By Nina Power
Nina Power isn’t one to mince her words. In this provocative polemic, she’s assertive, combative and as sharp as a scalpel. Power’s slim book can be classed as an analysis of where feminism stands today. And it isn’t pretty. She is drawn again and again into how capitalism’s gains are equality’s losses.
Posted in Book review
Tagged academic, British, capitalism, feminism, non-fiction, polemic
By Deborah Cameron
Although I haven’t read much of the literature around the idea that men and women are from different planets and are therefore unable to communicate with one another, I’ve been sceptical of it for a long time.
By Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra
It is somewhat ironic that a comic book in which 99% of the characters are female focuses on the sole male character. But that is the world we live in, and I give the authors of Y: The Last Man credit for inventing a very simple but enthralling scenario. The situation is this: an unknown virus has killed all mammals on Earth that carry a Y chromosome – ie, all men – except for Yorick, an American loser, and his pet monkey, Ampersand.
By Polly Courtney
Some would say that an author’s decision to ditch her publisher over charges of sexism just as she needs publicity for her new novel are cynical. Having read It’s a Man’s World, in which shrewd capitalist nous rules, I can see why Polly Courtney did it. She’s a smart businesswoman. And while I don’t doubt her good feminist intentions, I cannot help but question her methods.
By Marilyn French
I couldn’t finish this book, but I count it as an achievement that I made it over half way. By one page. So I won’t waste too much time by outlining why and how I didn’t like it, in case you think that my opinions are half-formed
The simple fact is that this is not a novel. It is a slurry of case studies, jammed together and fictionalised. Even literary novels must have plot, Marilyn, just plot driven by emotion. Here we have plenty of emotion, shoved down our throats like we don’t have enough emotion ourselves, but little or no development. French pulls together all the awful stories of women’s oppression imaginable in Western society and fails to edit them. You end up with (half) a book of testimonies, essentially. Maybe this book therefore had a lot of value in 1977, and maybe it does if you’re reading fem lit from a historical perspective. But in 2011, there’s nothing here. Read a proper story instead.
By Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran keeps it real – that’s a trite phrase these days, but I can’t think of more apt praise for Moran’s writing. Having never read any of her columns or articles, I went into this book cold, albeit receptive to what its marketers described as an irreverent take on feminism. For once, the marketers were right. Eschewing academic discourse and sociological analysis, Moran has nevertheless managed to write a book that penetrates and subverts patriarchy.
Her style is personal and direct. Many would describe her as shouty or ranty. Indeed, several female friends of mine have criticised Moran’s approach for these reasons. But I don’t have such a problem. On the contrary, I think that in 2011, Moran’s style works really well – maybe I say this because I generally agree with her, or maybe because I think she retains her reason despite being so personal about things. The fact is that however shouty she may be, she always brings her argument back to biscuits or Time Team. She has the passion one needs to challenge patriarchy, but the humility and good humour to not be a dick about it. She’s Richard Dawkins in a Teletubby suit. How much more persuasive would his arguments against God be if he didn’t sound like such a spoilt git? If he didn’t take himself so seriously? I think it’s brilliant – a major achievement – that Moran doesn’t have to take herself so seriously as a feminist in 2011. The movement must march onward with as much vigour as yesterday, but Moran shows that today it’s possible to march with a spring in your step.
But the fact that a number of female friends have rejected Moran’s style worries me. And it makes me wonder whether there is such a thing as female feminist writing for men. I know that Moran wins praise from many women, too, but if writing could be gendered, could her writing be more at the male of the spectrum? I wouldn’t use crude or sexist tools for locating it on that spectrum (it’s not just about how many times she mentions sex and booze versus handbags and shoes). I just wonder whether male feminists might be more open to Moran’s style than that of other writers?
I wouldn’t want to leave you with the impression that this book is all polemic. It is also a memoir, a supremely funny comedy and an astute insight into society in Britain. It is not at all stuffy; that is not to say it is not heavy; it is accessible and relatable. For that, Moran deserves great praise.
Fat is a Feminist Issue
By Susie Orbach
Although I’ve never intentionally hurt or offended a person for being overweight, I have judged them. My knowledge of why people are overweight extended only to diet and activity level. Through this book, Orbach has told me that those two reasons are the tip of a very large iceberg. The third, much more significant reason for obesity is psychology – psychology influenced by the culture and society in which the victim has lived. Because women are in many ways handcuffed by culture and society, Orbach shows, their weight problems are a feminist issue.
