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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
Writing style was repetitive at times but the intersection of Feminism and religion and activism was fresh.
This book is, theoretically at least, a manifesto of the seven traits that are most commonly demonized in women and girls and therefore are the most important traits for them to embrace in order to be free. In reality, it comes off as little more than a series of blog posts and rants that vary highly in quality and overall connection to the supposed broader narrative of the book. I summarize my issues with the book below, with an example for each.
1. Disorganization and lack of cohesive argumentation
Some sections were genuinely moving and important reads. I think the most impactful one for me personally was the section when she visits a now-spa that, during the Bosnian Genocide, was used as a rape center of Muslim women and girls. In this section, she contrasts the horror of the stories of what happened there with the "relaxing" and "luxurious" experience of the spa today, as well as the ways that the gendered experiences of this genocide means that female victims are not remembered the way that male victims are.
And yet. This section was not in a chapter about the importance of women speaking up, of naming the specific violence that has been done to them. No, this section was in a chapter on the importance of women using violence when it is necessary. I'm sorry, WHAT? To be clear, the only violence that these women engaged in (at least according to the book- I am far from an expert on the Bosnian Genocide or its rape centers) was violence imparted on THEMSELVES- suicide as a means of escape. To use this story as an example of why women should use violence is just absurd.
2. Poor research quality
This has been pointed out in other reviews, but it bears repeating. The author, twice, repeats the completely debunked claim that the average life expectancy of a transgender woman is just 35 years old. This is one of those lies that you can see floating around the internet, but without any actual evidence backing it up. (Based on the number of times the author talks about Twitter in this book, you can guess where she encountered the claim.)
This "fact" comes from a study that found that the average age of a murdered transgender woman was 35 years old. Murder rates for transgender women are certainly higher than the general public; however, nowhere near the majority of deaths for transgender women are due to murder. Furthermore, the ages of murder victims tend to skew young, not just those of transgender women. I am not transgender myself, but conversations I have had with transgender female friends have shown me that this fake statistic has done real harm to the transgender community by falsely telling them that they're destined to die young, so what's the point in trying to live? Telling this to a community that already faces significantly higher rates of depression and suicide due to transphobia is actively harmful!
3. Nonsensical argumentation
You would expect the author, a Muslim woman from a society wherein polygyny is accessible to wealthy heterosexual men, to have interesting things to say about polyamory. You'd be wrong, however. In the chapter on lust, she briefly mentions this polygyny but immediately moves on to arguing for the liberatory potential of polyamory, what she and others call "ethical non-monogamy." She doesn't actually spend much time differentiating between the different forms of polyamory and what makes some ethical and others unethical (or as she might say, liberatory vs patriarchal). Where this gets ridiculous is when she says that being polyamorous makes her Queer. This proclamation begs the question, is a heterosexual cis man in an open marriage also Queer? What about a heterosexual cis man married to multiple women? As a bisexual person, I simultaneously laughed out loud and rolled my eyes. Throughout the book, she says that feminism must be led by women of color and LGBTQIA+ women. Is her proclamation that polyamory is inherently Queer simply her way of arguing that she's part of both of these communities and therefore giving herself more authority, according to her own metric?
This is part of a bigger problem throughout the book, where the author seems more interested in pithy one liners under 240 characters than complex discussions. That's fine for a reader who's never encountered feminist arguments before, but for a reader who has, the book comes off as ultimately lacking in much substance.
1. Disorganization and lack of cohesive argumentation
Some sections were genuinely moving and important reads. I think the most impactful one for me personally was the section when she visits a now-spa that, during the Bosnian Genocide, was used as a rape center of Muslim women and girls. In this section, she contrasts the horror of the stories of what happened there with the "relaxing" and "luxurious" experience of the spa today, as well as the ways that the gendered experiences of this genocide means that female victims are not remembered the way that male victims are.
And yet. This section was not in a chapter about the importance of women speaking up, of naming the specific violence that has been done to them. No, this section was in a chapter on the importance of women using violence when it is necessary. I'm sorry, WHAT? To be clear, the only violence that these women engaged in (at least according to the book- I am far from an expert on the Bosnian Genocide or its rape centers) was violence imparted on THEMSELVES- suicide as a means of escape. To use this story as an example of why women should use violence is just absurd.
