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On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen
spatterson12's review against another edition
5.0
I need to buy a hardcopy of this at some point. I chose to listen to this using my Spotify monthly credit and there were so many moments I wanted to highlight and re-read.
This book examines the seven deadly sins with the bonus of sadness (lol to think of sadness as a bonus, though). It opens with a background of how these ideas originated and eventually got lumped with religion. Then, each chapter explores a specific topic and how women are affected by the cultural interpretations and expectations.
I was finishing the sadness chapter this morning and it reminded me of that Pixar movie Inside Out where we need to embrace sadness and let it exist so that we can give feelings space and live our lives. I even saw a post this morning by Therapy for Women about how we need to feel our feelings, because if we bottle them, implosion will eventually follow.
The envy chapter is another one that sticks out. I really loved how in this one, Loehnen talks about how we should examine what makes us feel envious and let is be fuel to understand what it is we're wanting and then put into action out we can make those wants a reality. It's actually something I've talked to others before in the past without saying it in so many words. This chapter gave a lot of reflection.
Gluttony was possibly one of the weaker chapters for me personally, but still it gave a lot of perspective as to how fatphobia is presented more as wellness or health in some cases, with people providing unsolicited advice or opinions on how others should exist (especially when they don't have medical backings). She also talks about the body positivity movement, as well as how people misconstrue Marilyn Monroe's being a size 12 and being an icon when the sizings have changed over time. There's a lot to think through in this chapter.
Another standout chapter for me was the opening one on Sloth. I am probably the worst at taking it easy (as I write this long review on my day off). I feel as though I have to constantly be moving or producing work (the Gold Stars book I read a few months ago hit on this, as well as good ole therapy). As women we often feel like we have to do, and that we can't just be. Woo definitely something I need to work through.
Pride's insight on echo vs narcissist was something new. We often hear of narcissist and fear to sound narcissistic if we celebrate our wins, but with echo in consideration we limit our moments to shine and fear of being too much or a know it all. There's such a balance to these two that we need to create space for.
Anger. Oh. This one. I loved when Loehnen wrote (and maybe quoted someone) about how we have the choice to be right or to be free. Just sitting with that thought. Wow. It's so true. This makes me think of that old saying about picking your battles. Sometimes, probably most times, it's better to be free than to continue to push and push, especially if you're the only one who cares or are making a big deal about something not being how you want it. The example here was a quoted story about someone realizing that yelling at their sons to pick up their socks was their issue, not their sons'.
In the Anger chapter, she did mention how enneagrams each have their root "sin." She said for an enneagram 1, it's anger (that's what she is). She said for an enneagram 5 (me) it's avarice. I had to google that one and realized it's greed. And that is true. There's the fear of not having enough. Whether energy, competency, space, whatever. In this chapter on greed, she talks about how women often prioritize the comfort of others before their own needs and it's true! So much of this book, I was like yes, exactly, all of this.
Lust was an interesting one. I would group it with Gluttony in my interest levels, but it still provided relevatory insight. Just the knowledge that research on women's health has been ignored forever. It made me think back to 7th grade science class how quickly we skimmed through the reproductive system and how people aren't taught about female bodies because they're so quickly sexualized. This chapter also emphasized how male transgressions are often pivoted to where women carry the guilt and shame and are expected to forgive and console, rather than be allowed to just live safely and confidently. I think it was also this chapter where it was pointed out that all those old fairytales Disney could've chosen from, the ones where the males were cast at the villains were often ignored in the early days. It was often a queen, stepmom, or witch to blame – very rarely a stepdad, warlock, or whatever other option there is.
Anyway, a whole lot to say about this book.
TLDR: Greed, Pride, Anger, and Sloth were my standout chapters.
This book examines the seven deadly sins with the bonus of sadness (lol to think of sadness as a bonus, though). It opens with a background of how these ideas originated and eventually got lumped with religion. Then, each chapter explores a specific topic and how women are affected by the cultural interpretations and expectations.
I was finishing the sadness chapter this morning and it reminded me of that Pixar movie Inside Out where we need to embrace sadness and let it exist so that we can give feelings space and live our lives. I even saw a post this morning by Therapy for Women about how we need to feel our feelings, because if we bottle them, implosion will eventually follow.
