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A review by arrowdodger
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Oh gosh. I had a weird experience with this one.
First of all, this is the first audiobook I've ever listened to. I listen to a lot of podcasts so I thought I'd give it a shot, but I don't think audio is my favorite medium for an actual book. The narrator was pretty good in general, but there were definitely a fair few mispronunciations, which were distracting. The pace of a book is also so much slower with someone else reading. I think overall I'm just a more visual learner and I'd rather keep experiencing books that way.
Now, onto this book itself. Some of the essays were more enjoyable to me than others, but I suppose that's to be expected of an essay collection. The ones speaking on rape culture in specific were honest and cutting, and I did enjoy those. The ones that were more about pop culture were fine, but left me wanting for something more. For example, Gay's takes on 50 Shades of Grey were nothing that I haven't heard a thousand times already. I thought she was going to approach it from an angle more personal to her, but she just said the same thing that everyone else has already said about that series.
The chapter on trigger warnings, though. Sigh. It made me have to take a break from listening. I found it so profoundly condescending, number one. Gay says multiple times that she herself doesn't really see the point in trigger warnings, and that she essentially thinks people who do are naïve. She says experiencing a trigger isn't as bad as actually living through the trauma, as if anyone was ever arguing to the contrary, and as if that makes being triggered not a big deal. She repeats some pretty disingenuous talking points about how trigger warnings are censorship. She makes a sweeping statement that nobody can be completely protected from triggering things, as if this makes trigger warnings completely pointless.
I just find this entire take so ridiculous. First of all, adding a trigger warning to the beginning of a piece of media is so incredibly easy and simple and requires almost no extra work. I find it so farcical when people act like it's the biggest inconvenience of their lives, or that it's akin to censorship. You can still write about whatever you want and nobody is saying not to (besides maybe teenagers on TikTok, but they'll grow up one day). Some people would just like a heads up if there is something potentially hard to grapple with in your work. She complains that there is no universal guide for trigger warnings, but I think most people know that big things like death, suicide, eating disorders, rape, etc. are easy to anticipate might trigger people. It's common sense. Just because you can't possibly anticipate everything that could trigger every person on earth doesn't mean you should throw the whole concept away. That's an argument a child would make.
Secondly, people who ask for trigger warnings (or content warnings in general) aren't little babies thinking they need protection from every experience in life, and it's dishonest to frame it that way. I know if I consume a piece of media with my particular trigger in it, I will just have a bad time consuming that media. Not only will I have anxiety and flashbacks and potentially become physically ill, it's just a waste of my time because I won't enjoy the thing I'm reading/watching. I would rather just read or watch something that doesn't have that thing in it. If I see my specific thing in a trigger/content warning it tells me that that piece of media isn't for me. It's really just that simple. I also just don't want to see my trigger enacted in media and I really don't think there's a purpose for me to. I don't want to subject myself to that in an attempt to seem "tough" like Gay seems to think of herself as doing. Subjecting myself to something that harms me emotionally that deeply isn't something I can just shrug off. I might even relapse into self-harm. I don't think that it would be someone else's "fault" if that happened, and I don't expect other people to cater to my personal traumas all of the time because that isn't possible, but I do think as people we can just generally take small and easy steps to help each other get through life easier. Trigger warnings are one of those steps.
So... yeah. I really hated that chapter.
Also, there's a bit toward the end where Gay mentions that her longtime on-again-off-again boyfriend is "politically conservative." Not to be THAT kind of feminist, but... ew. I do think it's weird to claim to be a feminist while fucking a man who votes against the best interests of women everywhere. I see this a lot and it makes me feel insane.
Overall I enjoyed Gay's perspectives on rape culture and I would be down to read her words on that topic more in the future. I have a couple of her other books lying around, because my job sometimes throws things into my lap, and I'll probably get around to reading them eventually. She's a good writer and has a great voice. In this collection she just fluctuates wildly between informative and powerful messages, takes that are so mild they make no impact at all, and takes that are, put simply, bad.