After having read the book, that seems so much like common sense to me. Beforehand, I knew that our culture expected women to look and behave a certain way. And I probably would have concluded that this could lead to weight problems. But I figured that, ultimately, every person knows what constitutes a sensible, ordered diet and an appropriate level of physical activity – and that if they did not adhere to these principles then they were to blame if they found themselves overweight. How awful I now realise that position to be. It is not just judgmental; it is ignorant.
So thanks to Orbach for making in roads into my ignorance with this fine book. She manages to write both a feminist polemic and a self-help book on the same pages. When you think about how many authors struggle to do just one of those things effectively, you begin to realise the extent of her achievement. One strategy Orbach employs here is to bring in the experiences of members of the various groups she has run: she re-tells the stories of women with eating disorders, opening my eyes to the great spectrum of experiences of these victims, and provides her own psychological analysis at the same time. It’s a very competent way of revealing the problem while simultaneously ensuring that her reader understands it.
There are a few problems with Orbach’s grammar – she doesn’t seem to use enough commas – and some of the analysis is looking very dated (it was originally published in 1978). That said, we still clearly have a weight problem in the world. I believe Orbach’s book to be effective, because it has given me an insight into this problem. But what of all the victims still out there?
Living Dolls: the return of sexism
By Natasha Walter
For as long as I can remember, I have been alive to the fact that, in Western society’s eyes, people are not created equal. I wasn’t around during even the second-wave of feminism, but I knew that people were still discriminated against due to their sex or gender. So I came to Walter not for affirmation, but examples, analysis and explanation.
At first I felt that she was providing only examples. A great deal of this book – especially in the first half – is exposition. For instance, Walter describing a typical night in an Essex nightclub in which the girls are invited on stage to pose for Nuts magazine; Walter interviewing former strippers; Walter describing the girls’ pink and glittery section of the toy shop. Walter described all these encounters – many of which shocked me – in neat and concise prose. Her writing is cast by Walter’s scepticism: naturally, she cannot describe a girl’s wanting to be a pink princess without a dose of cynicism in her language. While some of these accounts were gripping, they were not what I came for. I wanted insight. I craved objective analysis – especially after Walter had opened my eyes further.
Eventually it came, and it was worth the wait. I still can’t help but imagine what this polemic would have been like if Walter analysed every encounter she had while describing it to us or, in any case, if her analysis came closer to a description of something problematic. But her decision to keep the exposition and analysis mostly separate is nevertheless an intriguing one. I suppose in the very least it left me really hungry for the analysis when it did come.
And I have to say that I found her arguments compelling, persuasive and well made. I had found the ‘pink princess’ approach to girls’ toys rather tasteless, but I always thought that that had been down to the fact that I’m a boy or a grown-up or a bigger fan of other colours – or a republican. But now I feel I have some substantive reasons for not liking it. Walter puts the ‘pink princess’ phenomenon in context, plots its development relative to other narrow representations of women and shows what it does for the developing psychology of a young girl. The realisation that, in the extreme, a modern girl is essentially building her identity through medieval values (entitlement, privilege, dependence, and the wait for a prince to take over the role of provision from her father) is shocking. My second surprise is Walter’s explanation of how the media’s sexualisation of women affects us all. She breaks down the notion that now women who choose to strip or pose in a lads’ mag are empowered.
I think she could have developed this argument more, but nevertheless her examples speak for themselves. The women she meets, who chose to strip, describe how it is not empowering at all. And the girls she interviews, perhaps most crushing of all, explain how they want to be glamour models. Walter craftily weaves example and analysis together here when she positions these girls against her argument that sexualised representations of women in the media present very narrow choices for young girls. Girls who see glamour models all the time think that the models’ bodies are the ‘ideal’ body types: they work towards achieving this or become depressed that they don’t have it. And Walter drives home her point with statements from her interviewees (one very compelling 17-year-old included) who feel that that is exactly what these representations do: present very persuasive but narrow choices.
The great thing about Walter and this book, by the way, is that she doesn’t suggest for one moment that internet porn turns all men into dangerous sex obsessives or all women into subservient performers; her arguments are much more nuanced. To that extent, I could have done with a broader analysis. That is, the affect of sexism’s return on men. Walter mentions men superficially, but more insight would have been welcome. Perhaps that is another book, though; Living Dolls remains concise, tight and expertly argued.
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