The F-word discussion

I know lots of people have been raving over this book of essays. Any initial thoughts, reactions?

I read it about a month ago. It didn't do much for me besides the first essay. There's been so many great essays by woman this year, and this one just feel flat for me. I'm glad I read it, but of all the feminist essay sets I've read this year it stuck with me the least.

So, just curious, which essays/essayists have you loved this year (last year!)?

Yes, Zoe, please let us know which essay you liked. I'm always looking for good essays. I quite liked Men Explain Things to Me as a quick read. I don't think there was anything groundbreaking in it, but I enjoyed reading it.

I agree that Men Explain Things to Me is just decent; however I haven't read any recent essays that just blew me away. I suppose the best part of this one is the author's effective use of humor while touching on a pretty serious subject. The term mansplaining really resonates with me and I'll remember it the next time I'm in said situation AGAIN.

I really liked Bad Feminist: Essays. It resonated with me much more than this one did. I feel similar to what Nea said. Men Explain Things to me was good enough, but nothing really stayed with me. I also really enjoyed People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges- though that dealt much more with woman-on-woman issues.

Zoe wrote: "Men Explain Things to me was good enough, but nothing really stayed with me."

Yes, I read it a month ago and can't remember anything about it.

So far I've just read the first essay - but I really like her style!

Some of my favorite lines from the first essay, "Men Explain Things To Me":
"Being women, we were politely out of earshot before we began laughing."
“A war that nearly every woman faces every day, a war within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence.”
“Explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge.”
“Intelligence is not situated in the crotch – even if you can write one of Virginia Woolf’s long mellifluous musical sentences about the subtle subjugation of women in the snow with your willie.”

I just read the second essay, "The Longest War." Wow, her rage just boils off the page!

I liked this quote: "the so-called war of the sexes is extraordinarily lopsided when it comes to actual violence."

And then the third essay, reframing post-colonialism in terms of gender inequalities - intriguing!

I quite enjoyed #4, with its discussion of just how marriage equality threatens traditional marriage.

I'm also really enjoying the artwork - I enjoy the way this has been laid out.

Alexa wrote: "I quite enjoyed #4, with its discussion of just how marriage equality threatens traditional marriage."

Agreed. Two women marrying or two men marrying eliminates the gender hierarchy in marriage. This upsets some people. ...

Imagine, marriages where people really do negotiate child care and housework, and there simply aren't any gender roles to fall back on! All the women of the world will be crying out, saying, "I want one of those!"

Alexa wrote: "Imagine, marriages where people really do negotiate child care and housework, and there simply aren't any gender roles to fall back on! All the women of the world will be crying out, saying, "I want one of those!""

Not a day goes by that I don't thank the universe that I'm a lesbian :-)

I'm finding these essays quite evocatively poetic! #5 "Grandmother Spider" touches on so many ways women have been disappeared.

I'm reading it now, about halfway through the Virginia Woolf piece. It's eye-opening, definitely, and I think of all the essays I enjoyed #2, "The Longest War" the most (so far, I should say). Her writing style in that is impeccable and I like the stats and facts that she puts down. It really is mind-blowing, in a horrible way. Other than that, this book is somewhat tepid to me, because I feel that she sometimes rambles about other issues in America/the world that are more political in nature/don't have to do with feminism (like citing the things the IMF has done in the world as far as taxing other countries. It's sad, but I don't see how those stats have to do with feminism and women being heard or not). Perhaps I'm just missing something there, but I'd prefer to have the essays commit to one topic only.

Zoe wrote: "I really liked Bad Feminist: Essays. It resonated with me much more than this one did. I feel similar to what Nea said. Men Explain Things to me was good enough, but nothing really..."

I just picked up Bad Feminist at my library and thanks to your recommendation, it's definitely going to be my next read! I have been hearing some good things.

I can see what you mean, about how she sometimes draws in so many topics. It can be confusing to keep track of sometimes! Yet on the other hand I love how she pulls them all together! To view world inequity through the lens and metaphor of gender inequality I though was quite insightful. I see this most of all in #5 "Grandmother Spider" where just like the spider she's referencing she's pulling together all these disparate strands and weaving them into a coherent and beautiful whole. (And I too also loved Bad Feminist - that's a great read!)

And then this wandering from topic to topic is even more evident in the Woolf essay - but I love the way it glorifies this wandering through the unknown - I find this one to be mind-stretching in the most wonderful way!

And the final essay is a great way to end - on a note of hope!

I loved this! I love her analysis, I love her voice, I love the way she thinks! I'm definitely going to read some more of her stuff now. This also makes a lovely little gift - it's so beautifully packaged!

One of our members (Jim) just wrote a review of this that I really enjoyed reading: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Alexa wrote: "One of our members (Jim) just wrote a review of this that I really enjoyed reading: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..."

Thanks for sharing my review, Alexa! I guess I need to get in on more of the discussions here so that I know what's going on! I checked this out of the library because it was the January selection, but then never even came back to post my thoughts here :)

Anyway, if you've seen the review Alexa posted, you know I really liked it. Maybe it does need to be read more by men. I've seen a lot of women give this not very high ratings - not saying that they didn't like it, but that it wasn't really new or groundbreaking. Maybe I thought it was good because (1) I'm new to the literature, and (2) I don't experience this kind of awfulness directly on a daily basis, so it's good to be reminded of it in other ways.