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sunrays118 's review for:
This book is nearing 30 years old and I wanted to see how it held up. It does not.
The book is an absolute product of its time but offers very little helpful information now. The author has cherry picked situations that reaffirm the same mantra over and over: women don't have strong boundaries. The book is based entirely on how woman are treated as less than men and do not have proper boundaries. The true sadness in this book is that the author does the same thing. The way she treats women shows her own lacking ability to see them as having the same worth as men. In one example she discusses how women are forced to wear bikinis in Florida to appeal to men. This struct me as so profoundly out of touch it was hard to continue reading. It never dawned on the author that any woman might want to wear something because she wanted to wear something.
All of the examples, all of the phrasings, all of the advice, truly stemmed from this fervent belief that women had to create better boundaries to protect themselves from men. In every single case this was attributed to a childhood trauma. In every single case the only possible way out was to find the way out of the relationship through therapy. I do not believe more than one page went by without the author directly women to go to therapy. I found this a bit tiresome and unreliable.
The author is writing from a specific moment and it shows. I appreciate the effort of this book but the insights are limited at best and the author fails to see her own blindspots even as they bleed on every line. It's all a bit of a painted pony show and one that should have been put to pasture three decades ago.
I will say, after reading this book it is exceptionally clear who I have met who has ever read this book. It certainly has informed their way of viewing boundaries and their approach to viewing women and therapy. Interestingly, I was impressed by the reviews that had been left by other readers. The reviews often offered more nuanced examples of these points and some ideas worthy of serious contemplation. Most reviews did note the same issues as listed above along as trouble with the lack of depth, the "exercises," and the dated outlook including the views on women, sex and abuse.
The book is an absolute product of its time but offers very little helpful information now. The author has cherry picked situations that reaffirm the same mantra over and over: women don't have strong boundaries. The book is based entirely on how woman are treated as less than men and do not have proper boundaries. The true sadness in this book is that the author does the same thing. The way she treats women shows her own lacking ability to see them as having the same worth as men. In one example she discusses how women are forced to wear bikinis in Florida to appeal to men. This struct me as so profoundly out of touch it was hard to continue reading. It never dawned on the author that any woman might want to wear something because she wanted to wear something.
All of the examples, all of the phrasings, all of the advice, truly stemmed from this fervent belief that women had to create better boundaries to protect themselves from men. In every single case this was attributed to a childhood trauma. In every single case the only possible way out was to find the way out of the relationship through therapy. I do not believe more than one page went by without the author directly women to go to therapy. I found this a bit tiresome and unreliable.
The author is writing from a specific moment and it shows. I appreciate the effort of this book but the insights are limited at best and the author fails to see her own blindspots even as they bleed on every line. It's all a bit of a painted pony show and one that should have been put to pasture three decades ago.
I will say, after reading this book it is exceptionally clear who I have met who has ever read this book. It certainly has informed their way of viewing boundaries and their approach to viewing women and therapy. Interestingly, I was impressed by the reviews that had been left by other readers. The reviews often offered more nuanced examples of these points and some ideas worthy of serious contemplation. Most reviews did note the same issues as listed above along as trouble with the lack of depth, the "exercises," and the dated outlook including the views on women, sex and abuse.