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A review by alidottie
The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Timeless Story of an Outspoken Woman and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore
4.0
4 and a half stars
Whoosh! This book!! I thought when it came in (at my purchase request to my public library) that I just could not handle reading a serious nonfiction book in my life right now, but I started it anyway thinking I would stop soon and return it. Well, as often happens to me when I do this with a really important story, I got pulled right into to Elizabeth Packard's life. From the shock of the fact that a wonderful woman and mother could be condemned as insane based on her husband (a preacher who for financial reason had switched his stand on abolish after having had the same stand as his wife) saying she was insane. All who backed him, mostly based their opinion on her religious views. I am surprised I had not heard of this sooner, but it totally makes sense to me that in the early years of the restoration of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that the Lord gathered his people to Utah. Had many stayed in their homes, I have to assume many would have been condemned as insane! I know for certain with my personality and my love of speaking out and speaking up that I could have suffered that fate had I been born 120 years earlier.
Elizabeth Packard was an amazing woman who stood up for not only the rights of women, but for those condemned as insane--rightly or wrongly--as their treatment was anything but humane. Many parts of this book made me sick and infuriated. I have to say though that I had a few parallel moments of thought in my reading of things I have witnessed in my life of women being belittled. Then the author wrote in her postscript about a man belittling a woman in public and calling her crazy for not thinking the same he was. It sounded so much like how Elizabeth was treated in the 1860's, but it was actually Nancy Pelosi being belittled by Donald Trump. She gave a few other tie-ins that had inspired her to find a woman in history who had stood up for women in a man-centric world to help women make some progress to being able to speak up and speak out--and be listened to and believed! We are still working on this. Don't give up my female friends!!!
Whoosh! This book!! I thought when it came in (at my purchase request to my public library) that I just could not handle reading a serious nonfiction book in my life right now, but I started it anyway thinking I would stop soon and return it. Well, as often happens to me when I do this with a really important story, I got pulled right into to Elizabeth Packard's life. From the shock of the fact that a wonderful woman and mother could be condemned as insane based on her husband (a preacher who for financial reason had switched his stand on abolish after having had the same stand as his wife) saying she was insane. All who backed him, mostly based their opinion on her religious views. I am surprised I had not heard of this sooner, but it totally makes sense to me that in the early years of the restoration of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that the Lord gathered his people to Utah. Had many stayed in their homes, I have to assume many would have been condemned as insane! I know for certain with my personality and my love of speaking out and speaking up that I could have suffered that fate had I been born 120 years earlier.
Elizabeth Packard was an amazing woman who stood up for not only the rights of women, but for those condemned as insane--rightly or wrongly--as their treatment was anything but humane. Many parts of this book made me sick and infuriated. I have to say though that I had a few parallel moments of thought in my reading of things I have witnessed in my life of women being belittled. Then the author wrote in her postscript about a man belittling a woman in public and calling her crazy for not thinking the same he was. It sounded so much like how Elizabeth was treated in the 1860's, but it was actually Nancy Pelosi being belittled by Donald Trump. She gave a few other tie-ins that had inspired her to find a woman in history who had stood up for women in a man-centric world to help women make some progress to being able to speak up and speak out--and be listened to and believed! We are still working on this. Don't give up my female friends!!!