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A review by mariaotero4
Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World from the Tweets to the Streets by Feminista Jones
4.0
I picked this one randomly because the audiobook was available on BorrowBox with my library card and the title sounded promising.
For me, this one was an interesting ride. I think my rating ranged from 3 to 4 stars depending on the chapter, but I decided to give it a 3.5 (4 rounded up)
Feminista Jones speaks from the intersection between gender and race and, as a black woman, explores how social media —specially Twitter— is the place to be in order to learn about the black feminist experience from black feminist themselves. With all the barriers black women have to access academia and/or traditional publications and with the similarities, according to Jones, between Twitter and the traditional “call and response” style of interactions that defines African culture, Feminista Jones argues that Twitter has been, over the past decade, an incredible source of shared knowledge, activism and feminist discussion that provides global reach for the black feminist movement at just one click away.
The author discusses her own personal journey as a black queer feminist woman. She talks about marriage, motherhood, sex positive feminism, her own sexual abuse story and trauma and how she found therapeutic tools in BDSM, which I thought was widely interesting. However, with Jones identifying as a queer black woman, I was expecting a more inclusive approach to the sex positivity conversation and, the lack of commentary about her own queer experience and journey left me feel disappointed with this section.
I was also expecting that the author elaborated a little more about the concepts of feminist and womanist, since she seemed to used them interchangeably through the book in some occasions and, in others, she would argue that someone would identify as a womanist but not a feminist. I was hoping to get a bit more about these concepts and their nuances.
Jones also explores her journey as a professional social worker and writer focusing on her Twitter presence and activism. Feminista writes about the incredible work that black feminist are doing to support each other and educate a wider audience and how they are a target for hateful comments and threats not only from white people, but also from the black community, specially what she refers to as H*tep Twitter. This and her thesis Mammy 2.0 where Feminista explores how black women have been portrayed in media, may have been one of my favourite sections from the book, maybe because Feminista introduced a lot of content and context that I wasn’t familiar with and I really appreciated she took the time to educate her readers.
For this one, I think the audiobook does not work as well. Since the book features tweets and fragments of interviews, songs and poems, the narration was a little difficult to follow at times and I wasn’t really a fan.
For me, this one was an interesting ride. I think my rating ranged from 3 to 4 stars depending on the chapter, but I decided to give it a 3.5 (4 rounded up)
Feminista Jones speaks from the intersection between gender and race and, as a black woman, explores how social media —specially Twitter— is the place to be in order to learn about the black feminist experience from black feminist themselves. With all the barriers black women have to access academia and/or traditional publications and with the similarities, according to Jones, between Twitter and the traditional “call and response” style of interactions that defines African culture, Feminista Jones argues that Twitter has been, over the past decade, an incredible source of shared knowledge, activism and feminist discussion that provides global reach for the black feminist movement at just one click away.
The author discusses her own personal journey as a black queer feminist woman. She talks about marriage, motherhood, sex positive feminism, her own sexual abuse story and trauma and how she found therapeutic tools in BDSM, which I thought was widely interesting. However, with Jones identifying as a queer black woman, I was expecting a more inclusive approach to the sex positivity conversation and, the lack of commentary about her own queer experience and journey left me feel disappointed with this section.
I was also expecting that the author elaborated a little more about the concepts of feminist and womanist, since she seemed to used them interchangeably through the book in some occasions and, in others, she would argue that someone would identify as a womanist but not a feminist. I was hoping to get a bit more about these concepts and their nuances.
Jones also explores her journey as a professional social worker and writer focusing on her Twitter presence and activism. Feminista writes about the incredible work that black feminist are doing to support each other and educate a wider audience and how they are a target for hateful comments and threats not only from white people, but also from the black community, specially what she refers to as H*tep Twitter. This and her thesis Mammy 2.0 where Feminista explores how black women have been portrayed in media, may have been one of my favourite sections from the book, maybe because Feminista introduced a lot of content and context that I wasn’t familiar with and I really appreciated she took the time to educate her readers.
For this one, I think the audiobook does not work as well. Since the book features tweets and fragments of interviews, songs and poems, the narration was a little difficult to follow at times and I wasn’t really a fan.