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A review by anna_wa
Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
I was assigned to read this book for my Gender & Women's Studies Senior Seminar. However, between the two senior projects I needed to work on to fulfill both my majors, as well as dealing with all of the emotions that come from being in your final semester of University, I did not read the first six chapters when we were supposed to discuss them in class and skimmed a lot in order to make at least a semi-believable essay. That's not what I wanted to do, but as I said, I didn't have a lot of time for reading.
This month, with school long long over, I started again. I started where I left off (which was in part three) and then once I finished the conclusion I went back to the beginning and read chapters 1 - 6. This was definitely a book that was meant to be read slowly with spaces in between to think about what she is saying and really process - which is not something you can do in the fast-paced environment of your final semester of University...
The reason I declared Gender & Women's Studies as my second major in University was because I have felt for many years a distance between myself and the word "feminism". This is because social media websites are full of very loud transphobes who have appropriated the word "feminist" and made me afraid to even call myself one, because I don't want to be associated with or mistaken for a transphobe. Still, I knew in my heart that is not what real feminism is - and I wanted to undo some of the damage by taking on the second major.
I say all of this to lead to this: this book put hope back in me. The author - a lesbian of color - discusses in this book acts of living a *real* feminist life. It is an anti-transphobic, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-sexist book that combines different aspects of her life and others' lives (particularly other feminists of color) to discuss what it is like to continue fighting every day for what is right, even when we get exhausted and even when it feels hopeless.
She discusses people who are in academia doing the work, as well as people who are on the streets doing the work, and the challenges both groups have to face when they choose to become "feminist killjoys". She ends with two conclusions: her own "feminist killjoy survival kit" and a manifesto.
The manifesto has ten principles that she lives by and the one that stuck out to me the most personally was "I am willing to snap bonds, however precious, when those bonds are damaging to myself or others." She continues, "A bond can be diminishing. Sometimes we are not ready to recognize that we have been diminished. [...] It can take psychic as well as political work to be ready to snap that bond. When you do, when you snap, it can feel like an unexpected moment that breaks a line that had been unfolding over time, a deviation, a departure. But a moment can be an achievement; it can be what you have been working for." (Ahmed, 267) I put all of this in this review to save it because sometimes my family members will ask me how I can just end a friendship (or prevent a friendship from happening) when that person has done nothing to me personally. But I am not willing to wait for them to do something to me personally; they have already done something by voting for Trump, by making fun of people protesting for rights, etc.
There is one more reason I really love about this book: Its accessibility. Often in my GWS degree, I would get assigned four sources in one night chalk-full of theory-heavy language that I had never read before that night and that did not make any sense to me, so I gave up on reading the sources at all. This is something Ahmed also acknowledges towards the beginning of the book: "Theory itself is often assumed to be abstract: something is more theoretical the more abstract it is, the more it is abstracted from everyday life. To abstract is to drag away, detach, pull away, or divert. We might then have to drag theory back, to bring theory back to life." (10)
In other words, Ahmed is not being abstract in this book. You will not feel like you need to have a dictionary with you at all times in order to understand this book (which is how I felt with a lot of GWS academia).
This book has definitely put hope back in me - and during a time when the United States is threatening to take away every right marginalized people have (and has already taken away several, particularly for trans people...), I need hope. This book is 100% an instant favorite and going into MY "feminist killjoy survival kit".
This month, with school long long over, I started again. I started where I left off (which was in part three) and then once I finished the conclusion I went back to the beginning and read chapters 1 - 6. This was definitely a book that was meant to be read slowly with spaces in between to think about what she is saying and really process - which is not something you can do in the fast-paced environment of your final semester of University...
The reason I declared Gender & Women's Studies as my second major in University was because I have felt for many years a distance between myself and the word "feminism". This is because social media websites are full of very loud transphobes who have appropriated the word "feminist" and made me afraid to even call myself one, because I don't want to be associated with or mistaken for a transphobe. Still, I knew in my heart that is not what real feminism is - and I wanted to undo some of the damage by taking on the second major.
I say all of this to lead to this: this book put hope back in me. The author - a lesbian of color - discusses in this book acts of living a *real* feminist life. It is an anti-transphobic, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-sexist book that combines different aspects of her life and others' lives (particularly other feminists of color) to discuss what it is like to continue fighting every day for what is right, even when we get exhausted and even when it feels hopeless.
She discusses people who are in academia doing the work, as well as people who are on the streets doing the work, and the challenges both groups have to face when they choose to become "feminist killjoys". She ends with two conclusions: her own "feminist killjoy survival kit" and a manifesto.
The manifesto has ten principles that she lives by and the one that stuck out to me the most personally was "I am willing to snap bonds, however precious, when those bonds are damaging to myself or others." She continues, "A bond can be diminishing. Sometimes we are not ready to recognize that we have been diminished. [...] It can take psychic as well as political work to be ready to snap that bond. When you do, when you snap, it can feel like an unexpected moment that breaks a line that had been unfolding over time, a deviation, a departure. But a moment can be an achievement; it can be what you have been working for." (Ahmed, 267) I put all of this in this review to save it because sometimes my family members will ask me how I can just end a friendship (or prevent a friendship from happening) when that person has done nothing to me personally. But I am not willing to wait for them to do something to me personally; they have already done something by voting for Trump, by making fun of people protesting for rights, etc.
There is one more reason I really love about this book: Its accessibility. Often in my GWS degree, I would get assigned four sources in one night chalk-full of theory-heavy language that I had never read before that night and that did not make any sense to me, so I gave up on reading the sources at all. This is something Ahmed also acknowledges towards the beginning of the book: "Theory itself is often assumed to be abstract: something is more theoretical the more abstract it is, the more it is abstracted from everyday life. To abstract is to drag away, detach, pull away, or divert. We might then have to drag theory back, to bring theory back to life." (10)
In other words, Ahmed is not being abstract in this book. You will not feel like you need to have a dictionary with you at all times in order to understand this book (which is how I felt with a lot of GWS academia).
This book has definitely put hope back in me - and during a time when the United States is threatening to take away every right marginalized people have (and has already taken away several, particularly for trans people...), I need hope. This book is 100% an instant favorite and going into MY "feminist killjoy survival kit".
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Police brutality, and Classism
Moderate: Sexual assault, Murder, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Pregnancy