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Reviews tagging 'Sexism'
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
9 reviews
takarakei's review against another edition
4.5
My one qualm (and this could be indicative of this being published a decade ago) is I think Wall Kimmerer shies away a bit from giving any real solutions besides to become "closer to nature" which reads a bit naive considering where we are as a world right now. Unfortunately we are just so far past the way indigenous people used to live that I struggle to see a path that leads anywhere near back there.
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Racism, Sexism, Suicide, Grief, and War
Minor: Cannibalism
bashsbooks's review against another edition
4.25
All-in-all, Braiding Sweetgrass is a fantastic personal essay collection about nature, culture, and our interpersonal (person here including nonhumans!) connections. I can understand perfectly why it is so popular and widely recommended. My friend and I listened the audiobook, so we not only appreciated the descriptions as written, but also, Kimmerer's steady and soothing voice as she read through the text she so lovingly crafted. My favorite takeaways from Braiding Sweetgrass were: the obvious and unabashed love Kimmerer has for the natural world, her willingness to combine traditional wisdom and hard science, her gentle encouragement to consider the world from a different perspective (especially that of a plant or an animal), and her fierce love and appreciate for her Potawatomi culture and heritage. I was also deeply compelled by her rumination on how to become indigenous to place and what obligations we have to others (both human and not). What I liked less was relatively minor by comparison; I thought she was a little uncomfortably committed to gender roles as 'natural' from time to time, and I wished that she came out and actually expanded on her issues with 'technology' rather than taking vague pot-shots at it here and there. Adjacently, my friend pointed out that the anecdote about an ex's attempted suicide in his car to make a point about human disconnectedness with nature was... messy, at best. But those were small moments, and with a book as long and expansive as this one, there were bound to be hangups here and there. Overall, fantastic book, and I highly recommend listening to the audiobook.
Graphic: Grief and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Violence, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, and Cultural appropriation
Graphic descriptions of environmental disasters, pollution, and other eco-destructive activities.hailstorm3812's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Genocide and Colonisation
Moderate: Cultural appropriation
Minor: Sexism, Violence, Religious bigotry, and War
purplepenning's review against another edition
4.0
Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, and Colonisation
Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Racism and Colonisation
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Classism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Child death, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Excrement, Vomit, Cannibalism, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Abandonment, and Alcohol
Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution.fiveredhens's review against another edition
3.75
The market economy story has spread like wildfire, with uneven results for human well-being and devastation for the natural world. But it is just a story we have told ourselves and we are free to tell another, to reclaim the old one. One of these stories sustains the living systems on which we depend. One of these stories opens the way to living in gratitude and amazement at the richness and generosity of the
world. One of these stories asks us
to bestow our own gifts in kind, to
celebrate our kinship with the world. We can choose. If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in
motion, how wealthy we become.
"I want to vote with my dollar," she says. I can make choices because
have the disposable income to choose "green" over less-expensive goods, and I hope that will drive the market in the right direction. In the
food deserts of the South Side there
is no such choice, and the dishonor in that inequity runs far deeper than the food supply.
something tender in them, and open, as if they are emerging from the embrace of arms they did not know were there. Through them I get to remember what it is to open to the world as gift, to be flooded with the knowledge that the earth will take care of you, everything you need right there.
Microbes in industrial waste can destroy mercury. Aren't these stories we should all know? Who is it who holds them? In long-ago times, it was the elders who carried them. In the twenty-first century, it is often scientists who first hear them. The stories of buffalo and salamanders belong to the land, but scientists are one of their translators and carry a large responsibility for conveying
their stories to the world. And yet scientists mostly convey these stories in a language that excludes readers. Conventions for efficiency and precision make scientific papers very difficult for the rest of the world, and if the truth be known, for us as well. This has serious consequences for public dialogue about the environment and therefore for real democracy, especially the democracy of all species. For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring?
In return for the privilege of breath.
i think most ppl should read this book but i had some ?? moments
the chapter on language emphasized linguistic relativity almost to the point of linguistic determinism which seemed really out of place, especially given how often that theory has been used to dehumanize indigenous people in the americas specifically
i felt like i didn't get a good handle on her ideas around colonizers becoming indigenous to place. it seemed a little too open-ended for me there
also the beginning of the book listed sponsors or something and one of them was Wells Fargo ? idk what was goin on there
Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Sexism, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Excrement, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Car accident
reading_between_the_trees's review against another edition
5.0
Kimmerer writes beautifully about plants and the natural world, and puts indigenous knowledge into conversation with western science and capitalism while seriously critiquing both of the latter. After reading this I have a much better understanding of both the knowledge that was thriving before colonization and is still persevering today, as well as the ways that settler culture has systemically suppressed it and the people that create and propagate it. This book is both a call to action and a re-grounding in the ways that people used to connect with the world and see their place within it rather than in opposition to it.
Graphic: Genocide and Sexism
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Racial slurs, and Racism
Minor: Grief
emilyplun's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Genocide and Racism
Moderate: Sexism
babayagaofficial's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Vomit
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Genocide, Racism, Sexism, Grief, Cannibalism, and Religious bigotry