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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
Neste livro (assim como no [b:Men Explain Things to Me|18528190|Men Explain Things to Me|Rebecca Solnit|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1393447237s/18528190.jpg|26233826]), Rebecca Solnit discorre sobre a cultura do estupro, silenciamento, violência doméstica, maternidade, literatura e outros temas relacionados ao feminismo. Ao contrário do que parece ser o padrão dos textos militantes do nosso tempo, todos os ensaios partem de muitas pesquisas, dados, estatísticas e bibliografia extensa - uma característica da Solnit que me agrada muito, porque não acredito que é possível falar-se sobre qualquer questão social apenas a partir de experiência e vivência. Mesmo discordando dela em alguns aspectos, gostei muito dos ensaios - a parte sobre silenciamento é certamente o grande destaque do livro para mim.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
The Mother of All Questions is comprised of a handful of feminist essays. As it was published in 2017, some of the content has not aged well (Solnit, the author, commends Aziz Ansari and Louis C. K. on being allies to women...) and some of the content is just not as relevant as it once was. However, if I had read this short collection closer to when it first was released, I would have enjoyed it tremendously. Overall, while this is a thoughtful title, there are many more books in this genre that are more appropriate for the current day.
What a legend. Favourite essays were "The Mother of All Questions" and "A Short History of Silence". I want to read everything Solnit has ever written but she's too damn prolific.
Rebecca Solnit is a good writer who always seems a hair's breadth away from truly getting it. Her feminism is always just oh so slightly out of date. She is the sort of person who knows enough to support trans people ideologically, but will still dead name someone. When she mentions them at all, she tends to leave intersectional issues in the footnotes, clearly seeing queer rights and and antiracist activism as being allied, but fundamentally separate movements from feminism. She talks about her passion for environmentalism, but speaks of it as a topic that could not possibly be included in an essay collection primarily about the physical and metaphorical silencing of women, as if women of color have not historically been the heart of environmental movements and thus the most targeted for silencing. Relatedly, she demonstrates a subtle defensiveness whenever she mentions other feminists questioning the movement's Second Wave. She has her heroes and she means to keep them, even if, no especially as others are outgrowing them.
I find, in short, a smallness to Solnit's feminism that is all the more disappointing for how powerful her words are when they're firing on all cylinders. She has an acute clarity when it comes to violence against women and how it represents a cultural legacy instead of just individual failure. Yet during my reading I kept coming back to the same question: how much value can this feminism-in-a-silo possibly have? To speak as Solnit does in "One Year after Seven Deaths" of mass shootings as mysoginistic, without also taking about racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, and homophobia is so completely out of touch that it calls into question the value of everything around it. These essays are Second Wave, White Feminism right on the cusp of being better, which makes their limitations more frustrating somehow. I kept waiting for her words to reflect more of the real life work I know she has done in cross-political movemenrs, but no matter how much I'm rooting for them, the essays stay stubbornly limited in vision and utility. Maybe next time?
I find, in short, a smallness to Solnit's feminism that is all the more disappointing for how powerful her words are when they're firing on all cylinders. She has an acute clarity when it comes to violence against women and how it represents a cultural legacy instead of just individual failure. Yet during my reading I kept coming back to the same question: how much value can this feminism-in-a-silo possibly have? To speak as Solnit does in "One Year after Seven Deaths" of mass shootings as mysoginistic, without also taking about racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, and homophobia is so completely out of touch that it calls into question the value of everything around it. These essays are Second Wave, White Feminism right on the cusp of being better, which makes their limitations more frustrating somehow. I kept waiting for her words to reflect more of the real life work I know she has done in cross-political movemenrs, but no matter how much I'm rooting for them, the essays stay stubbornly limited in vision and utility. Maybe next time?
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
For a book with such a large portion dedicated to the silencing of women by men, 'The Mother of All Questions' is only telling half the story. It seems odd to discuss the silencing of half the population by men but to ignore the silencing of women of color by white women. Solnit only briefly touches on intersectionality, which isn't enough.
That said, Solnit does raise plenty of good points, and parts of the book I did appreciate include the essay '80 Books No Women Should Read', a response to Esquire's insipid list of manly books for men, and ‘The Mother of All Questions’ which lambasts the idea that women’s love for their children is the key to their capacity to love.
3/5 - good but not great
That said, Solnit does raise plenty of good points, and parts of the book I did appreciate include the essay '80 Books No Women Should Read', a response to Esquire's insipid list of manly books for men, and ‘The Mother of All Questions’ which lambasts the idea that women’s love for their children is the key to their capacity to love.
3/5 - good but not great
Solnit is as always a fantastic writer, but I am not sure about the necessity of this collection of essays, which are almost all previously published, and especially the one where she discussed how women are being believed and she feels we are at a turning point did not hold up particularly well in 2017. I will continue to read her writing, but this is not particularly compelling as a collection.
This author has such a way with words and is a joy to read, even when the subject matter is tough. The way she presents her thoughts and ideas is wonderful. I only felt like the pace was dragging a bit with the first essay, and that may be because it was longer than I was expecting. This book is relatively short, and absolutely worth a read.