simlish's review against another edition
DNF at 100 pages. This was my second try at this book and it looks like it might take a third (and fourth and fifth...) to plow all the way through it. I have mixed feelings -- when Daly speaks clearly about oppression, it's really up there among the theory I've read. She indisputably knows her stuff backwards and forwards, but the writing is just so 70s that I get bogged down. I understand Hag-ography and Crone-ology (.... I think), but I trip over them, and the excessive alliteration and the matriarchal far history she talks about -- I've checked a few but not all of her sources and it just seems more hopeful than real to me. Also the persistent transphobia is like stubbing a toe each time. I think there's a lot in Gyn/Ecology that's worth the work, but I need to work up to it some more.
emilieeliz's review against another edition
2.0
Very (white) Second Wave (in the worst ways)--transphobic, white supremacist, etc.
But some critiques of civic/imperial Christianity hold up.
But some critiques of civic/imperial Christianity hold up.
adamz24's review against another edition
2.0
Daly was a clever woman who came to some stupid conclusions. If this book does sound interesting to you, read it. If it doesn't, don't. End of. Most of it is complete bullshit, but as anyone who reads philosophy regularly knows, that's no reason to ignore it.
eavan's review against another edition
3.0
What a book! Haha. Um. I'm glad that I made my way through the entirety of this radical feminist classic, but the difficulty level is such that I wouldn't recommend it to others.
angogoblogian's review against another edition
4.0
So, I absolutely devoured this book. I think I read it in such a sprint because the meat of this book was really about ills of patriarchal society I already knew about - FGM, footbinding, etc. I was hoping to come away with something new, something I could take home with me, but it never really amounted to that, for me personally.
I had already read "The Myth of Mental Illness" by Thomas Szasz earlier this year, and Daly incorporated a lot his themes into one of the more controversial elements of this book - her derision of therapuetic practice, or "mind-gynecology." It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I'm glad she said it.
I think Daly is still too far ahead of her time and unfortunately, it seems current feminists are not welcoming to her ideas due to the silencing and deplatforming of second wave feminists who do not adhere to current gender politics, ie. transgenderism (or, in Daly's day, transsexualism). If any of today's feminists read this book, they will see right through today's gender politics and understand it is just a reiteration of the same thing Daly, her contemporaries, and our foremothers had to deal with - a whitewashing of our feminist history, a way to disconnect us from our past and further divide and suppress our movement.
I do encourage all women to read this book, not because I think they'll agree or because I think it's unflinchingly good, but because it's necessary for us to hear each other out. It's also a good bit of fun, too, if you like stuff that's a little 1970s-era acid trippy.
I had already read "The Myth of Mental Illness" by Thomas Szasz earlier this year, and Daly incorporated a lot his themes into one of the more controversial elements of this book - her derision of therapuetic practice, or "mind-gynecology." It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I'm glad she said it.
I think Daly is still too far ahead of her time and unfortunately, it seems current feminists are not welcoming to her ideas due to the silencing and deplatforming of second wave feminists who do not adhere to current gender politics, ie. transgenderism (or, in Daly's day, transsexualism). If any of today's feminists read this book, they will see right through today's gender politics and understand it is just a reiteration of the same thing Daly, her contemporaries, and our foremothers had to deal with - a whitewashing of our feminist history, a way to disconnect us from our past and further divide and suppress our movement.
I do encourage all women to read this book, not because I think they'll agree or because I think it's unflinchingly good, but because it's necessary for us to hear each other out. It's also a good bit of fun, too, if you like stuff that's a little 1970s-era acid trippy.
stephersroo's review against another edition
3.0
Maybe this book is somewhat dated now, and somewhat tainted by Daly's overlong plenary address at the American Academy of Religions conference in 1991 or 1992, in which she stole time from the Black feminists who were to follow her, and debunked her essentialism with her whiteness. But when I read it, I suffered under the permanent change it was effecting in me. It really threw me for a loop.
amourfou's review
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
3.5
i don't agree with everything daly says here but i think this book is important for several reasons. the first passage as a whole was extremely eye-opening for me. daly stresses the extent to which women are immersed in male culture and how ultimately damaging it is for our being. she uses patriarchal religion as a starting point and discusses the many subliminal ways women are indoctrinated into going against our own interests. she doesn't shy away from naming the enemy: patriarchy, which was built by men for men. patriarchy didn't just spring out of nowhere, and it's not equally bad for everyone: men created it and they all benefit from it. what i got from this book is the necessity for women to be able to build our own culture, being allowed to being female, to just being, freed from the man-made femininity we have forced on us from the day we are born. the urgency to build our female culture is deeply ironic given how feminist literature (such as daly and the 2nd wave in general) routinely gets deemed as problematic after just a few decades.
however also keep in mind that daly definitely uses some very questionable sources, such as katharine mayo, whom she extensively quotes in the sati chapter. i will be making some further research on the topic before forming my own opinion on it. her writing can also be a little hard to get into, but once you get the zeist of it it's doable
however also keep in mind that daly definitely uses some very questionable sources, such as katharine mayo, whom she extensively quotes in the sati chapter. i will be making some further research on the topic before forming my own opinion on it. her writing can also be a little hard to get into, but once you get the zeist of it it's doable
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