The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
kathawtin's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
daddycat96's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
4.0
This is a really interesting book but it is incredibly hard to read. I felt like I was back in uni. I would recommend other people read it though just don’t do what I did and finish it in 2 days, spread it out so you can actually absorb the information.
jasgrace's review against another edition
5.0
A must read for all, especially female identifying, people living in Australia
jaclyn_sixminutesforme's review against another edition
5.0
In this seminal text, now being re-published twenty years after its initial publication, Distinguished Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson presents an analysis of the historically-uninterrogated position of white identity in Australian feminism, and its effects on Indigenous women. She forwards the proposition that when white Australian feminist conversations talk about race, whiteness as a racial identity is not examined. She looks specifically at the way "difference," and the politics of difference, and the "Other," operate in this specific realm of feminism: "As long as whiteness remains invisible in analyses 'race' is the prison reserved for the 'Other.'" That said, it is not a book "about how white women perceive their whiteness" and instead "reveals how whiteness as ideology and practice confers privilege and dominance in power relations between white feminists and Indigenous women."
.
Moreton-Robinson examines an extensive range of feminist literature, and from a methodological perspective looks at the self-presentation and representation of the two subject positions, "middle-class white woman" and "Indigenous woman." In addition to an examination of the existing commentary, chapter five of the book also contains commentary and conversations from a number of interviews Moreton-Robinson undertook with white feminists in Australia actively engaged in what they self-identified as antiracist practice. The text examines how whiteness dominates from a position of power and privilege as an invisible norm and unchallenged practice, how "white middle-class women's privilege is tied to colonization and the dispossession of Indigenous people." Through her examination of the "subject position middle-class white woman," Moreton-Robinson challenges the entrenched and assumed position from which white Australian feminists write, leaving their own racial position and the privileges inherent in that uninterrogated.
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I found this a deeply thought-provoking read, and one I hope many readers will pick up both in Australia and internationally. The discussions about assumptions and privileges in perspective, and the commentary around white feminist discourse more generally, is certainly applicable beyond the specifically Australian experience that the text covers. For further reading, I'd highly recommend [b:White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|53260224|White Tears/Brown Scars How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|Ruby Hamad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595820808l/53260224._SX50_.jpg|71770367], and also (one on my TBR) [b:They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|40887375|They Were Her Property White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545143299l/40887375._SX50_.jpg|63723558].
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Many thanks to UQP for a review copy.
.
Moreton-Robinson examines an extensive range of feminist literature, and from a methodological perspective looks at the self-presentation and representation of the two subject positions, "middle-class white woman" and "Indigenous woman." In addition to an examination of the existing commentary, chapter five of the book also contains commentary and conversations from a number of interviews Moreton-Robinson undertook with white feminists in Australia actively engaged in what they self-identified as antiracist practice. The text examines how whiteness dominates from a position of power and privilege as an invisible norm and unchallenged practice, how "white middle-class women's privilege is tied to colonization and the dispossession of Indigenous people." Through her examination of the "subject position middle-class white woman," Moreton-Robinson challenges the entrenched and assumed position from which white Australian feminists write, leaving their own racial position and the privileges inherent in that uninterrogated.
.
I found this a deeply thought-provoking read, and one I hope many readers will pick up both in Australia and internationally. The discussions about assumptions and privileges in perspective, and the commentary around white feminist discourse more generally, is certainly applicable beyond the specifically Australian experience that the text covers. For further reading, I'd highly recommend [b:White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|53260224|White Tears/Brown Scars How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color|Ruby Hamad|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595820808l/53260224._SX50_.jpg|71770367], and also (one on my TBR) [b:They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|40887375|They Were Her Property White Women as Slave Owners in the American South|Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545143299l/40887375._SX50_.jpg|63723558].
