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odesssssa 's review for:
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence
by Inga Muscio
i really wanted to love this book..
i went into it thinking it was going to be more academic than it was, largely because the blurb made it sound that way. i was expecting a deep dive into the origins of “cunt” as a word, and how it evolved to carry the meaning it does today. in reality, it’s more of a manifesto and a pretty flawed one at that. i agree with a lot of muscio’s main ideas, and i liked her points about community among women and “intellectual apartheid” (a term she borrowed from someone else- a lot of her best points come from other authors or thinkers…) but the first couple of chapters where she talks about making her period cramps go away by actually avoiding pain killers and how she manifested her third abortion really turned me off. i almost dnf’ed at that point, and i’m not sure how glad i am that i kept reading.
the book is dated, that’s for sure. one of my biggest concerns was that the whole premise of “cunt” is pretty gender essentialist, something that she addresses (but also doesn’t really?) in the 70 page afterward. i get that the book was published over 20 years ago, but i find it hard to believe neither muscio nor anybody who read “cunt” before it was published didn’t think about how the ideas in the book related to trans and gender diverse people. i also don’t think it’s that radical to realize that the patriarchy oppresses everyone, not just cisgender women. and then she repeatedly uses slurs against the people she failed to consider in the first place!
generally, a lot of muscio’s arguments are not nuanced, well explained, or very logical, and are at times contradictory. she often makes claims without elaborating on what she means, or name drops people without telling the reader why they’re relevant. she seems to assume that everyone reading the book has the same context she does, which is not a good assumption for a manifesto-esque book like this to make. much of what she says comes across like “i’m saying this so the reader has to believe it’s true,” which was incredibly frustrating. she also frequently proposes new definitions for words, such as whore or predator, but switches back and forth between using the word as it is colloquially used and using her new definition.
ultimately, a bit of a baffling (and sometimes infuriating) read, and i’m still searching for a book that matches the blurb on the back of “cunt”…
i went into it thinking it was going to be more academic than it was, largely because the blurb made it sound that way. i was expecting a deep dive into the origins of “cunt” as a word, and how it evolved to carry the meaning it does today. in reality, it’s more of a manifesto and a pretty flawed one at that. i agree with a lot of muscio’s main ideas, and i liked her points about community among women and “intellectual apartheid” (a term she borrowed from someone else- a lot of her best points come from other authors or thinkers…) but the first couple of chapters where she talks about making her period cramps go away by actually avoiding pain killers and how she manifested her third abortion really turned me off. i almost dnf’ed at that point, and i’m not sure how glad i am that i kept reading.
the book is dated, that’s for sure. one of my biggest concerns was that the whole premise of “cunt” is pretty gender essentialist, something that she addresses (but also doesn’t really?) in the 70 page afterward. i get that the book was published over 20 years ago, but i find it hard to believe neither muscio nor anybody who read “cunt” before it was published didn’t think about how the ideas in the book related to trans and gender diverse people. i also don’t think it’s that radical to realize that the patriarchy oppresses everyone, not just cisgender women. and then she repeatedly uses slurs against the people she failed to consider in the first place!
generally, a lot of muscio’s arguments are not nuanced, well explained, or very logical, and are at times contradictory. she often makes claims without elaborating on what she means, or name drops people without telling the reader why they’re relevant. she seems to assume that everyone reading the book has the same context she does, which is not a good assumption for a manifesto-esque book like this to make. much of what she says comes across like “i’m saying this so the reader has to believe it’s true,” which was incredibly frustrating. she also frequently proposes new definitions for words, such as whore or predator, but switches back and forth between using the word as it is colloquially used and using her new definition.
ultimately, a bit of a baffling (and sometimes infuriating) read, and i’m still searching for a book that matches the blurb on the back of “cunt”…