2. Poor research quality
This has been pointed out in other reviews, but it bears repeating. The author, twice, repeats the completely debunked claim that the average life expectancy of a transgender woman is just 35 years old. This is one of those lies that you can see floating around the internet, but without any actual evidence backing it up. (Based on the number of times the author talks about Twitter in this book, you can guess where she encountered the claim.)
This "fact" comes from a study that found that the average age of a murdered transgender woman was 35 years old. Murder rates for transgender women are certainly higher than the general public; however, nowhere near the majority of deaths for transgender women are due to murder. Furthermore, the ages of murder victims tend to skew young, not just those of transgender women. I am not transgender myself, but conversations I have had with transgender female friends have shown me that this fake statistic has done real harm to the transgender community by falsely telling them that they're destined to die young, so what's the point in trying to live? Telling this to a community that already faces significantly higher rates of depression and suicide due to transphobia is actively harmful!
3. Nonsensical argumentation
You would expect the author, a Muslim woman from a society wherein polygyny is accessible to wealthy heterosexual men, to have interesting things to say about polyamory. You'd be wrong, however. In the chapter on lust, she briefly mentions this polygyny but immediately moves on to arguing for the liberatory potential of polyamory, what she and others call "ethical non-monogamy." She doesn't actually spend much time differentiating between the different forms of polyamory and what makes some ethical and others unethical (or as she might say, liberatory vs patriarchal). Where this gets ridiculous is when she says that being polyamorous makes her Queer. This proclamation begs the question, is a heterosexual cis man in an open marriage also Queer? What about a heterosexual cis man married to multiple women? As a bisexual person, I simultaneously laughed out loud and rolled my eyes. Throughout the book, she says that feminism must be led by women of color and LGBTQIA+ women. Is her proclamation that polyamory is inherently Queer simply her way of arguing that she's part of both of these communities and therefore giving herself more authority, according to her own metric?
This is part of a bigger problem throughout the book, where the author seems more interested in pithy one liners under 240 characters than complex discussions. That's fine for a reader who's never encountered feminist arguments before, but for a reader who has, the book comes off as ultimately lacking in much substance.
Repetitive, at times, but 5 glowing stars for Mona Eltahawy’s beautiful and clarifying rage.
This was really interesting to read right after Rafia Zakaria's Against White Feminism. I kinda want to recommend reading them together.
Mona Eltahawy is rightfully angry as she documents the abuses/harms and oppression that women worldwide experience at the hands of patriarchy. And she encourages us all to be angry, to be defiant and to be loud. However, I found her manifesto to be seriously lacking in any kind of theoretical analysis of patriarchy and how it can be defeated. (and I was not too impressed with her call to violence either). She appears to play into identity politics and fails to fully explore the structural aspects of patriarchy which needs to be understood if we are to dismantle it. A disappointing omission.
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
Best for:
Women. People with women in their lives. Feminists.
In a nutshell:
Author and activist Eltahawy makes the case for the sins women should embrace as we seek to destroy the patriarch.
Worth quoting:
“I don’t want to be protected. I want to be free.”
“I refuse to be civil with someone who refuses to acknowledge my humanity fully.”
“But who indoctrinated those Republican white women? Who taught them to submit to patriarchy? Those are questions often reserved for Muslima women, but I demand we ask them now of white women - whose votes uphold the benefits of whiteness but hurt the rest of us.”
Why I chose it:
I was looking for a little motivation, and I wanted to read some quality, bad-ass writing.
Review:
What a perfect book to reach my Cannonball Read goal on: a call to action written by a queer woman of color. Fuck yeah.
Within the first ten pages of this book, Eltahawy shares two different experiences of sexual assault, and how she has changed as a person between them. The second one ends with her beating the shit out of her assailant.
