Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Femmes invisibles

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Femmes invisibles by Caroline Criado Pérez

68 reviews

veeglessner's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

Okay! First off, what an amazing effort to compile and organize the research in this book. It will make you so, so angry reading Perez' thesis: the male perspective is the default human perspective and that fact has been doing women a disservice for centuries. There are many topics in this book that I hadn't thought to consider in a feminist lens. This book could be the strongest case for why the work still s not done, and an amazing rebuke to people who believe women have equality with men since the 21st century. We are literally sacrificing quality of life, being abused and even dying due to the system that this book analyzes.

Now: Despite managing to include race and to an extent class, this book does not in any way analyze the gender binary or the experiences of trans and NB people. As another reviewer pointed out, the words "trans", "nonbinary" do not appear even once in this book. How do you write 500 pages about gender without including at least a mention of these identities? The premise of the WHOLE BOOK is that discrimination by exclusion IS discrimination.

Also, there are a couple (one in particular) VERY graphic descriptions of abuse that were not necessary.

So I have to recommend this incredible feat of a book with those huge caveats. You will learn so much and become enraged, while thinking that the author badly needed a sensitivity reader and an ironically more inclusive perspective. At 6 years old, I think this book could really use a re-release with some updated statistics and information as well as addressing those gaping "data gaps."

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yoursisterscanary's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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informative sad fast-paced

4.0

Lots of great points made, and I think it’s a book important for all genders, especially men, to read. There’s a one star review by someone named Carey who made some good critique of the book. So it’s also important to check sources and keep a balanced view.

For my part, I was having to remind myself that there are lots of men in the world that I like and respect and who have had nothing to do with architecting any of these issues, even if some are guilty of perpetuating them unconsciously. Having grown up in a double patriarchy (Korean family in the US), I too am guilty of this and could’ve benefited from asking more questions.

This was highly relevant to me, for example, as a pianist. I had to give up at a certain point because my hand span was too small. Rather than asking why the pianos couldn’t be made smaller, I assumed the problem was me. Or every time I put on my seatbelt, I have to use an adjuster because the seats and belts are too big for my body. (I really think there’s a huge untapped market for car manufacturers of they’d design and sell cars just for women’s body!!!!, like in the billions!!!!).

What’s frustrating about books like this - nothing gets done, even though we know better. 😢 Plus, women generally outlive men and in poorer health for all the reasons outlined and more. So we’re also having to live longer in these awful conditions. The unfairness never seems to end…

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princess_lea's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective

5.0

This is a very important read for literally everyone. It’s extremely informative and incredibly frustrating to read as a woman. Especially since this book was written in 2018, and based on the events of the last years with covid, and everything else happening, nothing really seems to have changed. It’s not a whole lot of time that has passed but it’s important for things to change, and fast.

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minkimonki's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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nel0nen's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

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mmcloe's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective fast-paced

3.25

It was OK! The facts Criado Perez presented were insightful and often illuminating - I think her early chapters on urban design and her later chapters on nation-building were among the most impactful for me.

That being said, this book leaves a ton of gaps in its pursuit to close gaps. I was shocked to find that queer people of any stripe were completely absent. One offhand mention of lesbians and no mention of trans people whatsoever. Some of the most impactful strides made in women's rights on a practical and theoretical level have been made by queer women, so it was incredibly disappointed to see them missing. Similarly, many of the chapters seemed to presume a white, "Western," middle class woman as the default. Later chapters started doing well to address women's challenges globally but the early narrow focus led to some overly repetitive chapters and talking points. The author also didn't really engage with capitalism or imperialism as structural forces; their symptoms were often mentioned but not the diseases themselves, which have brutally imposed the gendered regimes we know today. She's the daughter of a very powerful CEO, so I guess that makes sense.

Also, the citational practices in this book were absolutely unhinged. The endnotes are almost entirely URLs that I have no way of knowing whether or not the links are dead. I would've appreciated more rigorous citations, a lack of which is another major cause of gender data gaps.

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