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demifang21 's review for:
How to Date Men When You Hate Men
by Blythe Roberson
somewhere between 3 and 4 stars but rounding up because it made me more aware of the invisible hand of the patriarchy than ever before! (added effect: reading in parallel with a book about the impostor syndrome in women)
gifted to me for xmas. when i first read the title i was like, i feel like the short answer is to ... date non-men... or just not date men :) heteronormativity aside, author is very aware from the start of the book that the title is deliberately and jestfully (?) inflammatory
it's a light and funny read, a string of comedic essays organized into relationship stages. i high-key recommended it to a married friend because i thought she'd appreciate the critiques of the patriarchy. fine to recommend to anyone else curious about the hetero woman's modern dating experience. fair warning i snapped a few snippets to friends, and even male friends who I consider reasonably feminist felt a little uncomfortable with what they read...
written a few years ago when Trump was still president, so there were some undertones of political frustration and references to the misogyny around Hillary's run
there might be a lot of existing literature out there around modern dating but this is the first that i've read, so there were some very validating aha moments, for example the whole rant about having to figure out whether something was ever a date, and other frustrations around ambiguity in modern dating, sprinkled with quotes from Walt Whitman (as well as some fake hyperbolic quotes). probably one of the most validating ideas that stood out to me is that... as women we're conditioned from childhood by media to pine after men, and then later in life we're told that love will "just happen" and any efforts otherwise would mean we're being "too desperate." something about our desire for love also clashes with supergirl feminist messaging that we may have received as girls.
i also found her unapologetic energy to over-share inspiring; relatedly, there is an essay about the double standard around making art about our lives/romantic experiences. works by men will be adored, while women's will be deemed "chick lit" or be disparaged as "boy craziness" (see: Taylor Swift). actually she has a lot of appropriate nuance when discussing Taylor Swift, but bottom line which I agree with is that the art is not always meant to be a personal attack but more a railing against societal structures; if the art can be solace for other girls suffering from softboy gaslighting, then it will have been successful! but then she complains in a subsequent essay that she doesn't like being the muse because she doesn't have agency over how she's portrayed, and i'm thinking don't men have the same discomfort around women making art about them? but yes the inherent power dynamic is different with the history of the patriarchy so, shrug emoji...
in general i think i have been too shy for most of my life to give much serious thought to my crushes and dating life so at the very least i feel a bit more emboldened (and conscientious of why i feel that way) in that area after reading this!
author is trained in comedy/improv and deliberately takes on a very casual and modern narrative tone, which i'm sure could be a turn-off to some readers but it was just enough over-the-top without being too much for me to mostly enjoy it, there were just a lot of pop culture references that i mostly didn't get because i am a hermit when it comes to tv/movies (had to skip an entire essay about how Tom Hanks is the villain of You've Got Mail, sorry)
(more quotes in Goodreads review)
gifted to me for xmas. when i first read the title i was like, i feel like the short answer is to ... date non-men... or just not date men :) heteronormativity aside, author is very aware from the start of the book that the title is deliberately and jestfully (?) inflammatory
it's a light and funny read, a string of comedic essays organized into relationship stages. i high-key recommended it to a married friend because i thought she'd appreciate the critiques of the patriarchy. fine to recommend to anyone else curious about the hetero woman's modern dating experience. fair warning i snapped a few snippets to friends, and even male friends who I consider reasonably feminist felt a little uncomfortable with what they read...
written a few years ago when Trump was still president, so there were some undertones of political frustration and references to the misogyny around Hillary's run
there might be a lot of existing literature out there around modern dating but this is the first that i've read, so there were some very validating aha moments, for example the whole rant about having to figure out whether something was ever a date, and other frustrations around ambiguity in modern dating, sprinkled with quotes from Walt Whitman (as well as some fake hyperbolic quotes). probably one of the most validating ideas that stood out to me is that... as women we're conditioned from childhood by media to pine after men, and then later in life we're told that love will "just happen" and any efforts otherwise would mean we're being "too desperate." something about our desire for love also clashes with supergirl feminist messaging that we may have received as girls.
i also found her unapologetic energy to over-share inspiring; relatedly, there is an essay about the double standard around making art about our lives/romantic experiences. works by men will be adored, while women's will be deemed "chick lit" or be disparaged as "boy craziness" (see: Taylor Swift). actually she has a lot of appropriate nuance when discussing Taylor Swift, but bottom line which I agree with is that the art is not always meant to be a personal attack but more a railing against societal structures; if the art can be solace for other girls suffering from softboy gaslighting, then it will have been successful! but then she complains in a subsequent essay that she doesn't like being the muse because she doesn't have agency over how she's portrayed, and i'm thinking don't men have the same discomfort around women making art about them? but yes the inherent power dynamic is different with the history of the patriarchy so, shrug emoji...
in general i think i have been too shy for most of my life to give much serious thought to my crushes and dating life so at the very least i feel a bit more emboldened (and conscientious of why i feel that way) in that area after reading this!
author is trained in comedy/improv and deliberately takes on a very casual and modern narrative tone, which i'm sure could be a turn-off to some readers but it was just enough over-the-top without being too much for me to mostly enjoy it, there were just a lot of pop culture references that i mostly didn't get because i am a hermit when it comes to tv/movies (had to skip an entire essay about how Tom Hanks is the villain of You've Got Mail, sorry)
(more quotes in Goodreads review)