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A review by grumpypants
Why Women Are Blamed For Everything: Exploring the Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma by Jessica Taylor
2.0
I find it hard to give a star rating for this book, because I feel like I don't know enough about the topic to judge the book, but I'll just try to give my limited perspective.
First of all, the book wasn't really what I expected and others might feel like that too. From the title, I expected a relatively in depth exploration of why victim blaming exists - what structures in society, what cultural, religious beliefs lead to it? And there is some of that towards the very end of the book but it feels to me relatively superficial.
What this book does much more of is exploring what victim blaming looks like and what kind of victim blaming statements people believe in. I thought that was interesting as well, but it might not be what people come looking for in this book.
The writing in this book is academic (at least for something you can pick up in a bookstore) and I know that can lead to a certain amount of repetition, but there was a lot of repetition in this book, so I found myself skimming/reading very quickly towards the end. Other reviews have pointed out problems in the quality of research present in this book. I am not qualified to speak on that, but I think it's worth mentioning.
Some high points in this book for me were the chapters on victim blaming in mental health and the two chapters talking about the author's own studies talking to sexual assault victims and professionals. I thought they were interesting, insightful and thought provoking.
In the end I give this book two stars because I don't think I could recommend it to others with a very clear conscience, but I personally enjoyed it a bit more than that and I am glad I read it, even if just as an entry into hopefully more in depth literature on this topic.
First of all, the book wasn't really what I expected and others might feel like that too. From the title, I expected a relatively in depth exploration of why victim blaming exists - what structures in society, what cultural, religious beliefs lead to it? And there is some of that towards the very end of the book but it feels to me relatively superficial.
What this book does much more of is exploring what victim blaming looks like and what kind of victim blaming statements people believe in. I thought that was interesting as well, but it might not be what people come looking for in this book.
The writing in this book is academic (at least for something you can pick up in a bookstore) and I know that can lead to a certain amount of repetition, but there was a lot of repetition in this book, so I found myself skimming/reading very quickly towards the end. Other reviews have pointed out problems in the quality of research present in this book. I am not qualified to speak on that, but I think it's worth mentioning.
Some high points in this book for me were the chapters on victim blaming in mental health and the two chapters talking about the author's own studies talking to sexual assault victims and professionals. I thought they were interesting, insightful and thought provoking.
In the end I give this book two stars because I don't think I could recommend it to others with a very clear conscience, but I personally enjoyed it a bit more than that and I am glad I read it, even if just as an entry into hopefully more in depth literature on this topic.