Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory

9 reviews

kamrynkoble's review

dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

I feel accomplished after reading this book (in twenty days! It feels longer than that), so I can’t imagine how Gregory felt after finishing it. I’m a long-time fan of her novels, and saw this on my local library’s new nonfiction shelf. I immediately grabbed it, and only had to renew it once.

First of all, the package—I LOVE the cover. It’s filled with black-and-white images and several inserts of color photographs. It’s hefty and solid and I’m glad I got to hold the physical copy even if I did a fair amount of reading on the ebook version. I imagine this would be good in audio, and maybe less intimidating. 

Overall, this was fascinating. I learned so much. It is explicitly about the UK, and really only mentions other countries when it’s relevant to the UK. I’d love to read a similar tome about American women (and we’ve been around for a lot less time than English women so it wouldn’t have to be as dense). 

This focuses a lot on work, war, laws, punishment, religion, violence against women, and LGBT+ topics (women loving women as it’s called in every section and intersex/transgender people). I could’ve had a little more about royalty (I know, this is called “normal women” but they were so important. Victoria received more than Elizabeth), fashion, childbirth (it was mentioned in some sections but completely ignored in others), courting/dating and romance, and other similar topics. Only the afterword really spoke of any common thread of sisterhood/womanhood/girlhood, etc. I could’ve used a bit more of that narrative throughout, but that’s a personal opinion. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think I leave remembering any one specific woman whom I didn’t know of before reading this. I would’ve been interested in more focused profiles for each segment, whether well-known or not (or both).

All in all this is a sometimes dry, extremely dense, and even more extremely well-researched overview of 900 years of English women’s history. If you’re interested in the above-mentioned topics, this one is worth a read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Murder, Pregnancy, War, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Racism, Transphobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Abortion, Lesbophobia, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Dysphoria

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Genocide, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, and Racial slurs

questingnotcoasting's review

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

This took me months to read but it was worth it. It's a chronological look at the history of women in England from 1066 to 1994, which is such an impressive undertaking but naturally makes for a very long book. The start was slow going because I'm not that interested in the 1300-1400s and once I got to the 1700s I found myself reading much faster. I still skimmed some sections which I found quite dry but there was also so much in here which I found fascinating. Gregory's writing style often included acerbic asides which I also enjoyed and made it much more engaging. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Violence, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Child death, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Abortion, and Colonisation

Minor: Deadnaming and Transphobia

npeach's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Transphobia

Minor: Rape

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

 Normal Women explores the history of ordinary English women from the time of William the Conqueror up to the mid-1990s. It's long and occasionally repetitive but also fascinating and infuriating, justifiably so. I learnt a lot, some of which really should have been covered in my history classes - women have been at the forefront of a large number of revolts and rebellions including the Peasants' Revolt - while other new information fell into the 'fun factoids to casually drop into conversation' category. Who knew there were more penises depicted in the Bayeaux Tapestry than there were women? Repeated efforts to retain satisfying and lucrative work as the sole preserve of men, the persistence of violence against women and of attempts to control and police women's bodies, not to mention the way women's contributions and experiences have been ignorned or minimalised by mainstream history are among the infuriating aspects highlighted by this book. I loved Gregory's blunt, sometimes tart and ascerbic tone, and more than one of her asides to the reader left me snort-laughing. This book was meticulously researched and I appreciated that it was highly intersectional with plenty of attention given to the way race, class, gender and sexuality impacted the lives and experiences of women, while the expected topics including marriage, employment, and crime were all comprehensively covered. The length of this book could count against it. I personally think it is best consumed in small chunks. Audio worked well for me as I was able to listen to short sections while cleaning, cooking, and exercising. Had I only had access to print, I would have gone the slow but steady route reading just a section or two each day alongside my main book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, and Sexual violence

ssione5's review

informative

5.0

Skip what you need to, but this is in my top 3 nonfictions of all time. Brilliantly researched, absolutely fantastic. The brutality is directly quoting sources from the times and makes clear the seeds of modern patriarchy and misogyny. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

rhosynmd's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism

bethpaws's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

An impressively researched book discussing women (mainly UK) from the last 900 years until the present day.

Positives: well researched, insightful, well read by Phillipa Gregory (I listened on Audible), with moments of her dry wit and humour showing at appropriate points. Her narration was clear and well-paced. I learned so much for example that the impact of the enclosure of common land impact is still felt today on women. I am inspired to read more about so many of the women she discusses (for example Josephine Butler). There was an incredibly touching section where executed women were discussed. Hearing their names felt like a tribute to their memory.  Phillipa Gregory did not shy away from discussing themes of sex and gender – an almost dangerous thing to do today. This was done tactfully and with supporting research.

Negatives: the repeating themes in most time frames made me question if I had already listened to a chapter. It was obviously a choice to discuss themes in separate sections on timeframes, but I think I may have preferred chapters on each theme and all timeframes discussed in relation to the theme. Initially I found the extra narrators jarring, but the editing on this improved as the book went on. I would also have liked to know the modern day monetary worth of the wages she discusses to allow me to relate more. The afterword was quite repetitive, often word-for-word repeating what the author had discussed earlier.

I often listened to this while walking and this lead to me often embarrassing myself by guffawing out loud when Phillipa would often say ‘Women's work in the home is done for free’ as my response was ‘What's new?!’ This was well summed up in the afterword with 'The invisibility of women's work has affected our history'

I was left reflective, thinking about (as Phillipa Gregory calls it) the internal contempt that is held towards women and by women. I was also left furious about the way women have been treated and still are treated by society, but with a determination to stand up for all women and for myself.

This is a book for all women/men/genders to read or listen to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Abortion, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

laura6891's review against another edition

dark informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Moderate: Rape and Sexual violence

kirstym25's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, and Sexism

Moderate: Miscarriage