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A review by glindaaa
Feminists Don't Wear Pink (And Other Lies): Amazing Women on What the F-Word Means to Them by Scarlett Curtis
5.0
There are many thoughts to be formed and things to be said when you want to open your mouth and just speak. However, sometimes those words don't come and in waves of anger or sadness only tears show up, which is something that can happen too when you laugh, laugh so hard you cry. Perhaps I did not laugh that hard this time around but it is not something to be forgotten. I am going to make the most honest and personal review I have ever done because I feel that is necessary and that it makes me proud to do so.
I have always thought about feminism, being raised by a single mom with a dad who well did not keep up his part of the bargain (sorry dad), but it was true. That did not mean that I did not love him less, that did not mean I did not tell my mom to stop fighting, because they were already divorced and I just wanted to see my dad. Who travelled every other weekend 2 hours to pick me up, couldn't my mom just offer him a coffee before we would have to go?
Yet now I consider how much she had to fight. How much she had to ask from her male colleagues to understand a woman alone with a child. Her proudest story from her boss is that he told her: "you need a course, we will pay for a babysitter." Which she later figured out wasn't true but he decided so because he understood how important it was for her to have one, else she couldn't go. There are guys out there, we should not forget, who understand and who need the equality, the feminism as well. Which is what I try to point out to the people I meet but sometimes I feel like just a voice that is not important.
Curtis tells you at the end of the book that it is not true. You be you and do whatever you want and that is what I will do. Because to me, that is necessary and if talking is the most I can do right now than that's it. Perhaps the future would give me a better insight into what I can do and will do and I am trying. I am trying to be a voice for my friends, male or female, for anyone I know to be a woman and to have my share of rights that I can get. I pick classes because of this and I absolutely don't mind to write about it because I want to inspire my professor and let him or her say: oh, she got it.
This book made me understand that I am not a defect human being, who doesn't like sex, who doesn't fantasize about it, I am just me and I want to be that way and stay that way. It is not bad to think about things later as long as I am happy about it and figure it out when or wherever I go. I am totally okay with that. The beauty of the fragments, the way it is made up (explaining the history at the end was a great move) makes it so easy to read the fragments, to continue more books for Oursharedshelf, which I try to keep up with.
The beauty of this book is it is reality to me, to others. It is a view that doesn't have to be yours per se but it can make yours perhaps better. Thanks for the comebacks Curtis, I will definitely use them. I feel I can do much more now to understand and to fight, for the rights that I think I deserve to have as well as every other woman or men considering feelings, equality and everything that should be a natural right for a person to have, no matter their gender or if they don't feel they belong in any category at all, because who am I to judge them.
There is not much more I dare to say, I cried, I laughed, I nodded along while reading this. I just want to say one more thing, my dad might not have kept up his part of his parental-bargain when he divorced my mom. But he helps me fight, he gave this book to me for my 25th birthday. He was there when someone touched me inappropriately, the only man at that point in my life I could stand. I love my father for who he is, perhaps he sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction, but he would fight for equal rights and be femine when he needs to be. He raises my brother that way, to not have to hide for a love of a colour named pink.
and I love my mom, for always fighting for herself, for finally loving herself since she was able to fit in a size less, which was not necessary for me and actually not necessary for herself but she was afraid of dying and leaving me alone. She is always the listening ear for when I feel vunerable or when I am angry about something that forms an equality, perhaps not even for me but for someone in my class or a newsarticle I read. My mother is a fighter, when I started this book I asked her: do you consider yourself a feminist? She was quiet, thinking and answered very honest: I never considered it, but I am always fighting to get an equal pay, to be heard, so even if I did not consider it, I sure am one. <3
I have always thought about feminism, being raised by a single mom with a dad who well did not keep up his part of the bargain (sorry dad), but it was true. That did not mean that I did not love him less, that did not mean I did not tell my mom to stop fighting, because they were already divorced and I just wanted to see my dad. Who travelled every other weekend 2 hours to pick me up, couldn't my mom just offer him a coffee before we would have to go?
Yet now I consider how much she had to fight. How much she had to ask from her male colleagues to understand a woman alone with a child. Her proudest story from her boss is that he told her: "you need a course, we will pay for a babysitter." Which she later figured out wasn't true but he decided so because he understood how important it was for her to have one, else she couldn't go. There are guys out there, we should not forget, who understand and who need the equality, the feminism as well. Which is what I try to point out to the people I meet but sometimes I feel like just a voice that is not important.
Curtis tells you at the end of the book that it is not true. You be you and do whatever you want and that is what I will do. Because to me, that is necessary and if talking is the most I can do right now than that's it. Perhaps the future would give me a better insight into what I can do and will do and I am trying. I am trying to be a voice for my friends, male or female, for anyone I know to be a woman and to have my share of rights that I can get. I pick classes because of this and I absolutely don't mind to write about it because I want to inspire my professor and let him or her say: oh, she got it.
This book made me understand that I am not a defect human being, who doesn't like sex, who doesn't fantasize about it, I am just me and I want to be that way and stay that way. It is not bad to think about things later as long as I am happy about it and figure it out when or wherever I go. I am totally okay with that. The beauty of the fragments, the way it is made up (explaining the history at the end was a great move) makes it so easy to read the fragments, to continue more books for Oursharedshelf, which I try to keep up with.
The beauty of this book is it is reality to me, to others. It is a view that doesn't have to be yours per se but it can make yours perhaps better. Thanks for the comebacks Curtis, I will definitely use them. I feel I can do much more now to understand and to fight, for the rights that I think I deserve to have as well as every other woman or men considering feelings, equality and everything that should be a natural right for a person to have, no matter their gender or if they don't feel they belong in any category at all, because who am I to judge them.
There is not much more I dare to say, I cried, I laughed, I nodded along while reading this. I just want to say one more thing, my dad might not have kept up his part of his parental-bargain when he divorced my mom. But he helps me fight, he gave this book to me for my 25th birthday. He was there when someone touched me inappropriately, the only man at that point in my life I could stand. I love my father for who he is, perhaps he sometimes needs a nudge in the right direction, but he would fight for equal rights and be femine when he needs to be. He raises my brother that way, to not have to hide for a love of a colour named pink.
and I love my mom, for always fighting for herself, for finally loving herself since she was able to fit in a size less, which was not necessary for me and actually not necessary for herself but she was afraid of dying and leaving me alone. She is always the listening ear for when I feel vunerable or when I am angry about something that forms an equality, perhaps not even for me but for someone in my class or a newsarticle I read. My mother is a fighter, when I started this book I asked her: do you consider yourself a feminist? She was quiet, thinking and answered very honest: I never considered it, but I am always fighting to get an equal pay, to be heard, so even if I did not consider it, I sure am one. <3