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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
I selected this for the "a book about feminism" prompt for the 2018 PopSugar Ultimate Reading Challenge, although it would also be a good fit for the advanced prompt "a book about a problem facing society today." I'd heard an interview with the author in which she discussed the essay that opens the book and gives the collection its title. Don't be fooled into thinking this will be a quick read by its relative brevity (the book is less than 200 pages); this was not a fast read. The essays are fairly heavy and I needed time to digest each one before moving onto the next. The writing is exquisite and the topics are well-researched. If you are seeking a serious discussion about feminism and the issues facing women today, add this to your TBR list today.
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
"I love it when people explain things to me they know and I'm interested in but don't yet know; it's when they explain things to me I know and they don't that the conversation goes wrong."
One of the many reasons that I prefer to own printed books as opposed to electronic readers, or even checked-out public library copies, is that I can, when moved to do so, write notes in the margins and highlight the passages and quotes that inspire me. I highlighted the shit outta Men Explain Things to Me.
Solnit is many things. She's intelligent, articulate, insightful and persuasive. She's also an incredible observationist. Her essays are powerful partly because they're littered with examples, both public and private, that emphasize what it is that she's trying to say. For me, a privileged white male, some of her examples hit uncomfortably close to home.
In the arc of my existence, spanning over five decades, I have witnessed discrimination and misogyny, but always from the point of view of the benefactor, never the oppressed. As a child of the 1960s it was my indoctrination. As a teenager of the 1970s I became an active participant, a fact I'm reticent to admit. It wasn't until I was almost thirty that I started my painfully slow evolution toward being one of "the guys that get it." I'm still a work in progress. This book is, for me, another step in the right direction.
One of the many reasons that I prefer to own printed books as opposed to electronic readers, or even checked-out public library copies, is that I can, when moved to do so, write notes in the margins and highlight the passages and quotes that inspire me. I highlighted the shit outta Men Explain Things to Me.
Solnit is many things. She's intelligent, articulate, insightful and persuasive. She's also an incredible observationist. Her essays are powerful partly because they're littered with examples, both public and private, that emphasize what it is that she's trying to say. For me, a privileged white male, some of her examples hit uncomfortably close to home.
In the arc of my existence, spanning over five decades, I have witnessed discrimination and misogyny, but always from the point of view of the benefactor, never the oppressed. As a child of the 1960s it was my indoctrination. As a teenager of the 1970s I became an active participant, a fact I'm reticent to admit. It wasn't until I was almost thirty that I started my painfully slow evolution toward being one of "the guys that get it." I'm still a work in progress. This book is, for me, another step in the right direction.
Took me a while to get a hold of this book, but I'm glad I did! An excellent collection of essays that summarise what I find difficult to articulate in the age of feminist hashtags and "trial by social media". Solnit is brilliant at backing up her feminist ideas with facts, statistics, legislation and anecdotes - ironically, because she has needed to defend/explain her ideas since becoming a historian/journalist/writer.
She speaks about criticism beautifully, claiming "...the best [criticism] opens up an exchange that need never end." So this is my one criticism of her essays: It's white feminism. Although Solnit discusses the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh as turning point for feminism - it is framed as a turning point for white feminism - with no acknowledgement of this framing. A horrific New Dehli incident that Western culture could identify as horrific because it was foreign, because it was "other". In this way, Solnit fails to acknowledge the persistent full-force misogynistic persecution that women of colour face. She takes this one step further in her essay "Grandmother Spider", that focuses on the idea of women disappearing from history, genealogy, and marriages, in which she comments on veils and burkas:
"I realised with astonishment that what I has taken for drapery or furniture was a fully veiled woman. She had disappeared from view, and whatever all the arguments may be about veils and burkas, they make people literally disappear."
This (quite offensive) oversimplification of how Islamic women choose to express their religious identities further does women of colour a disservice, and removes them from the universal feminist conversation under the assumptions that they are "veiled by patriarchy", victims, or in need of saving, rather than (in most cases) simply expressing their religious/cultural freedoms.
But I'm sounding like I didn't enjoy the book - I did! And I certainly agree with almost everything Solnit writes.
