mansil's review

2.0
slow-paced
challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced
pandastic885's profile picture

pandastic885's review

4.75

I think this is really necessary reading for everyone, but especially girls and women of any age.
challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring
challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced
emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

I think everyone should read this book! Really good!

This book very boldly and unapologetically lays out the many facets of injustice that embody the international manifestations of the patriarchy. The distillation into "seven sins" was a great way to frame how different spheres of behavior, existence, and power remain exclusive to cis, white, heteronormative men and makes the argument for women (and especially the extra-marginalized subgroups thereof) to reclaim those spheres. There were a lot of fascinating and inspiring anecdotes and I loved reading about all of these amazingly brave women fighting around the world to yeet the patriarchy.

The writing itself was occasionally repetitive and the overall experience was emotionally frustrating and depressing, because it describes very thoroughly everything that's wrong but there is very little information or practical ideas about how to fix anything, or even just some basic actionable items that can be tackled by the everyday reader. I think it's important not to sugarcoat the situation, but I think it might have been worthwhile to end each chapter with some ideas, practices, reading, or organizations to join, donate to, or follow and share in social media, all of which could even be tailored to each chapter's theme.

That being said, Mona Eltahawy is clearly an amazing woman who has met some amazing people, and I would love to make everyone I know read this (especially men and teenage girls) to get even the smallest glimpse at all the rage that's simmering away under the surface ready to blow.
challenging informative reflective slow-paced

Necessary literature

challenging hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

Skimmed. Not sure this one was for me