Maybe 1.5 stars? Atrociously written. Both muddled and rushed. If the thought experiment about gender and sex has any value, it's certainly not clear Maybe 1.5 stars? Atrociously written. Both muddled and rushed. If the thought experiment about gender and sex has any value, it's certainly not clear to me.
I can see where a lot of people feel their hackles rising while reading this. It relies on some pretty extreme stereotypes of men and women (men: violent dirty rapists to be feared; women: mothers who foster world peace) and doesn't do a good job of explaining how humans are more complex than that. It excludes trans people from any meaningful discussion of a virus that affects humans at the chromosome level. And it is peppered with asinine ALL CAPS and bolded and italicized words that exhaust and irritate.
I think the author's question when she wrote this book was what is a woman?. And while I don't think this is an intentionally TERF-y mess, I do think there's no way Bergin could really truly discuss "what a woman is" while only stuffing humans into XY and XX boxes.
Unfortunately, whatever merits this book's subject matter might have, I can't get past how much I hated the writing....more
Suddenly I want to count how many women are in my life. Is my doctor a woman? Yes! Is my dentist a woman? Yes! Were any of my professors women? Yes! HSuddenly I want to count how many women are in my life. Is my doctor a woman? Yes! Is my dentist a woman? Yes! Were any of my professors women? Yes! Have I ever seen a female janitor or cop? Yes!
Thank GOD a few things have changed since 1976, but still... too much of this felt exactly like the awful things women are still told to accept as their role in the world: Sacrifice yourself for men, who will tell you who you are. When are you getting married so you can be a Real Woman? *barf* People still say crap like this, it's just phrased differently so you don't recognize it. "Someday you'll want children, you'll feel differently when you're older." No. I won't. Don't you dare tell me how I should feel or what I should want because I'm a woman.
The Female Man will rile you up like this: it's screaming at the sexism and misogyny in the world, asking why?! why is it this way? It makes no sense. It gives you four versions of the same woman and shows you how they become completely different women because of attitudes towards women and gender they grew up with.
This book made me proud of myself because I'm more Janet than Jeannine or Joanna. And then I ask why? Why am I this way? Well, probably because the world has gotten a little better since 1976....more
Rachel (Kalanadi)
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Books:
winners-otherwise
(23)
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