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Bad Feminist: Essays

Roxane Gay (Goodreads Author),

Bahni Turpin (Narrator)

3.94 · Rating details · 90,718 ratings · 9,046 reviews

A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

"Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might ...more

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Published August 5th 2014 by HarperAudio

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May 29, 2014 Rowena rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, feminism

2.5 stars

Essays are one of my favourite literary genres and recently I've read some amazing essay collections that have introduced me to new ideas and new writing styles so perhaps I put overly high expectations on Roxane Gay's essay collection. Overall I'd have to say I was disappointed but this might have a lot to do with my high expectations and perhaps that I am not this book's intended audience.

The book started off quite well. I liked the introduction in which Gay discusses what it means t 2.5 stars

Essays are one of my favourite literary genres and recently I've read some amazing essay collections that have introduced me to new ideas and new writing styles so perhaps I put overly high expectations on Roxane Gay's essay collection. Overall I'd have to say I was disappointed but this might have a lot to do with my high expectations and perhaps that I am not this book's intended audience.

The book started off quite well. I liked the introduction in which Gay discusses what it means to be a "bad feminist", an imperfect woman in a world in which women are expected to strive for (unattainable) perfection at all times. I was able to relate to the sentiment a lot of women have of wanting to steer clear of the feminist title because of its often negative connotations, and also because of not understanding what the theory was truly about.

There are a few reasons why this book didn’t do it for me:

1- This book is too heavy on pop culture, which isn't really for me. I'm probably the wrong audience for this book because, after all I don't watch reality TV or any of the television shows Gay critiques, I’m not interested in critiques of 50 Shades of Grey, Gone Girl or Twilight at all so it's not a surprise that I didn't enjoy those particular essays.

2- I think I was confused by the main thesis of this book. I expected all the essays to be on feminism, an alternative and more uniting (for our diverse, pluralistic society) type of feminism. This book was essentially a mixture of feminist essays, loosely-feminist essays, essays on observations of race, class and pop culture critique, and some memoir-style essays. I’m not even sure whether I can call the majority of them essays as they read like blog posts. Although I've learned a lot from reading people’s blogs, a paperback perhaps isn’t the right medium for this type of writing.

3- I wasn't challenged enough. I felt like Gay was trying to say, look I’m an academic but I’m still cool. I appreciate and admire postmodernist feminist writers when they write in their own styles and don’t feel the need to stick to conventional, dry academic writing styles, but this particular style just didn't engage me. I read a lot of feminist literature and I guess what I always look for when I finish books like this are new realizations, new ideas and things I didn't know before, but this was simply a rehash of the last two years of pop culture discussion on Twitter.

4- I was quite frankly uninterested in most of her essays. Some of the essays ended too soon; I had no idea where she was going with some of them and when I had finally figured it out, the essay had ended.

I can definitely see Gay's appeal, and the idea of her appeals to me as well. This is a world in which women are constantly being silenced or being called histrionic, strident, etc for having an opinion or talking about controversial issues that make people uncomfortable so I always support women who have found their voice and are able to express themselves. Gay does bring up lots of important topics, such as rape, racism,racial stereotypes, and abortion and these topics still need to be discussed and dealt with.

With all that being said, I did like quite a few of the essays. The ones on race were decent. Personally as a black woman in academia I enjoyed her discourse on the lack of black professors in academia and I have to say that it was not until graduate school that I ever had a black professor (or even black classmates for that matter) and that was a big deal for me.

Gay is definitely a passionate and fearless writer, It's too bad I didn't enjoy her essays as much as I'd expected to.

...more

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Nov 14, 2013 Roxane added it · (Review from the author) · review of another edition

This writer certainly has a LOT OF OPINIONS. I mean...

