Book No. 38 of 2020
This is one of those reads that is painful at the same time it provides an overwhelming feeling of relief. I’m going to shamelessly steal @cozyreadingclub’s simile, that this book feels like a massage on sore muscles. (It’s a very accurate simile!!!) Maybe the most depressing part about this book is that the people who most need to read it aren’t going to.
West uses her razor-sharp wit and insight to identify systemic problems and the people who enable them. As stressful as it was sometimes to read West’s account of trolls, harassers, and complicit people using their platforms to perpetuate injustice, it was also a massive relief to see someone calling a spade a spade. (I’m already, personally, exhausted from the lived experience of having to process the injustices in my life and then having to educate others and beg them to care. As such I often have to couch my message in soft words. It is very tiring.)
West focuses on feminism and the issues that predominantly hold back women—and rightly pushes back on the idea that the onus is on women to lessen their own oppression—but because everything is linked, she also deftly lays out issues across the sociopolitical spectrum.
Similar Reads
The clear-eyed explanation of everyday hurdles that cumulatively make up systemic racism reminded me of Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime.
I think this book pairs well with Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies, which goes further into detail about feminist history in the US, and is also conscious that many strides in equality were started in marginalized communities.
The overall vibe of the book also reminded me of Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings, which obviously has a different focus, but is also unyieldingly clear about naming and identifying issues and mapping their roots in history.
For another funny book by someone who worked on Shrill (the TV show) and takes fatphobic culture to task, check out Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby.