109 reviews found
Showing 21 to 40 of 109 results
Once again I find myself wrecked by Louise O’Neill’s ability to tell stories about how our society messes up women and girls. I expected this. I’ve pre-ordered this book but was delighted to receive an eARC on NetGalley because I could not wait. Shout out to the Sam Miller I knew when I taught in England (aside from being a blonde white woman, she was nothing like this Sam Miller).
Sam Miller is a wildly…
Audre Lorde is one of those people whom we white people find so quotable yet seldom do we stop to listen to her words (we have done this to Martin Luther King, Jr. as well). Every time I see a quotation from Lorde or another prominent Black activist on a T-shirt, I cringe. One of the insidious aspects of whiteness is how it appropriates the radical language of oppressed people (just look at the evolution…
This is a book I have been waiting for. I don’t just mean in the sense that I pre-ordered it (though I did); I mean that I am very much interested in books about trans liberation as opposed to personal memoirs. I know Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue is far from the first book on this subject. However, it is current and cogent. In her prologue, Faye makes the case clearly:
The demand for true
…
Although I would have picked this up on my own once I heard about it, I sought out and read White Tears/Brown Scars as a part of an antiracist book club that I joined for the month of June. Comprising mostly educators in Ontario, the book club’s organizer picked this book because our profession is predominantly white women, so white tears are a problem. As a white women, I’m a part of that problem,…
Despite not enjoying The Mirror Empire to the point of not finishing it, I was still eager to read this collection of essays by Kameron Hurley. One of the reasons I was so disappointed about The Mirror Empire was that I really wanted to enjoy Hurley’s novels based on what I had seen from her on Twitter, her blog, etc. So I still wanted to try The Geek Feminist Revolution, and I’m glad that…
Sex good. Pornography bad. With such utterances we begin to draw the lines that marked the “sex wars” of the 1980s, in which feminism schismed over how to approach sexual expression and the pornography industry. For some feminists, porn amplified the potential for violence against women—porn was essentially as bad as rape. For other feminists, the fight against porn was a fight against freedom of sexual expression, freedom to openly and intensely celebrate women’s sexuality.…
In my Grade 11 and 12 English class for adult learners, I always try to do at least a week on media literacy. We talk about bias and stereotypes, particularly as they relate to race, gender, and disability. One of my favourite activities regarding gender stereotypes involves examining ads and asking students to identify stereotypes present in those ads. It always provokes enlightening and interesting conversations from them. The hypersexualization of women as sex objects,…
One of my goals last year was, and for this year remains, to read more works by transgender authors, particularly about trans issues. I have been following Julia Serano on Twitter for a while now, so during my latest shopping expedition I decided to pick up Whipping Girl, which has also been on my radar for a while. Serano is not only a trans woman but also a molecular biologist, providing her with insights…
In a dramatized conversation between Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth in season 4, episode 1 of The Crown, Thatcher, the UK’s first female prime minister, avers that she has found women “in general not to be suited to high office.” Thatcher climbed the ladder that feminism had built, but she saw herself as rising above the frailties of her sex—an exception that proved the rule—to be more like a man, and she and…
Update May 17, 2021: So, today I learned Criado Perez is a TERF. Oops. I noticed, as remarked in the original review below, that the book doesn’t address issues of data collection for trans people. I didn’t realize at the time that Criado Perez’s omission was likely intentional. Sigh.
So my quandary … I did think at the time I read this that Invisible Women was a very good book. It discusses very real…
Every once in a while, I stop and just think about how everyone else around me is totally engrossed in their own life. I don’t mean in an egotistical sense. I mean … just as I am wrapped up in living my life, with my own beliefs and struggles, my moments to myself and my moments given to others … everyone else goes through all this too! Except they aren’t me, or I’m not them,…
Two years ago I picked up, on a whim, Sarah-Jane Stratford’s Radio Girls, and I fell in love. The book was the perfect blend of history, politics, and feminism. I’m pleased to say that with Red Letter Days, Stratford has done it again. While the protagonists share some superficial qualities—both move from North America to Britain, both work in communications industries in some capacity, both become somewhat embroiled in espionage and skullduggery—Stratford has…
At first I admit to some scepticism about the idea that we could use mathematics to rethink our conversations around gender. I was apprehensive because science, and even to some extent mathematics (or at least more applied subsets of its, like statistics) have been misused and abused in service of gender stereotype fallacies. Indeed, Eugenia Cheng points this out herself, and this, along with her careful and patient exposition of her topic, eventually won me…
Power Shift: The Longest Revolution exemplifies why the CBC Massey Lectures is such a compelling format. Sally Armstrong delivers, in 5 chapters of roughly equal length, a concise overview of the inequities faced by women around the world. She provides historical perspective, discusses the overt and covert biases present throughout our society, and includes examples of how we can change things for the better. She does her best to be inclusive and intersectional, not to…
It’s rare that I re-read a book so soon after reading it. I acquired a lovely paperback version signed by Bourne, and I decided I was in the mood to re-read Pretending. It might not have been the best decision (so many feels), but it might have been the right decision.
My first review feels very true and comprehensive, so I won’t add too much to this one. Mostly I…
So I guess this is my coming out review? I actually have a blog post for that, but of course, some of my transition experiences thus far will be interspersed throughout this review.
Hello, world. I’m Kara now. (That’s pronounced Car-uh.) I’m a trans woman. My pronouns are she/her.
To My Trans Sisters seemed like a perfect book to read and then review on the day I came out online. It’s a collection…
Huge note: Since writing this review, I’ve actually come out as transgender! So, uh, enjoy all the parts here where I laughably reaffirm my cis-ness! I will revise this review at some point. (Note to future Kara: actually do that.)
I received this book as a gift from a friend who shares my interest in feminism. She found For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity somewhat revelatory. Like me, she…
I bought this as a birthday gift for someone I know who has quite the collection of shoes/heels, although it was on my to-read list before I considered it as a gift. High Heel is an unconventional treatise on this type of footwear. In short, easily-digestible chunks, Summer Brennan ponders the evolution of high heels in our history and culture. She wrestles with the conflicting attitudes towards high heels evinced by feminists, as well as…
Women are monsters, according to the patriarchy. That’s the thesis of Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power, Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s follow-up to their 2016 Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why. To elaborate a bit more, Doyle argues that the portrayal of women (and femininity) in our media and culture overlaps with our understanding of the monstrous, the Other, the…
Every time I start another Holly Bourne book, I’m scared. I think, “Is this the time? Is this the book where Bourne lets me down, and I have to be disappointed??” And the answer is always no, as it is with The Places I’ve Cried in Public. I read this mostly in private, but otherwise there would have been some public tears, let me tell you.
Trigger warnings in this book for discussion and…
Showing 21 to 40 of 109 results