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A review by lezreadalot
The Indignities of Being a Woman by Megan Koester, Merrill Markoe
3.0
I had to go into this with low expectations. Books that try to be humorous already walk a thin line with me, and especially books that try to be humorous about serious things. This is pretty much a conversational style stand up routine about sexism through the ages, narrated by two women with lots of sarcasm and quips and irreverence. It doesn't purport to be all-encompassing, and indeed, other than a lot of obscure and interesting facts, it didn't really give me any truly NEW information? But I still liked it.
Like I said, I set my expectations very low, so the fact that we got little bits of intersectionality re: race and sexuality was nice? It was cis-centric most of the time, and there was a lot of "the two genders" rhetoric, but there was inclusion of trans women in some chapters. It was very very minimal though, so don't go in expecting much. There were lots of interesting factoids, a lot of depressing historical titbits that you just had to laugh at. Misogyny has taken a lot of weird forms over the centuries, and the was they discussed it was informative while also being funny. I liked the conversational interludes where the authors chatted and kept things personal and light, even while discussing terrible things. I'll say that at least: they succeeded in making me laugh! But they also succeeded in making me cringe several times. Even if the book wasn't trying to be all encompassing, I feel like a couple of the historical sections, especially about non-Western cultures, could have used more nuance. And there were some, uh, opinions that I couldn't take v seriously. I'm sorry.
Listened to the audiobook as read by the authors, and that was fun. Like I said, sorta like a stand up show, with fun little musical interludes. I almost skipped over this one in my 'You Bought It So You Must Read It' journey, because I was so sure it would be an out-dated version of feminism. But it wasn't bad. Wasn't all good either. But at least I don't feel like I wasted my time.
Like I said, I set my expectations very low, so the fact that we got little bits of intersectionality re: race and sexuality was nice? It was cis-centric most of the time, and there was a lot of "the two genders" rhetoric, but there was inclusion of trans women in some chapters. It was very very minimal though, so don't go in expecting much. There were lots of interesting factoids, a lot of depressing historical titbits that you just had to laugh at. Misogyny has taken a lot of weird forms over the centuries, and the was they discussed it was informative while also being funny. I liked the conversational interludes where the authors chatted and kept things personal and light, even while discussing terrible things. I'll say that at least: they succeeded in making me laugh! But they also succeeded in making me cringe several times. Even if the book wasn't trying to be all encompassing, I feel like a couple of the historical sections, especially about non-Western cultures, could have used more nuance. And there were some, uh, opinions that I couldn't take v seriously. I'm sorry.
Listened to the audiobook as read by the authors, and that was fun. Like I said, sorta like a stand up show, with fun little musical interludes. I almost skipped over this one in my 'You Bought It So You Must Read It' journey, because I was so sure it would be an out-dated version of feminism. But it wasn't bad. Wasn't all good either. But at least I don't feel like I wasted my time.