Eltahawy frames this book around seven actions - sins - that she argues women are taught to stay away from but that indeed very necessary in overthrowing the patriarchy. The sins are Anger, Attention, Profanity, Ambition, Power, Violence, and Lust. In each exploration of sin, she offers examples of how that action was necessary in fighting back against the harm patriarchy inflicts on us all. Some, I have no problem embracing - anger, profanity, even ambition. Others I do have somewhat of a negative response to - attention, violence. But Eltahawy makes strong cases for each, with the constant refrain that we need to dismantle and overthrow the patriarchy, that it hurts women and girls, and being polite and asking to be respected hasn’t worked.
We have to demand it, and take the power back, by force if necessary.
I finished this with the backdrop of what’s been going on in the US this week, where a court that includes two men accused of sexual harassment / sexual assault (Thomas and Kavanaugh) along with a woman Eltahawy would definitely characterize as a foot soldier of the patriarchy (Coney Barrett, who probably wouldn’t have to do much acting to take on a Commander’s Wife role in The Handmaid’s Tale) will help to bastardize the US Constitution and take away one of the most fundamental human rights from people who can get pregnant. Its disgusting, it pisses me off, and having such an obvious marker of the patriarchy in the background as I read made this hit a little different than it might have if I’d read it at a different time.
There’s so much to unpack here, I wish I’d read this with other women, and could discuss each of the chapters separately. But it’s one of my favorite books of the year, and one I can see myself referring back to often.
Recommend to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend
Women. People with women in their lives. Feminists.
In a nutshell:
Author and activist Eltahawy makes the case for the sins women should embrace as we seek to destroy the patriarch.
Worth quoting:
“I don’t want to be protected. I want to be free.”
“I refuse to be civil with someone who refuses to acknowledge my humanity fully.”
“But who indoctrinated those Republican white women? Who taught them to submit to patriarchy? Those are questions often reserved for Muslima women, but I demand we ask them now of white women - whose votes uphold the benefits of whiteness but hurt the rest of us.”
Why I chose it:
I was looking for a little motivation, and I wanted to read some quality, bad-ass writing.
Review:
What a perfect book to reach my Cannonball Read goal on: a call to action written by a queer woman of color. Fuck yeah.
Within the first ten pages of this book, Eltahawy shares two different experiences of sexual assault, and how she has changed as a person between them. The second one ends with her beating the shit out of her assailant.
Eltahawy frames this book around seven actions - sins - that she argues women are taught to stay away from but that indeed very necessary in overthrowing the patriarchy. The sins are Anger, Attention, Profanity, Ambition, Power, Violence, and Lust. In each exploration of sin, she offers examples of how that action was necessary in fighting back against the harm patriarchy inflicts on us all. Some, I have no problem embracing - anger, profanity, even ambition. Others I do have somewhat of a negative response to - attention, violence. But Eltahawy makes strong cases for each, with the constant refrain that we need to dismantle and overthrow the patriarchy, that it hurts women and girls, and being polite and asking to be respected hasn’t worked.
We have to demand it, and take the power back, by force if necessary.
I finished this with the backdrop of what’s been going on in the US this week, where a court that includes two men accused of sexual harassment / sexual assault (Thomas and Kavanaugh) along with a woman Eltahawy would definitely characterize as a foot soldier of the patriarchy (Coney Barrett, who probably wouldn’t have to do much acting to take on a Commander’s Wife role in The Handmaid’s Tale) will help to bastardize the US Constitution and take away one of the most fundamental human rights from people who can get pregnant. Its disgusting, it pisses me off, and having such an obvious marker of the patriarchy in the background as I read made this hit a little different than it might have if I’d read it at a different time.
There’s so much to unpack here, I wish I’d read this with other women, and could discuss each of the chapters separately. But it’s one of my favorite books of the year, and one I can see myself referring back to often.
Recommend to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend
Aside from some misleading use of statistics in chapter two, and hand-waving justification of religiosity in chapter five, the message in this book is vital to our present. As someone who has benefitted from the patriarchy, I am inspired to join the author in calling for its downfall.
I LOVED this book simply because it’s such an important manifesto on feminism and how to dismantle the patriarchy. She touches so many topics from homophobia , transphobia, islamophobia to misogyny to racism etc etc I listened to her audiobook narrated by her and I loved her powerful message and her strong character. I will read her other book „headscarf’s and hymen“ next.