Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know by Malcolm Gladwell

42 reviews

claire2024's review against another edition

fast-paced

3.5

i think some of the passages surrounding the second chapter could have been done more carefully as they felt somewhat victim-blamy

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Suicide, Rape, Police brutality, Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, and Hate crime

laurennicolpies's review

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

3.0

very interesting and a fast read for me but i can’t help but feel uncomfortable with some of the victim blaming sentiments i got from certain passages, specifically in the brock turner r*pe case and the penn state p*do and molestation chapters. i liked the overall sentiment of not assuming things about other people and really enjoyed the discussion about coupling in regards to s*icides, but some conclusions he drew made me uncomfortable and frankly a little angry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual harassment, Racism, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Gun violence

raisinreads's review against another edition

Needed to be way more critical on a lot of topics

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

christcore's review against another edition

3.0

Vaguely interesting, but meandering message throughout. Not sure what the thread he was trying to follow was. It was a nicely produced audiobook with actual audio from sources whenever he quoted someone else, but overall not something I'd recommend. Definitely check trigger warnings before reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Police brutality, Murder, and Child abuse

antireading's review against another edition

1.25

I feel as though Gladwell ignores other factors to the discussions he brings up, most especially race, gender, and their intersections. He drills down everything to miscommunication but doesn't bring up the fact that many are predisposed to not wanting to be truthful in communication with women, with Black people, etc. It is not JUST because of policing practices that Black people get pulled over, but it is because of a bias against them and the communities that are over-policed. It felt like he was oversimplifying a lot.

The section on Jerry Sandusky and Brock Turner was gross. He treated CIA operatives who invented torture tactics with more care than victims of rape. He seemed to outright disbelieve the victims of Sandusky and chalk up Turner's rape to a "miscommunication" due to alcohol. He calls most sexual harassment on college campuses miscommunications due to alcohol and hazy rules of consent, while also acknowledging that 1 in 5 female college students report being sexually harassed. He also says the problem is equally with the men raping and the alcohol. Alcohol is a large chunk of the book for no apparent reason as it doesn't tie into the main Sandra Bland storyline like other issues do at the end. I wasn't interested in hearing excuses for a man raping an unconscious woman, but apparently, women should have known better.

The medium of an audiobook was interesting as Gladwell aimed to make it a high-quality podcast. That fell short when I had issues understanding snippets of the audio from various types of recording equipment, age of recordings, accents, and speeds of talking. I found myself just drowning out those snippets, especially when listening in the car, as the jumpiness of quality was too distracting. I feel like the description, while it technically does describe what happened, didn't really feel like the book as I was getting into it. It was very much interconnected stories but I thought those points would be briefly brought up, not dedicating whole chapters to it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Alcohol, Suicide attempt, Death, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Murder, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicide, Alcoholism, Classism, Confinement, Genocide, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, and Rape

Minor: Vomit and Child death

mmestitches's review

0.25

Irresponsible at best. I feel like the point of this book was to humanize how people make terrible mistakes, but ultimately it reinforced the idea that keeping people with power emotionally comfortable is more important than protecting the lives of people without power. 
I normally love Malcom Gladwell's work but this book was irresponsible as hell in how it discussed some high profile cases about sexual predators. He draws a parallel between victims of CSA being unable to understand they're being abused and grown ass adults allowing kids being raped as a result of their inability to handle some cognitive dissonance. I see this pattern of making victims of child abuse equally responsible to the adults committing or enabling the abuse,  and it makes me want to scream. Gladwell went as far as to play a clip of a victim crying and pleading with her abuser to recognize the hurt he caused, and the purpose of this clip is to show how murky the facts can get in these cases as opposed to being used as a classic example of how a groomed and abused child grows into an adult who feels responsible for healing the person that abused them.  These responses are not murky, they are well researched and understood, but holding people accountable for their actions is hard so Gladwell took a lazy, victim blaming approach.  How disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Racism, Alcohol, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Sexism, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

Not worth reading, spare yourself

artsandcraftsmajor's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

Compelling, but left unsure of how to move forward. Feels important. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual violence, Violence, Suicide, Death, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Suicide attempt, and Emotional abuse

kfedwards88's review against another edition

informative fast-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Torture, Self harm, Rape, Sexual violence, Murder, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, and Suicide

ferdie's review against another edition

challenging informative sad tense medium-paced

4.5

The audio book is amazing. Hearing the voices as much as we could felt important to the points Gladwell was making about what we really know from our observations of strangers. In a highly divided world, "Talking to strangers" makes me reevaluate my quick judgement and learn to move through it towards curiosity and nuance. 

TThere were parts I greatly disagreed with and times where I waited for Gladwell to bring in perspectives in that he just... didn't. Overall, I appreciated what he added to conversation and definitely learned some new things, but am also walking away from the book feeling like there big pieces missing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Police brutality, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, and Alcohol

Minor: Emotional abuse, Torture, and Alcoholism

sidekicksam's review against another edition

2.25

A re-read of a book I read back in 2020, after the pandemic caused both a lot of isolation and division. People were literally keeping their distance, interacting less with strangers, but the summer of '20 also had some very painful revelations and awakenings for the race and equality discussions. 

Reading it again, I feel refreshed in the theories he outlines in the book. The 3 problems we have when encountering strangers (defaulting to the assumption that people can be trusted; thinking people's feelings always match their appearance and our inability to judge correctly whether someone is lying or the mismatch is happening; and that context is vital but also underappreciated) are a few that kept me curious, thinking and will stay with me in the back of my mind in encounters with strangers. Interesting food for thought and definitely contemplations that will stay with me. 

That being said, I am uneasy with some of the examples Gladwell decided to explore to prove his points. I already had some question marks during my re-read, but after reading multiple 1-star reviews (which have gained 1,000+ likes) on the first page, I'm seriously reconsidering whether this book is good enough to be read on its own (without the accompanying guide/reviews to also challenge the examples given). 

To use cases of rape and child molestation and trying to explain away the motives of witnesses or even instigators of the crimes is just... what? Why would you invalidate experiences of trauma instead of exploring the faulty assumptions on which we make errors (the cases of the Cuban spies in the CIA were much more compelling I think). 

Example: Brock Turner raping a passed out drunk girl on campus is explained away by their (mutual) excessive drinking and misinterpeted signals - I have never had to explain to any of my boyfriends that no means no (and that if I don't wake up or respond that is also a big fucking NO). 

Not taking the prejudice of race into consideration when discussing Sandra Bland's case, but explaining it away to miscommunication... especially with police brutality against Black people blowing up in the media in recent years, it's just harrowing.

I'm happy I don't just read books but also review them, because I may not have gotten further in my evaluation than 'whoo interesting material' without re-evaluating also the icky (and blatantly wrong) bits. 

Read it at your own volition, but do heed my warning. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Child abuse, Hate crime, Sexual violence, War, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Confinement, Death, and Alcohol