A must read / listen

Powerful! This book should be read by all! It’s enlightening to be given an alternative definition and understanding of misogyny as it plays out today.

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Useful to clera up some miscoceptions

It was not the easiest read, especially at the beginning. The points become clearer later in the book, and I am glad to have kept reading. Illuminating and helpful.

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Great read and a new perspective

As a philosophy student, I've encountered a lot of different angles on feminism and argued through many issues. This was a genuinely new perspective and I found it very thought provoking on issues of misogeny. I'll be chewing over this book for a long time and may have to buy a text copy for quick references because it's so useful. The only downer was the frequent mispronunciations by the narrator who did the author some disservices by mispronouncing or misreading some key terms, sometimes making nonsense of carefully argued sentences. That's audio for you, I suppose.

I finished this recently, but as a genuine philospohical exercise, it's a dense read. I need to go through it again at least once. The notion of women as givers has face validity in that it explains why so much is expected of women and girls while their own needs for interpersonal validation and nurture are not easily met. I was reading work by bell hooks (she doesn't use upper case: her choice) on men and love at the same time. She argues that boys are forced to 'man up' by suppressing their emotionally softer sides and that they suffer in consequence. It's an interesting contrast in some ways, but at the core for me is that no one half of the human race should be oppressed or damaged fot the good of others. I could go on, but the ideas need to mull a bit!

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9 people found this helpful

Academic text

I liked the book. There's much to think about here, and some uncomfortable truths to face.
Many more should read it. However, I think the way it's written is a bit excluding. This is written as an academic text, with vocabulary and semantics, and build up to fit. I don't think I've ever heard the word "hence" used so often. And Latin frases like "qui bono" and "post hoc" is widely used which can be daunting for many. It expects the reader to have much knowledge of the theme, and other works about it. So just be aware that this can be a heavy read if you're not used to academic texts.
At times it felt like too much time was spent on caveats. It got a bit tiresome to hear that she doesn't mean to exclude LGBTQ, black, disabled etc. I mean, it's good that caveats are made, but page upon page upon page makes it feel... inefficient.

At some points, she seems to take men's words at the worst meaning, but find apologies for women's. Not often, as most of it is justified and clearly right (there is no excuse for "grab 'em by the pussy"), but when compared to how she talks about M, who has some clearly racist views, it makes me wrinkle my brow a bit.

Anyway, as I said, I did like it. And I do recommend it. Other reviews has talked about all that's good about it, so I just wanted to talk about some things which can be problematic.

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14 people found this helpful

We get it, you’re not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings

Liberal feminists spend so much time assuring everyone they’re intersectional that it takes away from any discussion happening. As a radical feminist, I’m in no way confused why every single woman in the world would be included in feminism - I am, however, confused why trans women, rather than trans men, are included in a book about the way misogyny affects women, given that misogyny is based on sex. Men do not hate trans women because they are, in reality, women. They hate them because they hate everything that isn’t proud of being male. Conflating these issues does neither justice.

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Fantastic 👍🏽

People tell you 'Women have equal rights'
So why does life as a girl or woman feel so unequal and unfair? ... and why do I in fact feel so guilty sometimes in saying so? This book brilliantly explains both ..
It did have me running to the dictionary a number many times, (the writer Kate has an astounding vocabulary) But I just stuck with it as the insight, facts and explanations are mind blowing. You go girl, you are a genius at making complete and utter sence of this world for Women 😀

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5 people found this helpful

I need to read this again

This book is incredible in its insight. However, it was very academic and philosophical. I need to reread at some point

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1 person found this helpful

The best book I read in all year

An essential reading to every girl, woman, boy and man out there. This should be taught in schools. Gives answers to so many unnerving questions about the state of the world these days. Absolutely loved it!

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5 people found this helpful

Essential reading

This is a enlightening book and it's content if it were known and understood by a greater number of people would do much to make the world a better place for everyone, especially women. It's not got 5 stars because the language can be quite academic and hard to understand and therefor not as suitable for audio.

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2 people found this helpful

academic but powerful

not a light read but a thorough examination of a complex topic that I found extremely illuminating.

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2 people found this helpful