A review by sucreslibrary
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

3.5

first half is much better than the second. it is (very darkly) humorous to see the reviews on this from 2010 acting like TERFs and proponents of 2nd wave feminism have mostly died out so the book isn't "relevant". at times it feels like serano has a condescending view of nonbinary/genderqueer/etc ppl, though i do understand and agree with a lot of her frustrations as far as the "community" goes. other parts of this (like the essay "putting the feminine back into feminism") felt like an ominous look into where we currently are re: choice feminism and how things seem to have regressed significantly (see: girl math, explaining things "for the girls", etc.) and i found myself cringing through the entire essay. theres also some very prescient takes in here about trans men weaponizing their privilege in trans spaces/not being there for trans women that are sadly still very relevant today, especially in certain sections of the internet that like to kick up discourse that inevitably has transmisogyny at its core.

lots to think about and im glad i finally read this one.