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Aug 07, 2014 Julie Christine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: best-of-2014, social-political-commentary, read-2014

I became aware of the “I don’t need feminism because . . .” meme several months ago. You know—those photos of young women holding up signs that read things like, “I don’t need feminism because I am capable of critical thinking,” or “I don’t need feminism because I am not a delusional, disgusting, hypocritical man-hater.” I shook my head, rolled my eyes, but still, these weird declarations chilled me. How did a socio-political movement founded on the principles of empowerment and equal rights bec ...more

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Sep 11, 2014 Molly rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Trite, trivial, narcissistic and vacuous beyond belief. There's nothing thoughtful or interesting here; the collection is one pretext after another for Gay to publicly exhibit her triviality and bad taste, forgive herself for it and demand applause. Readers are inveigled into service as Gay's indulgent confessors. The repeated routine is a) Gay admits to loving some god awful schlock b) Gay ponders her own courage in making this disclosure c) Gay discovers consuming this schlock is really both p Trite, trivial, narcissistic and vacuous beyond belief. There's nothing thoughtful or interesting here; the collection is one pretext after another for Gay to publicly exhibit her triviality and bad taste, forgive herself for it and demand applause. Readers are inveigled into service as Gay's indulgent confessors. The repeated routine is a) Gay admits to loving some god awful schlock b) Gay ponders her own courage in making this disclosure c) Gay discovers consuming this schlock is really both personally virtuous and politically salient (which are indistinguishable). You suspect I exaggerate? I understate:

On Reality Television:
Reality television often gives the impression that like gender, the whole of life is a performance. The Los Angeles mansion or the tropical jungle or the fading rock star’s tour bus is the stage, and what a stage it is -- brightly lit, lurid, encouraging us to see the garish spectacle of life at it’s most artificially real. I watch it all -- the faux highbrow fare of Bravo, the booze-soaked MTV programming, the glossy competition shows on CBS, the sleazy exploitative fare of VH1 and even the off brand shows on lesser cable networks like Bad Girls Club and Sister Wives.

No one shines more luridly on this faux real stage than a woman. Whether it’s a modeling competition, a chance to compete for love, a weight loss show or a look into the lives of an aging magazine publisher’s harem, women are often the brightly polished trophies in the display case of reality television. The genre has developed a very successful formula for reducing women to an awkward series of stereotypes about low self-esteem, marriage desperation, the inability to develop meaningful relationships with other women, and an obsession with an almost pornographic standard of beauty. When it comes to reality television, women, more often than not work very hard at performing the part of woman though their scripts are shamefully, shamefully warped.

Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV by Jennifer Pozner, is a very smart book that skewers reality television for its sexist, racist, and dehumanizing tactics in nearly every genre of reality television. While I think of myself as media literate and a feminist, I don’t know that any book I’ve read this year has made me as uncomfortable as Reality Bites Back for its incisive examination of what I have often thought of as harmless entertainment programming. I had to question what it says about me that I take so much pleasure in the drama of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or the drunken, weave-snatching antics of Rock of Love or Flavor of Love, that, I, like many others, take pleasure in what Pozner brands, “the cathartic display of other people’s humiliations.” These shows exist because audiences need reminders of the wrong turns our lives might take.

On The Hunger Games:

I have found myself inexplicably drawn to these books, the complex world Collins has created, and the people she has placed in that world.

I am not the kind of person who becomes so invested in a book or movie or television show that my interest becomes a hobby or intense obsession, one where I start to declare allegiances, or otherwise demonstrate a serious level of commitment to something fictional I had no hand in creating.

Or, I wasn’t that kind of person.

Let me be clear: Team Peeta. I cannot even fathom how one could be on any other team. Gale? I can barely acknowledge him. Peeta, on the other hand, is everything. He frosts things and bakes bread and is unconditional and unwavering in his love and also he is very, very strong. He can throw a sack of flour, is what I am saying. Peeta is a place of solace and hope and he is a good kisser.

In December 2011, I didn’t really know much about The Hunger Games. Given my abiding interest in pop culture, I’m not sure how I missed the books.

I do most of my leisure reading at the gym. I hate exercise. Yes, it’s good for you and weight loss and whatever, but normally, I work out and want to die. I really do. I knew I was in love with The Hunger Games when I did not want to get off the treadmill. The book captivated me from the first page. I wanted to keep walking so I could stay in the world Collins created. More than that, The Hunger Games moved me. There was so much at stake, so much drama and it was all so intriguing, so hypnotizing, so intense and dark. I particularly appreciated what the books got right about strength and endurance, suffering and survival. I found myself gasping and hissing and even bursting into tears, more than once. I looked insane but I did not care. I was completely without shame.