First of all, this is the first audiobook I've ever listened to. I listen to a lot of podcasts so I thought I'd give it a shot, but I don't think audio is my favorite medium for an actual book. The narrator was pretty good in general, but there were definitely a fair few mispronunciations, which were distracting. The pace of a book is also so much slower with someone else reading. I think overall I'm just a more visual learner and I'd rather keep experiencing books that way.
Now, onto this book itself. Some of the essays were more enjoyable to me than others, but I suppose that's to be expected of an essay collection. The ones speaking on rape culture in specific were honest and cutting, and I did enjoy those. The ones that were more about pop culture were fine, but left me wanting for something more. For example, Gay's takes on 50 Shades of Grey were nothing that I haven't heard a thousand times already. I thought she was going to approach it from an angle more personal to her, but she just said the same thing that everyone else has already said about that series.
The chapter on trigger warnings, though. Sigh. It made me have to take a break from listening. I found it so profoundly condescending, number one. Gay says multiple times that she herself doesn't really see the point in trigger warnings, and that she essentially thinks people who do are naïve. She says experiencing a trigger isn't as bad as actually living through the trauma, as if anyone was ever arguing to the contrary, and as if that makes being triggered not a big deal. She repeats some pretty disingenuous talking points about how trigger warnings are censorship. She makes a sweeping statement that nobody can be completely protected from triggering things, as if this makes trigger warnings completely pointless.
I just find this entire take so ridiculous. First of all, adding a trigger warning to the beginning of a piece of media is so incredibly easy and simple and requires almost no extra work. I find it so farcical when people act like it's the biggest inconvenience of their lives, or that it's akin to censorship. You can still write about whatever you want and nobody is saying not to (besides maybe teenagers on TikTok, but they'll grow up one day). Some people would just like a heads up if there is something potentially hard to grapple with in your work. She complains that there is no universal guide for trigger warnings, but I think most people know that big things like death, suicide, eating disorders, rape, etc. are easy to anticipate might trigger people. It's common sense. Just because you can't possibly anticipate everything that could trigger every person on earth doesn't mean you should throw the whole concept away. That's an argument a child would make.
Secondly, people who ask for trigger warnings (or content warnings in general) aren't little babies thinking they need protection from every experience in life, and it's dishonest to frame it that way. I know if I consume a piece of media with my particular trigger in it, I will just have a bad time consuming that media. Not only will I have anxiety and flashbacks and potentially become physically ill, it's just a waste of my time because I won't enjoy the thing I'm reading/watching. I would rather just read or watch something that doesn't have that thing in it. If I see my specific thing in a trigger/content warning it tells me that that piece of media isn't for me. It's really just that simple. I also just don't want to see my trigger enacted in media and I really don't think there's a purpose for me to. I don't want to subject myself to that in an attempt to seem "tough" like Gay seems to think of herself as doing. Subjecting myself to something that harms me emotionally that deeply isn't something I can just shrug off. I might even relapse into self-harm. I don't think that it would be someone else's "fault" if that happened, and I don't expect other people to cater to my personal traumas all of the time because that isn't possible, but I do think as people we can just generally take small and easy steps to help each other get through life easier. Trigger warnings are one of those steps.
So... yeah. I really hated that chapter.
Also, there's a bit toward the end where Gay mentions that her longtime on-again-off-again boyfriend is "politically conservative." Not to be THAT kind of feminist, but... ew. I do think it's weird to claim to be a feminist while fucking a man who votes against the best interests of women everywhere. I see this a lot and it makes me feel insane.
Overall I enjoyed Gay's perspectives on rape culture and I would be down to read her words on that topic more in the future. I have a couple of her other books lying around, because my job sometimes throws things into my lap, and I'll probably get around to reading them eventually. She's a good writer and has a great voice. In this collection she just fluctuates wildly between informative and powerful messages, takes that are so mild they make no impact at all, and takes that are, put simply, bad.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape