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thepaperwitch 's review for:
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
by Therese Oneill
Reviewed on Books Cats Tea
The beginning of Unmentionable calls out directly to Oneill's target audience: those who are madly in love with the Victorian times through the highly romanticized mediums of film and books. Not specifically fitting into this category, I felt a little spoken down to at first, though I understood the set up the author was trying to create. The dramatic differentiation between the things Victorian era fans imagine and the realities of a time when women were expected to be submissive and obedient to men, the laws they created, and the society they run are topics that I imagine fans understand, but only in a topical level. This is also what the author assumes.
Unmentionable offers answers to those questions which are still often considered to be inappropriate conversations in polite company (by some). Details on how women handled their periods (and how men believed women should handle their periods), how a woman should approach sex (and how men believed women should approach sex), and the finer points on the appropriate weight, dress, and manners a woman should have (and how men believed women should....well, you get the point by now) are presented with numerous quotes from primary sources.
After getting over the initial way that Oneill presents her assertive and matter-of-fact voice, I began to get into the way she creates her narrative. The tone feels like a no-nonsense matron/fairy godmother-like voice, who has granted your deepest wish to travel back in time and live in the Victorian times. She guides you along, giving stark advice and information to help you fit in and not be burned for being a witch...or worse...a spinster.
The book covers a good deal of interesting and everyday topics. Chapters include: getting dressed, going to the restroom, bathing, menstruating, diet, beauty, courtship, the wedding night, birth control, being a good wife, running a household, public behavior, hysteria, and masturbation. The life of a woman in the Victorian era was grim and full of rules, typically created by men for their pleasure or relief, but at the same time, those women who lived those lives pushed for better standards and treatment. Birth control became a life saver to many women (and their families), though it was illegal, and women taking up the suffrage cause stems from these times as well. Unmentionable allows us to look back on the women who had much more difficult lives than (many) women do now. It also allows us to look at parallels in topics that are still (bafflingly) being discussed, without the input of women, today. It can also help us recognize that there are still women out there who live under patriarchal and draconian rules and laws and that we still have a ways to go before women gain equal footing globally.
The beginning of Unmentionable calls out directly to Oneill's target audience: those who are madly in love with the Victorian times through the highly romanticized mediums of film and books. Not specifically fitting into this category, I felt a little spoken down to at first, though I understood the set up the author was trying to create. The dramatic differentiation between the things Victorian era fans imagine and the realities of a time when women were expected to be submissive and obedient to men, the laws they created, and the society they run are topics that I imagine fans understand, but only in a topical level. This is also what the author assumes.
Unmentionable offers answers to those questions which are still often considered to be inappropriate conversations in polite company (by some). Details on how women handled their periods (and how men believed women should handle their periods), how a woman should approach sex (and how men believed women should approach sex), and the finer points on the appropriate weight, dress, and manners a woman should have (and how men believed women should....well, you get the point by now) are presented with numerous quotes from primary sources.
After getting over the initial way that Oneill presents her assertive and matter-of-fact voice, I began to get into the way she creates her narrative. The tone feels like a no-nonsense matron/fairy godmother-like voice, who has granted your deepest wish to travel back in time and live in the Victorian times. She guides you along, giving stark advice and information to help you fit in and not be burned for being a witch...or worse...a spinster.
The book covers a good deal of interesting and everyday topics. Chapters include: getting dressed, going to the restroom, bathing, menstruating, diet, beauty, courtship, the wedding night, birth control, being a good wife, running a household, public behavior, hysteria, and masturbation. The life of a woman in the Victorian era was grim and full of rules, typically created by men for their pleasure or relief, but at the same time, those women who lived those lives pushed for better standards and treatment. Birth control became a life saver to many women (and their families), though it was illegal, and women taking up the suffrage cause stems from these times as well. Unmentionable allows us to look back on the women who had much more difficult lives than (many) women do now. It also allows us to look at parallels in topics that are still (bafflingly) being discussed, without the input of women, today. It can also help us recognize that there are still women out there who live under patriarchal and draconian rules and laws and that we still have a ways to go before women gain equal footing globally.