Does any investigation follow these displays of pleasure? Any inquiry into these effects of consumer ecstasy, and the political, aesthetic or formal aspects of the works that provoke them? Nothing. Like a tween's book report, the shallow "analysis" is limited to descriptive characterization; the one relation Gay has to these fictions is identification and fantasy. Two centuries of political and aesthetic theorizing and literary criticism and nearly a century of the critique of mass culture have completely passed Gay by, and she remains in a critical infancy, celebrating her own every impulsive and naive reaction to the prods and stimulations of these processed snack entertainments. These products Gay exhibits herself consuming serve her as occasions and instruments for the most solipsistic autocommuning and self-exploration, tossing up an endless stream of clichés:

My love for these books, at its purest, is not really about Peeta or anything silly (though, still). I love that a young woman character is fierce and strong but human in ways I find believable, relatable. Katniss was clearly a heroine, but a heroine with issues. She intrigued me because she never seemed to know her own strength. She wasn’t blandly insecure the way girls are often forced to be in fiction. She was brave but flawed. She was a heroine, but she was also a girl who loved two boys and couldn’t choose which boy she loved best. She was not sure she was up to the task of leading a revolution but she did her best, even when she doubted herself.

Throughout the books, Katniss endures the unendurable. She is damaged and it shows. At times, it might seem like her suffering is gratuitous but life often presents unendurable circumstances people manage to survive. Only the details differ. The Hunger Games trilogy is dark and brutal but in the end, the books also offer hope—for a better world and a better people and for one woman, a better life for herself—a life she can share with a man who understands her strength and doesn’t expect her to compromise that strength, a man who can hold her weak places and love her through the darkest of her memories, the worst of her damage. Of course I love these books. The trilogy offers the kind of tempered hope everyone who survives something unendurable hungers for.

This is all a kind of advertising doubling as promotion of personal brand; "Roxane Gay" is developed as a vendible, celebrity attention magnet because of her consumption of these brands with a ostentatiously childish, naive appetite and trembling excitement that is repeatedly declared delightfully naughty in an innocent way. In turn the brands are re-energized and valorized by the spectacle of Gay's "quirky celebrity", self regarding, narcissistic enjoyment. ...more

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Mar 22, 2018 Emily (Books with Emily Fox) added it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

“Feminists are just women who don’t want to be treated like shit”

Well, Roxane Gay and I both have a favorite quote in common now and I'll also be calling myself a bad feminist because "I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all."

I went into this book not knowing much about the author. I feel in love with her just with the intro. I didn’t really connect with some of the stories (especially the first third) but things picked up towards the middle of this book and laughed out loud dur ...more

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Feb 26, 2015 Oriana rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2015, why-werent-you-better

Well this was a huge disappointment. I had such high hopes for Roxane Gay! A Haitian American cultural critic with a master's and a nonperfect body type? Yes! I was sure she would eviscerate popular culture and social injustice with an incisive eye and a unique perspective. But nope. These aren't really essays; they're like unstructured wallowings, ramblings that just flit from thing to thing and never get anywhere or lead to any new thinking.

Yes, Gay takes stream-of-consciousness meanders thro Well this was a huge disappointment. I had such high hopes for Roxane Gay! A Haitian American cultural critic with a master's and a nonperfect body type? Yes! I was sure she would eviscerate popular culture and social injustice with an incisive eye and a unique perspective. But nope. These aren't really essays; they're like unstructured wallowings, ramblings that just flit from thing to thing and never get anywhere or lead to any new thinking.

Yes, Gay takes stream-of-consciousness meanders through race and class and reality television and sexual violence and Twitter and respectability politics and Scrabble and The Hunger Games. But there's no structure! In one essay she'll talk about Twilight and then she'll talk about rape and then she'll talk about fairy tales, without ever returning or making any broad claims that tie it all together. In another, she goes on and on about how bad Law & Order: SVU is for our society and perpetuating rape culture, and then she says, "I've watched every episode of this show multiple times. I don't know what that says about me." You don't? Why not? This is a book of personal essays! Why don't you ponder that a little bit and try to draw some goddamn conclusions?

