Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

29 reviews

v_____'s review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

 4.25 ⭐

2008
Ich weiß immer noch nicht, warum Sallie und ich überhaupt zu dieser Party am Waldhang oberhalb von Aspen gegangen sind...

- Wenn Männer mir die Welt erklären, p. 1

In 9 Essays seziert Rebecca Solnit was es bedeutet als Frau im Patriarchat zu leben. Angefangen von der selbstverständlichen Überheblichkeit von Männern gegenüber Frauen bis zu #YesAllWomen. Sexual entitlement, Kassandra-Syndrom und Großmutters Spinne.

Ein lesenswertes Buch, welches ich mit 5 Seiten Notizen in Docs beende :)

... Die Emanzipation der Frau wurde oft als Bewegung dargestellt, die darauf abzielt, die Macht und Privilegien von Männern zu beschneiden oder sie ihnen ganz wegzunehmen... wir sind entweder gemeinsam frei oder gemeinsam unfrei. Wer glaubt, er müsse gewinnen, dominieren, bestrafen und uneingeschränkt herrschen, ist mit Sicherheit alles andere als frei...

- Wenn Männer mir die Welt erklären, p. 55

... Frauen ans Haus gefesselt, um ihre erotischen Energien unter Kontrolle zu halten, was in einer patrilinear organisierten Gesellschaft erforderlich... In matrilinearen Gesellschaften ist diese Art von Kontrolle eher unwesentlich...

- Wenn Männer mir die Welt erklären, p. 99

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

bloupibloupreads's review against another edition

informative fast-paced

I was anticipating a lot more, but I need to keep in mind that this book was released in 2014, a whole decade has passed since then. I'd like to think that feminism has come a long way and all the information in this book is merely basic knowledge, to be honest it's almost just feminism 101.

The first few essays were very interesting to me, as they discussed the lack of space for women to express themselves and the violence they face, we were also met with some of Solnit's personal experiences. There was a lot of room for discussion, but unfortunately no conclusion was drawn by the end of the book.

I feel like many unimportant things were mentioned, which made me lose interest. For example, we get an explanation of what the IMF is and the economical impact of this group for multiple pages (everything could have been said in shorter terms) and there was an entire chapter dedicated to a Woolf/Sintag debate that did not add anything to the essay. I didn't see the correlation between this and men silencing and belittling women's intelligence but maybe I'm just missing the point.

Solnit's failure to address intersectionality is the biggest flaw of the book, she says: "Violence doesn't have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender" (chapter 2, The Longest War) despite the fact that this statement has been proven to be false multiple times, but given that the book was released 10 years ago, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Another petty critic of mine is how often Solnit mentions that “it is not all men!!" while mentioning the violences and crimes that men perpetrate against women. I just think it's tiresome to keep mentioning that we know not every man is a dangerous threat to women. 

"Here let me just say that my life is well sprinkled with lovely men" (chapter 1, Men Explain Things to Me) / "Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crime are men, that doesn't mean all men are violent" (chapter 2, The Longest War) / "There are lovely and wonderful men out there" (chapter 2, In Memory of Jyoti Singh) and more.

Overall, I would say that 'Men Explain Things to Me' is a somewhat good collection of essays, althought it never goes deeper and only skims the surface of its subjects. For people who want to understand feminism at its basic level, this book could be a great option.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, and Sexual violence

coleanne's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment

bwray1's review against another edition

informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Gore

chamomile_calm's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Murder, and Sexual harassment

freyaboobac's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Police brutality, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Islamophobia, Abortion, Gaslighting, Colonisation, and Classism

arrowdodger's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Mass/school shootings, and Sexual harassment

suzyvee's review against another edition

informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, and Violence

pingureads's review against another edition

3.0

 Some of these essays felt fleshed out and insightful, standouts for me were Grandmother Spider, Woolf's Darkness and Worlds Collide in a Luxury Suite. Men Explain Things to Me, the titular essay, felt simplistic and underdeveloped even for it's age and having brought this phenomenon to the forefront of the political and feminist conversation. The Longest War was a series of entirely-too-graphic statistics on SA and DV rather than an essay.

While the collection has some gems, it is not enough of a fundamental text to ignore the flaws of the discussion. Pick up a more nuanced and contemporary collection on similar topics of feminism and that will serve you much better than this does on that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

mads_jpg's review against another edition

hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

4.25

Rebecca Solnit is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers, she writes so beautifully about some of the ugliest topics, and I just want to hear her thoughts on literally anything.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment