Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Mies tahtoo muuttua by bell hooks

10 reviews

eliotfyffe's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I came to this book full of cognitive dissonance about how I fit into the feminist movement. I knew that feminism is the path to everyone's liberation- men and women alike, but I couldn't recognize how to define myself outside of patriarchy without hating myself and my personal male-ness. This book taught me to view patriarchy as the enemy, not necessarily men. She argues, like plenty of her peers, that patriarchy was co-constructed and is perpetuated by both men and women, despite men being rewarded with power by this system. She urges us to abandon the view that the ability to violently dominate others is privilege, but rather define it as the ability to love and be loved. 100/10 best thing to ever happen to me.

p.s. there is so much wisdom sprinkled in that has nothing to do with gender dynamics too- this book helped me move away from simultaneous grandiosity and self-deprecation (both self-centered outlooks), embrace radical empathy in all contexts, and gain a greater understanding of intersectionality and our current domination ethic

p.p.s. One major caveat to this book, which everyone that I've spoken to has agreed on, is that much like many leftist like to reduce things entirely to class, hooks seems to explain every social phenomena through gender. It could be me misinterpreting her examples when they're supposed to be prototypical, but that's how most people seem to interpret her writing nonetheless. Her thoughts on religion were also somewhat confusing and seemingly contradictory.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment

tmchopra's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

applesodaperson's review against another edition

informative fast-paced

3.0

This was a pretty underwhelming book honestly. Overall, the analysis felt a bit surface level. It also felt extremely repetitive, and used the same few key words about a million times, which got very grating after a while. It also felt like quite a large part of the commentary was only coming from personal experiences, rather than empirical data. Although to be fair this wasn't the case 100% of the time. This book also felt too long, because I was definitely feeling bored by the end, and wanting it to end and be over. And this is saying a lot because this book really is not very long in the first place. 
Even though I did not really enjoy this book overall, I still do think it made a lot of good points, and brought attention to a lot of good topics. I actually would recommend this book to people who read Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates. That book is incredible, but it does leave the reader feeling very down and with a lot of negative amotions due to the heavy subject matter. But this book kind of feels like the next step after Men Who Hate Women, because it gives some actionable steps of what men can do and think about to improve emotional intelligence, which in turn should lessen the misogyny and woman hating common among incels. 
One thing I really didn't like though was the part in this book about religion. It felt completely based on personal opinions. Because actually a lot of the emotional intelligence problems that come from the patriarchy are heavily endorsed and taught by the biggest religions (ex. wives submitting to their husbands). This is why I do not think this topic has a place in a book like this. 
Listened to on Libby.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Misogyny and Sexual assault

roxanne_blythe's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

This book really does explain men masculinity, and love. I feel like the intended audience is women, not that men don’t need to read this, but I feel like it was directed towards feminists. 

The main messaging is pretty decent. There are some points that I don’t fully agree with specially the blame that’s kind of placed on mothers for upholding the patriarchy. Not that they should be blameless, but I feel like the way that  bell hooks writes about fathers is very different from the way that she talks about mothers. 

Maybe I will need to revisit those points but for now I just feel like there’s not a lot of nuance when it comes to patriarchal mothers

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, and War

Moderate: Addiction, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

bashsbooks's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

The Will To Change is an important introduction to the place of men in feminist and gender equity movements. hooks' sympathy for the male experience under patriarchy is critical to the fight against it, as the obvious statement that men suffer under rigid and chaffing expectations and that men need support is a radical one in some supposedly feminist spaces. Additionally, hooks' writing style is very accessible; she expounds on complex topics in plain and straightforward language, which is a breath of fresh air when it comes to reading theory. That said, not all of her ideas still resonate (as this came out in 2004) - specifically, her conceptualization of gender and sexuality is a little too binary for my tastes, but overall, it was a good read, and extremely worthwhile. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

Minor: Racism, Sexual violence, and Classism

theolivetree's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Misogyny, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

keijuhylly's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism

Moderate: Child abuse, Incest, and Sexual assault

msextraordinary22's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, and Suicide

tessjx's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol

Minor: Racism and Rape

zombiezami's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative fast-paced

4.0

This book was short, sweet, and gave me a lot to think about. I liked how emotional it was overall. The book was strongest in the places where hooks described her own experiences. Because there aren't citations, other than mentions of book titles, it was sometimes hard to know where the boundaries were between her opinions and data. Also, some points haven't aged well, specifically with how the author discusses gender in binary terms. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

Moderate: Ableism, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Minor: Addiction, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Murder, and War