I never felt challenged by her ideas, and I don't think she challenged herself to actually dig into them, either. In an essay about why the book is called "Bad Feminist," she rails against the idea of an "essential feminism," whereby all feminists can be grouped into one category that's defined by a fixed set of ideals and traits. And then immediately after that she explains that she's a "bad" feminist because she likes the color pink and refuses to learn how cars work and wants to have a baby. Did she not even re-read her own work before sending it off to be put in a book?!

I think part of the problem (plagiarizing myself from my own comments) is that, because of teh internetz, publishers are conflating "popular on Twitter" with "is able to write well." They're tossing off book deals to anyone with an impressive following, and not pushing writers to do harder work than they've already done online. As if having a talent for snappy one-liners is not the exact goddamn opposite of being good at thinking deeply about an idea and drawing surprising and interesting conclusions from it.

On a more personal note, another issue has to be that I read this so shortly after the fall-down-stunning Empathy Exams. Jamison's dazzling pieces—or really any essays done well—read like tightly constructed meditations, beginning-middle-end investigations, pursuing an attempt to solve a quandary or at least interrogating an idea and shaking loose some brilliance from it. But Gay's "essays" are all basically unsophisticated blog posts. They never got anywhere and just left me frustrated.

In conclusion: there are some really fantastic essay collections being published today. This is definitely not one of 'em. ...more

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Jun 12, 2014 Jessica Jeffers rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, edelweiss, favorites, authors-of-color

It's not very often that a book causes me to weep uncontrollably in public, but this book did. Roxane Gay moved me in a way that I haven't been moved in quite a while with this collection of essays, ostensibly umbrella'd under the topic of feminism. In reality, only about a third of the essays directly address feminism; Gay also addresses race, culture, and Scrabble competitions. It's equal parts commentary, memoir, and critical analysis. It's pretty phenomenal.

I don't even know where to begin It's not very often that a book causes me to weep uncontrollably in public, but this book did. Roxane Gay moved me in a way that I haven't been moved in quite a while with this collection of essays, ostensibly umbrella'd under the topic of feminism. In reality, only about a third of the essays directly address feminism; Gay also addresses race, culture, and Scrabble competitions. It's equal parts commentary, memoir, and critical analysis. It's pretty phenomenal.

I don't even know where to begin when it comes to expressing how much I love the way this woman writes. I could read her all day, every day. Even the essays whose theses I disagreed with, I loved the way they were written. Even the essays whose topics were beyond my realm of personal experience, I loved the way they were written.

Then there's the fact that I absolutely fucking love her take on feminism in the 21st century. I don't know if there's ever really been a time that feminism didn't have some form of "dirty word" connotations associate with it, but we're currently living in a time where the Women Against Feminism Tumblr portrays feminism as a philosophy meant to raise women up at the expense of men. The girls on that blog really need to spend some time actually reading feminist theory instead of just regurgitating what Rush Limbaugh tells them feminism is about because most of their claims so wildly miss the point, but that's a rant for another day.

The problem with feminism today is that there's no coherent central focus--other than the obvious equality for women. There's different schools of thought under the umbrella of feminism that espouse different points of view, and many of those schools are rooted in the cross-sectional experience of being a feminist and Something Else, whether it's a black woman, a lesbian woman, or a Jewish woman. Unfortunately, the voices that rise above the others and are seen as representative of all feminists are often white middle-class women, and those feminists don't represent Roxane Gay's feminism. The ways that she expresses her feminism clash with what she calls Capital-F Feminism in a way that's always made her feel like a bad feminist, and that is where much of this collection springs from.

She writes about the myriad aspects of her personal identity, combining race, gender, sexuality, life as an academic. I don't necessarily identify or agree with all of her points, but when she hits a nerve, she hits it HARD. The series of essays on sexual violence -- particularly What We Hunger For in which she talks about strength in women and her own experience as a victim of rape -- were phenomenally moving. The conversations that our country has had about the topic of rape in the last couple of years have been sickening and heartbreaking. I wish the piece The Careless Language of Sexual Violence had been included as an afterword to her novel An Untamed State because it forced me to completely re-think the way I thought about that novel and its representations of violence and sexual assault. Those pieces reduced me to a blubbering mess, sobbing on the terrace at my office building during my lunch break.

