You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
9 reviews for:
Patriarchy Stress Disorder: The Invisible Inner Barrier to Women's Happiness and Fulfillment
Valerie Rein
4.06 AVERAGE
9 reviews for:
Patriarchy Stress Disorder: The Invisible Inner Barrier to Women's Happiness and Fulfillment
Valerie Rein
4.06 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Don’t let the title turn you off. This book isn’t an f* you to patriarchy, but rather gives a good look at how our culture affects our experiences as women. Dr. Rein gives a good overview of how trauma lives in the body and how to overcome it. This is a great read if you feel stuck even though nothing “bad” has happened in your life.
This entire book is a quote. 4 stars because the final chapter was a bit underwhelming, and I sort of lost focus then. But will be going back to it over and over for sure.
Every woman, every person, should read this book. It helps to understand how trauma shows up in the world for so many people, even those who have not experienced a traumatic event. The book shows what that trauma looks like in day-to-day life, and it gives a clear path forward - active steps you can take to heal and grow.
It's not the sort of book that I'd usually pick up, but I'm grateful for the challenging questions it asked.
The premise was sort of interesting but I felt the book was very repetitive and could have been shorter. It reads like a self help book which I have a hard time paying attention to.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This book offered genuinely mind- blowing information (the cherry blossoms!) and validated many of my feelings/ difficulties as a woman. I would recommend it to women who have felt their mental health was suffering, or who felt they were not “reaching their potential”. It was interesting, wide- reaching and, at times, powerful. I felt compelled to read with a highlighter in my hand to highlight passages which spoke to me, and I used it frequently.
However, I struggled to follow the book in places, and I found myself wanting to skim read. I can’t say I “enjoyed” reading it. There were a lot of long sentences with complex vocabulary which I found I needed to reread a couple of times to fully grasp the meaning. Additionally, the author used many metaphors to explain her theories and they became very difficult to track. Prison guards, jail breaking, pleasure police, references to faulty electrics, Formula one cars… it all got a little rambled and unclear in places.
However, I struggled to follow the book in places, and I found myself wanting to skim read. I can’t say I “enjoyed” reading it. There were a lot of long sentences with complex vocabulary which I found I needed to reread a couple of times to fully grasp the meaning. Additionally, the author used many metaphors to explain her theories and they became very difficult to track. Prison guards, jail breaking, pleasure police, references to faulty electrics, Formula one cars… it all got a little rambled and unclear in places.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
What happens when a white middle aged woman goes to yoga and learns about colonialism? This book. In a word, disappointing.
Most of the ideas in this book aren't wrong but they aren't new either. She extrapolated years of theories that come from working with minorities and marginalized communities and realizes, hey, women have trauma too. She does in this book exactly what patriarchy has always done, a variet of cultural appropriation, congratulations, you learned that CBT isn't the be all end all of therapy, so you come and give a new lable to therapeutic approaches we have been using for years but have never been integrated into psychology because they don't fix in the white overly intellectual box. She talks about breaking out of prison and yet, most of the "happy endings" in the examples are about getting man or succeeding in their career, while doing yoga.
There are other parts of the book that are frankly concerning, the judgementalness towards the prison guards, the idea of digging "deep" into trauma. Even the idea that someone is afraid of talking the train because their grandparents lived throw the Holocaust and her dna is afraid of trains. Really? Much better chances of it being a learned fear.
If you are a client, you are better of reading Brenee Brown, if you are a therapist read some Yalom. Don't waste your time here.
Most of the ideas in this book aren't wrong but they aren't new either. She extrapolated years of theories that come from working with minorities and marginalized communities and realizes, hey, women have trauma too. She does in this book exactly what patriarchy has always done, a variet of cultural appropriation, congratulations, you learned that CBT isn't the be all end all of therapy, so you come and give a new lable to therapeutic approaches we have been using for years but have never been integrated into psychology because they don't fix in the white overly intellectual box. She talks about breaking out of prison and yet, most of the "happy endings" in the examples are about getting man or succeeding in their career, while doing yoga.
There are other parts of the book that are frankly concerning, the judgementalness towards the prison guards, the idea of digging "deep" into trauma. Even the idea that someone is afraid of talking the train because their grandparents lived throw the Holocaust and her dna is afraid of trains. Really? Much better chances of it being a learned fear.
If you are a client, you are better of reading Brenee Brown, if you are a therapist read some Yalom. Don't waste your time here.