The envy chapter is another one that sticks out. I really loved how in this one, Loehnen talks about how we should examine what makes us feel envious and let is be fuel to understand what it is we're wanting and then put into action out we can make those wants a reality. It's actually something I've talked to others before in the past without saying it in so many words. This chapter gave a lot of reflection.
Gluttony was possibly one of the weaker chapters for me personally, but still it gave a lot of perspective as to how fatphobia is presented more as wellness or health in some cases, with people providing unsolicited advice or opinions on how others should exist (especially when they don't have medical backings). She also talks about the body positivity movement, as well as how people misconstrue Marilyn Monroe's being a size 12 and being an icon when the sizings have changed over time. There's a lot to think through in this chapter.
Another standout chapter for me was the opening one on Sloth. I am probably the worst at taking it easy (as I write this long review on my day off). I feel as though I have to constantly be moving or producing work (the Gold Stars book I read a few months ago hit on this, as well as good ole therapy). As women we often feel like we have to do, and that we can't just be. Woo definitely something I need to work through.
Pride's insight on echo vs narcissist was something new. We often hear of narcissist and fear to sound narcissistic if we celebrate our wins, but with echo in consideration we limit our moments to shine and fear of being too much or a know it all. There's such a balance to these two that we need to create space for.
Anger. Oh. This one. I loved when Loehnen wrote (and maybe quoted someone) about how we have the choice to be right or to be free. Just sitting with that thought. Wow. It's so true. This makes me think of that old saying about picking your battles. Sometimes, probably most times, it's better to be free than to continue to push and push, especially if you're the only one who cares or are making a big deal about something not being how you want it. The example here was a quoted story about someone realizing that yelling at their sons to pick up their socks was their issue, not their sons'.
In the Anger chapter, she did mention how enneagrams each have their root "sin." She said for an enneagram 1, it's anger (that's what she is). She said for an enneagram 5 (me) it's avarice. I had to google that one and realized it's greed. And that is true. There's the fear of not having enough. Whether energy, competency, space, whatever. In this chapter on greed, she talks about how women often prioritize the comfort of others before their own needs and it's true! So much of this book, I was like yes, exactly, all of this.
Lust was an interesting one. I would group it with Gluttony in my interest levels, but it still provided relevatory insight. Just the knowledge that research on women's health has been ignored forever. It made me think back to 7th grade science class how quickly we skimmed through the reproductive system and how people aren't taught about female bodies because they're so quickly sexualized. This chapter also emphasized how male transgressions are often pivoted to where women carry the guilt and shame and are expected to forgive and console, rather than be allowed to just live safely and confidently. I think it was also this chapter where it was pointed out that all those old fairytales Disney could've chosen from, the ones where the males were cast at the villains were often ignored in the early days. It was often a queen, stepmom, or witch to blame – very rarely a stepdad, warlock, or whatever other option there is.
Anyway, a whole lot to say about this book.
TLDR: Greed, Pride, Anger, and Sloth were my standout chapters.
kloughlin's review against another edition
slow-paced
2.5
I mistakenly believed that this book would be about the societal and cultural pressures on women using the lens of the seven deadly sins as a narrative hook, but it’s predominantly about the seven deadly sins loosely tied to the experiences of (mainly rich, white, American) women with a personal story shared by the author at every sin. (As an aside, there were so many personal stories added that I felt like I was reading a memoir instead of a cultural critique.) Though the introduction stated the reader wouldn’t need to be religious to gain anything from reading the book, that was abandoned a couple chapters in, at which point the narrative became very Christian-centric and assumed the reader was also Christian. Even during the various personal stories in which the author often name dropped a diversity of people, the story always came back to Christianity, again assuming the reader would agree with the Christian theme. Towards the later chapters, I felt like the author relied on references to other books (all written by people she personally knows) too often. It no longer felt like I was reading a book but reading a works cited page. I learned a little bit about women’s studies but I feel like I mostly wasted my time reading this because it was entirely too long and structurally all over the place.