Roxane Gay is also the first person to make me want to read The Hunger Games series and the first person to make me feel okay for not liking Caitlin Moran all that much -- she's alright, but doesn't seem to understand that her experience is not necessarily representative of all women.

Some of the essays are a little overly academic in tone and that my turn off some readers, but this is a phenomenal piece of work. It's great to be reminded that feminism shouldn't be about women doing certain things (careers over domesticity, blowing off patriarchal standards of beauty by not shaving or wearing makeup), but about enabling women to make their own damn decisions about those things. I just wish those things weren't widely seen as contradictory to feminism, or "bad feminism." ...more

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Nov 18, 2014 Diana Stegall rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, sassy-lady-realness, read-in-2014

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about Roxane Gay. I went into this hoping to love this book, hoping it would be revelatory as promised or that I would be better off for having read it. But it was a slog to get through, and I can't recommend it to anyone who's spent more than a cursory 5 minutes on the internet reading cultural criticism.

It isn’t simply that she fails to offer nuanced critique, or that she contradicts herself - it's that these essays are horribly written. The I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about Roxane Gay. I went into this hoping to love this book, hoping it would be revelatory as promised or that I would be better off for having read it. But it was a slog to get through, and I can't recommend it to anyone who's spent more than a cursory 5 minutes on the internet reading cultural criticism.

It isn’t simply that she fails to offer nuanced critique, or that she contradicts herself - it's that these essays are horribly written. They're terribly, sloppily constructed. Fully half of the essays in this collection have my scribble in the margin: "What the hell is her thesis? Where is she going with this?" There's no POINT to it all, except to point out that racism and sexism still exist and are reflected and amplified by our pop culture artifacts. No duh? I guess if all she did was rehash these issues in a coherent, thoughtful and elegant way, that would be enough. I can recommend a beautiful piece of writing, even when it adds nothing new to the discussion. There's something to be said for elegant writing in its own right - but this book doesn't offer such writing. These read like the blog pieces they originally were.

This is a published essay collection! This was her big spotlighted debut! Considering the hype which preceded its publication, this book should represent the very best criticism she can muster: the most crystallized opinions, the most exquisitely unfolded trains of thought. If this meandering, pointless collection of dressed up Tumblr posts is the best criticism she can offer to a publisher, it's sorely disappointing.

EDIT: Folks can take umbrage at the last third of this essay (though I think if you're not ready to talk about your own history of sexual violence, you're not obligated to - but you can't mention that PRECISELY following an essay calling out other female writers for their failure to write explictly about their histories of sexual violence), but there is no denying the rest of this review is spot-freaking-on: http://www.bookslut.com/features/2014...

EDIT 2: Two years later, I'm knocking this book down to one star, because it still makes me angry to see it on bookshelves. I threw away my copy. This book represents the worst that 21st century criticism has to offer - thoughtless, incurious, lazy, and ultimately devoid of rigor. ...more

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Jul 11, 2014 Kristina rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: disappointing, hated-em, non-fiction, hyped, essays-and-poetry, my-book, got-rid-of, popular-culture-criticism, want-my-money-back, suck

I fucking hate Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist. It’s disappointing on every level and has nothing thought-provoking to say about anything. It’s full of obvious statements, juvenile essays about YA books she loves! and easy, breezy criticisms of other books. If you want to read about feminism, don’t start with this book. It was reviewed (and marketed) as a book about gender issues and feminism. Aside from the introduction, the topic of gender and feminism isn’t broached in any serious way until page 7 ...more

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Sep 18, 2014 Jen Padgett Bohle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: gender-studies, cultural-critique, memoir-esque, feminism, lit-crit

An inconsistent collection of ultimately shallow essays. Gay is funny, personable, thoughtful, and obviously intellectual but her essays don't delve deep enough into her subjects. Furthermore, I realize that essays can explore topics without coming to any definitive answers or conclusions, but I want more than an introduction to a problem. I want long and winding explorations with a surfeit of allusions, copious amounts of pattern-hunting from history, deeper thoughts on why something is the way ...more

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Oct 08, 2016 Nat rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, nonfiction, essays, memoir, diverse-reads

I've been on the look-out to read more feminist books, but most of the ones I tried reading before focus heavily on either privileged males and/ or sexual assaults, which then leads to me feeling terrified to leave my home...

