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A review by pastaylor
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley
5.0
First, I think this is a good and important work that breaks down a lot of issues in a smart, thoughtful, and engaging manner. This is not Tumblr activism.
My one criticism is the chapter she where she draws a parallel to the larger world with how she yelled at a three-year-old not to hit his mother. Her point is sometimes you have to yell and people don't like it but oh well. All I could think of was that the moment you are yelling at a three-year old (which I do on a daily basis, since I have a three-year-old) you've lost. Yelling doesn't work. Yelling is a bad strategy. No one reacts well to being yelled at. Yelling compounds the problem, it doesn't resolve it. Yelling makes it about the fact that you yelled, and not about whatever dangerous thing the three-year-old was doing. If you can stay calm and reach the three-year-old at their level, you more often than not have a better outcome. But that is hard, because you are angry and you want to yell, and besides they are being a jerk so why should YOU have to be nice?
I see this on the internet all the time, and its the reason I've disengaged online. So much of it is just yelling back and forth and it's not helpful and no one is learning from it.
Being wronged doesn't make you right.
My one criticism is the chapter she where she draws a parallel to the larger world with how she yelled at a three-year-old not to hit his mother. Her point is sometimes you have to yell and people don't like it but oh well. All I could think of was that the moment you are yelling at a three-year old (which I do on a daily basis, since I have a three-year-old) you've lost. Yelling doesn't work. Yelling is a bad strategy. No one reacts well to being yelled at. Yelling compounds the problem, it doesn't resolve it. Yelling makes it about the fact that you yelled, and not about whatever dangerous thing the three-year-old was doing. If you can stay calm and reach the three-year-old at their level, you more often than not have a better outcome. But that is hard, because you are angry and you want to yell, and besides they are being a jerk so why should YOU have to be nice?
I see this on the internet all the time, and its the reason I've disengaged online. So much of it is just yelling back and forth and it's not helpful and no one is learning from it.
Being wronged doesn't make you right.