's liberation of the 60s and 70s. Reading this book (especially if you're a white woman) will hopefully explain why black women to this day still face racism and misogyny.

sherbertwells's review

challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

“If and when a historian sets the record straight on the experiences of enslaved Black women, she (or he) will have performed an inestimable service. It is not for the sake of historical accuracy alone that such a study should be conducted, for lessons can be gleaned from the slave era which will shed light upon Black women’s and all women’s current battle for emancipation” (4)

I don’t know why I expected to enjoy a book about systemic racism, classism and sexism—one that features sexual assault as a major topic—but I loved Angela Davis’ 1981 nonfiction classic Women, Race & Class.

I didn’t marvel at its lyrical prose or engaging plots. My heart didn’t flutter as the articles reached their thematic climaxes. In fact, the primary emotion I felt while reading this book was dread. But dread is the perfect emotion for a book like Women, Race & Class, which explores the dark sides of the feminist movement.

“In passing the 1893 resolution, the suffragists might as well have announced that if they, as white women of the middle classes and bourgeoisie, were give the power of the vote, they would rapidly subdue the three main elements of the U.S. working class: Black people, immigrants and uneducated white workers. It was these three groups of people whose labor was exploited and whose lives were sacrificed by the Morgans, Rockefellers, Mellons, Vanderbilts—by the new class of monopoly capitalists who were ruthlessly establishing their industrial empires” (116) 

In Women, Race & Class, Angela Davis examines American history through a feminist, antiracist and Marxist lens. Instead of focusing on a narrow period like E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class, Davis picks out topics and incidents that contribute to her thesis. Short essays describe “Racism in the Woman Suffrage Movement,” “Communist Women,” “Racism, Birth Control and Reproductive Rights” and other engaging topics.

According to Davis, the American struggle for equality, particularly the feminist movement, has often been divided along lines of race and class. For example, the middle-class white women at the head of the birth control movement legitimized their concerns by appealing to eugenicists. People like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were quite racist, and even old heroes like Eugene Debs weren’t the paragons that I imagined them to be. Perhaps that’s why I felt so much dread reading this book: it’s never easy to hear that the stories you grew up on were wrong. But that’s history. Despite that dread I felt, I want to read this book again. It’s just that good.

Women, Race & Class feels like the platonic ideal of scholarly nonfiction: well-plotted, unadorned paragraphs, plenty of primary sources, and an emphasis on social history. Unlike The Making of the English Working Class—can you tell I need to read more nonfiction?—it’s both scholarly and readable.

In fact, I want to reread it. I want to highlight its important passages and write in its margins. I want to study and internalize its messages, to share it and discuss it with my friends. Reading Women, Race & Class has taught me that I love nonfiction books in a different way than their narrative counterparts. The former love is quieter, but no less ardent.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexism, and Violence