However, Bad Feminist focuses more on Gay's opinions about “misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on ...more

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Sep 30, 2015 Whitney Atkinson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, read-in-2017, feminism

This was a very sophisticated book that blended memoir with an educational resource perfectly. I think the chapter that will stick with me most is the one about female characters having the quality of likability held over their heads moreso than male characters, and readers don't ever realize that. It wasn't something I'd never thought about before, and it made me think critically about my expectations of female characters. I'm just gonna let the quote speak for itself:

"In a Publishers Weekly in ...more

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Aug 30, 2020 Brenda - Traveling Sisters Book Reviews rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, better-reading

In my attempt to escape that comfortable bubble I live in, I am looking to read better by reading more books that help me understand the world better. To keep my thoughts organized, I decided to start a new feature on our blog called Feeding My Head by Reading Better, where I keep my thoughts and notes together as I read a book. So I have added some of those thoughts here for the first few essays for my review but will be adding more thoughts on my blog as I break down my thoughts for the essays ...more

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Aug 06, 2014 Thomas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, feminism, own-physical, five-stars, own-signed

I openly embrace the label of bad feminist. I do so because I am flawed and human. I am not terribly well versed in feminist history. I am not as well read in key feminist texts as I would like to be. I have certain... interests and personality traits and opinions that may not fall in line with mainstream feminism, but I am still a feminist. I cannot tell you how freeing it has been to accept this about myself.

In her collection of essays Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay blends anecdote, critical analysi I openly embrace the label of bad feminist. I do so because I am flawed and human. I am not terribly well versed in feminist history. I am not as well read in key feminist texts as I would like to be. I have certain... interests and personality traits and opinions that may not fall in line with mainstream feminism, but I am still a feminist. I cannot tell you how freeing it has been to accept this about myself.

In her collection of essays Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay blends anecdote, critical analysis, and humor to create a set of pieces that feel human. She admits to not knowing all the answers, and to hear an empowered, intelligent, and independent woman say that feels so refreshing. She writes about a gamut of topics: feminism, race, pop culture, and more. She tears apart the abusive and unhealthy relationship portrayed in 50 Shades of Grey, she discusses how and why she loves The Hunger Games, she comments on the unhelpful way white directors portray black characters, and more. As a professor of English and an avid follower of pop culture, her ability to discern trends and patterns within the media shone through. This passage about the unnecessary prominence of likeable characters acts as just of her many thoughtful arguments:

In many ways, likability is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be. Characters who don't follow this code become unlikeable. Critics who criticize a character's unlikability cannot necessarily be faulted. They are merely expressing a wider cultural malaise with all things unpleasant, all things that dare to breach the norm of social acceptability.

Gay still stands out the most in her acceptance of imperfection. In her introduction, she writes that "feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed" and that "we hold feminism to an unreasonable standard where the movement must be everything we want and must always bake the best choices." In this collection of essays, Gay accomplishes so much: she writes about the intersectionality of race and gender, she establishes a consistent, wry, and sharp voice, and she includes an entire chapter about Scrabble that made me laugh and want to read more, more, and more. But, even though she accomplishes so much, she recognizes her own contradictions and the contradictions inherent within the human condition. She strikes a rough and fitting balance by ending her book by admitting this:

I am a bad feminist. I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all. ...more

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Jul 17, 2017 Diane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, brunch-club

This book solidified my girl crush on Roxane Gay. Earlier this year I had the good fortune to hear Roxane speak at a conference, and she was so smart and funny that I kicked myself for not reading her stuff sooner.

