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A review by esmeloa
Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working for You by Maisie Hill
1.5
What I didn't like about this book
- The tone the author uses. It makes the book lose its credibility and makes the reading experience unpleasant and at times rather awkward. I didn't buy a book about womens' cycle to be talked to like I'm the author's 15yo bff. I'm capable of comprehending complex sentences and maintaining my interest for the topic without any need for hip words and pop culture references every 3 sentences. Seriously, there is a chapter titled "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes." Who even allowed that.
- This book really didn't need to be that long. Many repetitions and unnecessary parts (dubious advice about diet and how to work with your cycle if you don't have one, for instance).
- The term ''menstruators.'' What an awful noun.
- The dubious nature of the author's knowledge, especially when it comes to scientific facts. (This by all means reads like a self-help book much more than anything else.) It is a bit unsettling to read that "not everyone who has a menstrual cycle and a womb is a woman" (3), for instance. The discourse on gender rather alarms me, because the author assumes that there are female and male genders that correspond to the female and male biological bodies. A woman has a female's body, a man has a male's body, and all the sexist social constructions associated to any "gender" truly have nothing to do with these basic biological facts. Please let's just stop enforcing gender norms that are as destructive for women as they are for men. Someone's anatomy has nothing to do with their hobbies, passions, what type of clothes they want to wear, how sensitive they are, etc. Gender is bullshit, anatomy is real.
How are we supposed to talk about sexism if anyone can be refered to as a man or as a woman, regardless of their anatomy - that same anatomy which has been the determinant factor for centuries of oppression and violence against women?
Why it still got 1.5 (generous) star
- I obtained some information on female anatomy and menstrual cycles.
- I do really appreciate the main and most important message of the book, encouraging women to track their cycle. I don't know if everyone would resonate with the seasonal aspect that she bases her descriptions of the cycle on, but I am quite convinced that every girl and woman would benefit from getting to know their own cycle and therefore body - and I'm glad this book provided me with this idea and with some guidance as to how to actually do it.
Had I known more about that book, however, I would have never spent any money on it.
- The tone the author uses. It makes the book lose its credibility and makes the reading experience unpleasant and at times rather awkward. I didn't buy a book about womens' cycle to be talked to like I'm the author's 15yo bff. I'm capable of comprehending complex sentences and maintaining my interest for the topic without any need for hip words and pop culture references every 3 sentences. Seriously, there is a chapter titled "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes." Who even allowed that.
- This book really didn't need to be that long. Many repetitions and unnecessary parts (dubious advice about diet and how to work with your cycle if you don't have one, for instance).
- The term ''menstruators.'' What an awful noun.
- The dubious nature of the author's knowledge, especially when it comes to scientific facts. (This by all means reads like a self-help book much more than anything else.) It is a bit unsettling to read that "not everyone who has a menstrual cycle and a womb is a woman" (3), for instance. The discourse on gender rather alarms me, because the author assumes that there are female and male genders that correspond to the female and male biological bodies. A woman has a female's body, a man has a male's body, and all the sexist social constructions associated to any "gender" truly have nothing to do with these basic biological facts. Please let's just stop enforcing gender norms that are as destructive for women as they are for men. Someone's anatomy has nothing to do with their hobbies, passions, what type of clothes they want to wear, how sensitive they are, etc. Gender is bullshit, anatomy is real.
How are we supposed to talk about sexism if anyone can be refered to as a man or as a woman, regardless of their anatomy - that same anatomy which has been the determinant factor for centuries of oppression and violence against women?
Why it still got 1.5 (generous) star
- I obtained some information on female anatomy and menstrual cycles.
- I do really appreciate the main and most important message of the book, encouraging women to track their cycle. I don't know if everyone would resonate with the seasonal aspect that she bases her descriptions of the cycle on, but I am quite convinced that every girl and woman would benefit from getting to know their own cycle and therefore body - and I'm glad this book provided me with this idea and with some guidance as to how to actually do it.
Had I known more about that book, however, I would have never spent any money on it.