Reviews

The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing by Hannah Dawson

jordyn_lightyear's review against another edition

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Wasn't in the mood for this one but will return to it at some point. 

anna_giap's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful informative inspiring

5.0

"To try and make people see what is right in front of their eyes: this is core to the history of feminism, as it has been to the history of all human rights struggles."

"A feminist is a killjoy, by definition; you kill joy by calling out sexism."


No words for this book... It made me angry and hopeful, it made me cry and smile. Every text, every story, every poem touched a part of me.
This book is truly an embodiment and proof that Feminism is for Everybody!

ljcatz's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

gbatts's review against another edition

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3.0

Collating seven centuries of feminist texts into a single, portable edition is a mammoth, maybe impossible, task. I was left disappointed by this attempt.

The version of feminism presented in this tone was narrow in scope largely staying in the intellectual realm and not touching on the practicalities of living in this world as a female. There was much on identity and what it means to be female but not much on how females live. Curiously, topics not touched upon include: suffrage, prohibition, fashion, financial independence, child custody, contraception, abortion, domestic abuse, right-to-work, pay equality and #metoo.

The texts were overwhelmingly anglophonic and majority US-based. There were no overly disabled voices. Where politics were overtly mentioned, they were mostly aligned to socialist/Marxism. There was never a version of feminism presented that would be uncomfortable to a modern progressive reader, which made me wonder how much Dr Hannah Dawson challenged herself when compiling this volume.

The tone was persistently angry which made the reading experience rather flat and the reader didn’t get a sense of feminism ever actually achieving anything. It’s good to point out problems (raise awareness) but discussions on how to solve problems could have given this reading experience more depth. In this way Feminism, Interrupted was a high to go out on and I would have like to see more writing like that throughout the book.

Overall, there were a lot of insightful texts and powerful voices included in this volume. I can’t wait to part 2 ;)

veecaswell's review against another edition

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5.0

I was fortunate to get an ARC of this book via NetGalley, and wondered how reflective of feminism this was going to be, and I was pleased that so many different perspectives were included in this book giving me the reader a broad base of perspectives that is so important.

The breadth of writers, speechmakers and poets collected in this book is incredibly diverse and makes it such an ideal primer for feminism that you can take from and take in throughout and going back into history including important women including Sojourner Truth's 'Ain't I A Woman' speech, including the work of Barrett Browning and Kishida Toshiko's 'Girls In Boxes' speech which has stayed with me since I read it in this collection.

Covering topics including fatphobia thanks to the work of Susie Orbach, Jewish feminism thanks to the writing of Judith Plaskow and Prison Abolitionism thanks to the work of Angela Davis, this book an incredible variety of feminist perspectives with each new piece connecting beautifully to the next and making it a book that I found incredibly compelling from beginning to end - the book never feeling too much considering it's size thanks to poetry and short pieces that never stop being interesting.

I really appreciated this book and am certainly going to do so much more reading from the writers collected in this book as I feel this is an excellent place to start if you're just beginning to get some insight into feminism.

(I received an ARC from Netgalley for honest review).

beth_books_123's review against another edition

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5.0

BOOK 13 (OUT OF 21) OF MY HOLIDAY READS - AUGUST 2022

I think I need to start with a disclaimer. It has been a long while since I've studied feminism. I first began to understand what feminism was as a teenager. I'd heard of the idea but I'd never really understood until much later. I only formally was taught feminism as I studied Language and Gender at A Level as part of my English Language A Level. Reflecting on it now, a lot of my education was seriously outdated.

In this review, it's important to admit ignorance and accept privilege. I had never thought about or been introduced to the multi facets behind feminism. What was it like for friends of colour, LQBTQA+, those of a different class from me, those who lived elsewhere? I honestly didn't think about that in depth until much later. This is where I accept my priveleged position - how nice it must be to be naive to the struggles of these groups within feminism? This book confronts this immediately in the introductory essay by the editor Hannah Dawson and this introduction sets the book up to show the reader the full ranges of feminism.

Now, the thing I love about collections is that you don't need to look for the range, it's already there. Yes, sometimes, it is limited to the editor's bias and their understanding but so far I've enjoyed these collections. It also goes in chronological order, which satisfies me. Completely unrelated to the subject matter, I recommend [b:The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories|36349572|The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories|Jay Rubin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1518335097l/36349572._SY75_.jpg|58031212].

The extract from Kishida Toshiko's Daughters in Boxes was the most poignant piece for me.
I'll definitely return to this collection. This is one of those books you come back to.

Note - I kind of wish I'd bought this in a physical format. I wouldn't recommend getting the Kindle version. It's difficult to make notes and stop.

__niii__'s review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

Overall it is as diverse as it could get. Some of the pieces were hard to understand otherwise it was quite informative. It had various forms of writing like poetry, essays, speeches, stories, etc. It is just a starting point though. If you want to understand feminism this is more like an intro. 

gvidinglight's review against another edition

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challenging medium-paced

4.75

emmaby's review against another edition

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5.0

finally finished!! absolutely loved this and think everyone should read it. so eye opening and introduced/reinforced a lot of dif perspectives and ideas. however i would have loved for some contexts/mini-blurbs about the pieces (especially smth like 'this piece is regarded as one of the seminal/first works on X' - for the pieces which i googled, this extra context was v helpful). also wished that some of the excerpts (e.g comphet by rich) were longer!! but that is to be expected ig. (also i really wish there was a queer version of this book!! ie. queer theory/works anthology)

my faves were:
17 - the woman question; eleanor marx
30 - birth control - a parents’ problem of woman’s?; margaret sanger
39 - the second sex; simone de beauvoir
40 - an end to the neglect of the problems of the negro women; claudio jones
42 - reborn: earlier diaries 1947-1963; susan sontag
45 - the feminine mystique; betty friedan
46 - SCUM manifesto; valerie solanas
47 - the woman-identified woman; radicalesbians
56 - wages against housework; silvia federici
58 - of woman born; adrienne rich
60 - our blood; andrea dworkin
72 - compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence; adrienne rich
79 - challenging imperial feminism; valerie amos and pratibha parmar
84 - borderlands; gloria anzaldua
88 - riot grrrl manifesto; bikini kill
90 - mothers of our nations: indigenous women address the world; winona laduke
95 - feminism is for everybody; bell hooks
96 - gender violence and the prison industrial complex; incite! women, gender non-conforming, and trans people of colour against violence
107 - we should all be feminists; chimamanda ngoni adiche
116 - feminism, interrupted; lola olufemi


harriseliza896's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75