Amongst #MeToo and #TimesUp, my personal brand of feminism has been tricky to define and understand. Solnit composed a glorious essay around #YesAllWomen - with the pretense that ideas start revolutions, and revolutions - although imperfect- are difficult to reverse, and ideas are hard to kill. Feminism is trying to change social customs and rewrite ingrained traditions over 5000 years old. It's not an easy thing to do. Sexual harassment wasn't legally recognised in the workplace in USA until the amendment of the Civil Rights Act 1991. 27 years later, women are calling out their attackers in public forums and most people are left unsure of how to "fix" the situation; or how to move forward into a society without misogyny. Here are her thoughts:
"We tend to treat violence and abuse of power as though they fit into air tight categories: harassment, intimidation, threat, battery, rape, murder. But I realise now that what I was saying is: it's a slippery slope. That's why we need to address that slope, rather than compartmentalising the varieties of misogyny and dealing with each separately. Doing so has meant fragmenting the picture, seeing the parts, not the whole. A man acts on the belief that you have no right to speak and that you don't get to define what is going on. That could just mean cutting you off at the dinner table or conference. It could also mean telling you to shut up, or threatening you if you open your mouth, or beating you for speaking, or killing you to silence you."
She speaks about criticism beautifully, claiming "...the best [criticism] opens up an exchange that need never end." So this is my one criticism of her essays: It's white feminism. Although Solnit discusses the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh as turning point for feminism - it is framed as a turning point for white feminism - with no acknowledgement of this framing. A horrific New Dehli incident that Western culture could identify as horrific because it was foreign, because it was "other". In this way, Solnit fails to acknowledge the persistent full-force misogynistic persecution that women of colour face. She takes this one step further in her essay "Grandmother Spider", that focuses on the idea of women disappearing from history, genealogy, and marriages, in which she comments on veils and burkas:
"I realised with astonishment that what I has taken for drapery or furniture was a fully veiled woman. She had disappeared from view, and whatever all the arguments may be about veils and burkas, they make people literally disappear."
This (quite offensive) oversimplification of how Islamic women choose to express their religious identities further does women of colour a disservice, and removes them from the universal feminist conversation under the assumptions that they are "veiled by patriarchy", victims, or in need of saving, rather than (in most cases) simply expressing their religious/cultural freedoms.
But I'm sounding like I didn't enjoy the book - I did! And I certainly agree with almost everything Solnit writes.
Amongst #MeToo and #TimesUp, my personal brand of feminism has been tricky to define and understand. Solnit composed a glorious essay around #YesAllWomen - with the pretense that ideas start revolutions, and revolutions - although imperfect- are difficult to reverse, and ideas are hard to kill. Feminism is trying to change social customs and rewrite ingrained traditions over 5000 years old. It's not an easy thing to do. Sexual harassment wasn't legally recognised in the workplace in USA until the amendment of the Civil Rights Act 1991. 27 years later, women are calling out their attackers in public forums and most people are left unsure of how to "fix" the situation; or how to move forward into a society without misogyny. Here are her thoughts:
"We tend to treat violence and abuse of power as though they fit into air tight categories: harassment, intimidation, threat, battery, rape, murder. But I realise now that what I was saying is: it's a slippery slope. That's why we need to address that slope, rather than compartmentalising the varieties of misogyny and dealing with each separately. Doing so has meant fragmenting the picture, seeing the parts, not the whole. A man acts on the belief that you have no right to speak and that you don't get to define what is going on. That could just mean cutting you off at the dinner table or conference. It could also mean telling you to shut up, or threatening you if you open your mouth, or beating you for speaking, or killing you to silence you."
challenging
informative
reflective
A very good read. This is a collection of essays about a similar theme so some of it was redundant but still well done. I picked it up thinking if would be a little funny, but it was a serious look at the status of women in this country.
informative
medium-paced
this book is exactly what i thought it would be! i like solnit’s writing a lot— particularly the essay in the power of language. buuut i’ve realized i have no interest in reading essays on feminism by white woman anymore. thank u, next.
challenging
informative
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced