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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
A favorite turn of phrase in our household is "bad bitch," deployed with entirely positive connotation. It started with a photo I found of my great-great-grandmother Toni Stibal, who came to America from Bohemia around the turn of the 20th century. It's difficult to communicate without being able to show the picture, but when I saw it, I just said, "Wow, who is this bad bitch?" She must have been 80 years old in the picture and just had this look of determination and toughness, like she had seen it all and didn't give a fuck what anyone thought of her.
So I mean it in the most positive possible way when I say, Rebecca Solnit is a bad bitch. One of my favorite parts of her writings on feminism is that, beyond being thoughtful and incisive, they are also very often funny, usually bitingly at the expense of patriarchal power structures and those who shore them up. Earnest commentary is all well and good, but it's important to make the emperor look ridiculous too. This book is abounding in smart humor, whether on the titular topic of people bugging her about why she isn't a mother, on rape jokes, or on bizarrely incomplete FDA warnings about the relationship between alcohol and pregnancy.
There's plenty of good analysis in here too. I think "A Brief History of Silence" is one of the best explanations I've read of the "rape culture" idea that sexual violence exists on a continuum with much more quotidian instances of oppression or denigration, and shouldn't be seen as standing alone as a freak event in isolation from the cultural context in which it takes place.
So I mean it in the most positive possible way when I say, Rebecca Solnit is a bad bitch. One of my favorite parts of her writings on feminism is that, beyond being thoughtful and incisive, they are also very often funny, usually bitingly at the expense of patriarchal power structures and those who shore them up. Earnest commentary is all well and good, but it's important to make the emperor look ridiculous too. This book is abounding in smart humor, whether on the titular topic of people bugging her about why she isn't a mother, on rape jokes, or on bizarrely incomplete FDA warnings about the relationship between alcohol and pregnancy.
There's plenty of good analysis in here too. I think "A Brief History of Silence" is one of the best explanations I've read of the "rape culture" idea that sexual violence exists on a continuum with much more quotidian instances of oppression or denigration, and shouldn't be seen as standing alone as a freak event in isolation from the cultural context in which it takes place.
Finished July 22nd. “Silence is what allows people to suffer without recourse, what allows hypocrisies and lies to grow and flourish, crimes to go unpunished. If our voices are essential aspects of our humanity, to be rendered voiceless is to be dehumanized or excluded from one’s humanity. And the history of silence is central to women’s history.”
“I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies—though shifting the balance matters—but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others.”
“I was arguing not that everyone should read books by ladies—though shifting the balance matters—but that maybe the whole point of reading is to be able to explore and also transcend your gender (and race and class and orientation and nationality and moment in history and age and ability) and experience being others.”
Solnit does an amazing job of describing problems and ways of thinking we need to overcome. In this book, she also spent some time recognizing how far we've come. I like that she takes the time to do both.
This collection of feminist essays from Rebecca Solnit range in subject from silence, to sexual assault, suburbs, and men explaining things to her. A close and quiet study of language and how it functions to marginalize women and/or disappear perpetrators of violence, will leave the reader glad to have thought through the very (sadly) still pressing issues for which contemporary feminism concerns itself. I do wonder sometimes, who does she write for? There is something so tame about her approach that she also spins the reactions she receives into the work itself. Her essays aren't earth shattering, but they are powerful in their own ways. They are smart and informed, and definitely a site for academic feminism to take root in seekers looking for a text that is accessible, yet still pushes the reader, gently.
Overall I thought this collection of essays was great, if very dispiriting at times. I found the first essay to be especially difficult to read, although it was also effective to me that Solnit kept drilling down and providing examples to demonstrate her point. As always, I appreciate her perspective.
informative
medium-paced
"There is no good answer to how to be a woman. The art may, instead, lie in how we refuse the question."
My only issue with this book was that some of the pieces included were maybe too different tonally. A couple of them in the beginning/middle felt really academic/scholarly and were harder to get through, then towards the end some of the pieces were really short and easy. That being said, Rebecca Solnit has no trouble occupying both spaces. She can write like an academic and on another occasion be super sarcastic. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on rape jokes in which she explored how culturally we have shifted the focus onto jokes about rape culture instead (even though, of course, some people are stupid and still miss the mark). When she wants to be funny, she is FUNNY (comment prompted by the piece on 80 books no woman should read).
Some of these essays are incredible. Clear, cohesive argument about silence as a tool of oppression and the ongoing misogyny women face.
As always interesting...
I love reading Rebecca Solnit's essays. They are informative, they open my perception and at times make me fumble due my ignorance and internalized bias. I highly recommend people to read them. They give you among other things, very good arguments to bring in a conversation...
I love reading Rebecca Solnit's essays. They are informative, they open my perception and at times make me fumble due my ignorance and internalized bias. I highly recommend people to read them. They give you among other things, very good arguments to bring in a conversation...
Devastating, brilliant and at times even funny and hopeful.