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Many thanks to UQP for a review copy.
lauralantran_'s review against another edition
5.0
What an important text. This book encouraged me to think a lot about feminism while reflecting on my own initial reluctance to its ideals and practices as a woman of color. Moreton-Robinson's razor-sharp critique of whiteness and white feminism is startling, such that I never realised how the academe severely and desperately lacks the language to talk about the invisible white privilege made normalised in (feminist) discourses. The book is so mesmerising that I was forced to critically reflect upon my own engagement with my racial identity and whiteness, contemplate on the subjectivity of the Asian feminist (influenced by the collective of specific herstories, subjectivities, epistemologies, and cultures), and questioning the lack of conflict dynamics between Asian women and feminism.
The book is intellectually stimulating and reads extremely well for a sociological theorist junkie which I am. Subversive in every sentence, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
The book is intellectually stimulating and reads extremely well for a sociological theorist junkie which I am. Subversive in every sentence, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
wetdirtreads's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be…unrelenting. Luckily, I don’t have to describe it in one word. I have 2200 characters to work with.
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I loved this book, aggressively. And when I say aggressively, I mean: this book got me riled the fuck up. This book makes me feel things that I can only compare to watching The Real Housewives of Sydney. As in, the instalment of Real Housewives that was cancelled after the first season because it went too far – something I didn’t think was possible for the franchise.
Â
I’m obviously being facetious here, but there is some truth to it! AMR is unflinching. She brings to this book an audacity that is often only permitted for, say…filthy rich white women who can start shit for the sake of entertainment without ever having to worry about the repercussions.
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But AMR’s passion could never be mistaken for that of a filthy rich white woman. Her unapologetically direct writing epitomises Blackfulla storytelling. It is unmistakable, refreshing, and healing. It is palpably grounded in cultural Law, knowledge, and relationality, meaning she never lets you forget who and what she’s writing for.
Â
Of course, saying I could ‘only compare’ this book to watching RHoS was also a load of shit. I think every Blackfulla knows the feeling of watching a staunch, sovereign Blak woman put the colony and its agents in their place. It is an intoxicating combination of excitement, fear, love, and pride. That’s what I felt during every damn word of this book.
One small caveat: I write this as someone who both studied and taught Indigenous Cultures and Histories in a tertiary setting. I acknowledge that this book is very dense, and that my capacity to understand it doesn’t make inaccessible academic writing okay.
I try not to speak in absolutes, but social media isn’t particularly conducive to nuance. I think this is a big both/and situation – this book is incredible, and, simultaneously, the fact that it’s not accessible for many of the mob who it speaks of and for is an issue that needs to be highlighted.
(Review originally posted on instagram)
Â
I loved this book, aggressively. And when I say aggressively, I mean: this book got me riled the fuck up. This book makes me feel things that I can only compare to watching The Real Housewives of Sydney. As in, the instalment of Real Housewives that was cancelled after the first season because it went too far – something I didn’t think was possible for the franchise.
Â
I’m obviously being facetious here, but there is some truth to it! AMR is unflinching. She brings to this book an audacity that is often only permitted for, say…filthy rich white women who can start shit for the sake of entertainment without ever having to worry about the repercussions.
Â
But AMR’s passion could never be mistaken for that of a filthy rich white woman. Her unapologetically direct writing epitomises Blackfulla storytelling. It is unmistakable, refreshing, and healing. It is palpably grounded in cultural Law, knowledge, and relationality, meaning she never lets you forget who and what she’s writing for.
Â
Of course, saying I could ‘only compare’ this book to watching RHoS was also a load of shit. I think every Blackfulla knows the feeling of watching a staunch, sovereign Blak woman put the colony and its agents in their place. It is an intoxicating combination of excitement, fear, love, and pride. That’s what I felt during every damn word of this book.
One small caveat: I write this as someone who both studied and taught Indigenous Cultures and Histories in a tertiary setting. I acknowledge that this book is very dense, and that my capacity to understand it doesn’t make inaccessible academic writing okay.
I try not to speak in absolutes, but social media isn’t particularly conducive to nuance. I think this is a big both/and situation – this book is incredible, and, simultaneously, the fact that it’s not accessible for many of the mob who it speaks of and for is an issue that needs to be highlighted.
(Review originally posted on instagram)