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A review by theicarustoyourcertainty
The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
1.0
As a woman, I'm tired of reading about how awful and terrible all men are.
The only reason I read this book was because I'd read "Anne Hathaway" beforehand and really loved it, because it wrote a relationship that has often been theorized as loveless as a love-filled marriage. It allowed Anne Hathaway to exist as a woman being loved, which I appreciated.
Some of the beginning poems, like "Mrs. Darwin" (which made me genuinely chortle) and the little red riding hood one I found genuinely craftful and great, the rest fell flat in that they all run along the same line of "I hate my husband, he is Dumb and Awful" and generally just seems like RadFem rhetoric, presented as if it's something to admire.
If you want to celebrate these women, fine, but you can do so without tearing their husbands down, and presenting their marriage as something terrible.
What really sealed the deal on this being complete and utter trash, though, was "Mrs. Tiresias". Never, in my life, have I seen such smug Transphobia presented as "feminism".
TDLR: The narrator's husband is transformed into a woman, and the wife has to deal with that. Strangely, the husband-turned-woman just isn't able to act like a "proper woman" for some reason and her life ends much worse than the narrator's (who, of course, is a proper woman).
The entire poem is just dripping with TERF rhetoric and it's genuinely disgusting to see it be praised as a great piece - not only for the transphobia, but also the boring, unimaginative misandry that is obvious in every page...
The only reason I read this book was because I'd read "Anne Hathaway" beforehand and really loved it, because it wrote a relationship that has often been theorized as loveless as a love-filled marriage. It allowed Anne Hathaway to exist as a woman being loved, which I appreciated.
Some of the beginning poems, like "Mrs. Darwin" (which made me genuinely chortle) and the little red riding hood one I found genuinely craftful and great, the rest fell flat in that they all run along the same line of "I hate my husband, he is Dumb and Awful" and generally just seems like RadFem rhetoric, presented as if it's something to admire.
If you want to celebrate these women, fine, but you can do so without tearing their husbands down, and presenting their marriage as something terrible.
What really sealed the deal on this being complete and utter trash, though, was "Mrs. Tiresias". Never, in my life, have I seen such smug Transphobia presented as "feminism".
TDLR: The narrator's husband is transformed into a woman, and the wife has to deal with that. Strangely, the husband-turned-woman just isn't able to act like a "proper woman" for some reason and her life ends much worse than the narrator's (who, of course, is a proper woman).
The entire poem is just dripping with TERF rhetoric and it's genuinely disgusting to see it be praised as a great piece - not only for the transphobia, but also the boring, unimaginative misandry that is obvious in every page...