Bad Feminist is a collection of essays on a variety of issues, including gender, race, pop culture and politics. Basically it's a book for our times. The writing is sharp and insightful, but it also has wit and grace. There were a few essays in this book that were so powerful I could h ...more

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May 03, 2017 Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

5 stars for helping me expand my thinking and self-reflection. I'll be returning to this audio collection of essays on much more than "just" feminism. ...more

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Dec 02, 2017 Nenia ✨️ I yeet my books back and forth ✨️ Campbell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: feminism, poc-nonfic, nonfiction, mem-wars

Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest

Hey, you know what pairs really well with red wine? Books on feminism. BAD FEMINIST has mixed reviews among my friends, with some of them loving it and others hating it. As with any controversial book, that mixed reception only made me want to read BAD FEMINIST for myself. Because your favorite neighborhood snowflake here loves to read up on feminism in its many incarnations, to get the dirt on the latest schools of thought.

First off, BA ...more

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Aug 12, 2014 Peter Derk rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

Well...I gave up. I bought the audio for 30-some dollars and figured it might be a great listen. But I find myself dreading listening.

Part of it is the bleakness of the current landscape. That's certainly not Roxane Gay's fault. Every day is something new. Author Colleen McCullough dies, and in her obit someone basically feels the need to point out how unattractive the woman was, physically. Patricia Arquette makes a speech about how women should be paid the same to do the same work, and Fox New ...more

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Aug 23, 2020 Kai rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, feminist-as-fuck

I thought I would love this book but I didn't. Let's start by saying that if I wanted to hear about what Roxane thinks about certain films and books, I would have consulted her Goodreads reviews; I wouldn't have spent money on a book. Nevertheless I did enjoy her essays on The Hunger Games and Shades of Grey. But initially her essay about Junot Diaz and Girls and I forgot what else made me put the book on hold and read something different because I couldn't make myself pay attention. Once I had I thought I would love this book but I didn't. Let's start by saying that if I wanted to hear about what Roxane thinks about certain films and books, I would have consulted her Goodreads reviews; I wouldn't have spent money on a book. Nevertheless I did enjoy her essays on The Hunger Games and Shades of Grey. But initially her essay about Junot Diaz and Girls and I forgot what else made me put the book on hold and read something different because I couldn't make myself pay attention. Once I had finished that other book I returned to Bad Feminist with maybe not new motivation but at least somewhat recharged. There were a number of amazing essays about representation, rape culture and flawed feminism, but in between there were themes that, two days after finishing the book, I cannot recall because neither the writing nor the content were exceptional. I think this is partly my own fault because I should have read this book earlier in life. It's a great introduction to feminism but when you've already read a number of introductions to feminism, it's not all that new anymore. Then again, you never stop learning and there are always gaps that need filling or ideas that need refreshing, so I definitely benefitted from reading the book. Just not as much as I hoped I would. Furthermore, some essays felt outdated, often because the people at the centre of such discussions were Lena Dunham and Bill Cosby in a time before they'd been found to be despicable human beings.

All in all I expected this book to be a gut-punch of genius and stellar writing but it turned out to be okay. The number of exceptional essays couldn't outweigh the mediocre ones. I still want to read Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body because I've heard from a number of people that even though they didn't love Bad Feminist, they found Hunger amazing. I also really hope that Roxane will publish a YA novel in the future because I'd love to see the result of her writing for a younger audience.

Find more of my books on Instagram ...more

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Jul 12, 2018 Lucy Langford rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4****

Isn't it obvious I am a feminist, albeit not a very good one?

This book contains funny and insightful essays from the brilliant writer Roxane Gay. Through this book she is critical of culture from the view point of a woman of colour. She comments on the state of feminism, gender and sexuality, depictions of race in the media and the political climate which plays a role in all of these things. These are her opinions on this topic and I was ready to delve into them. Some of these essays really 4****

Isn't it obvious I am a feminist, albeit not a very good one?

This book contains funny and insightful essays from the brilliant writer Roxane Gay. Through this book she is critical of culture from the view point of a woman of colour. She comments on the state of feminism, gender and sexuality, depictions of race in the media and the political climate which plays a role in all of these things. These are her opinions on this topic and I was ready to delve into them. Some of these essays really resonated with me and were similar to my own experiences (for example, ones based on gaining weight, being 'fat' and getting criticised by parents).

While these essays are dealing with heavy topics that EVERYONE should read/ have some knowledge about, Roxane Gay does this in such a way that sometimes they're funny (I am sorry to the people in the library who could hear me laughing), shocking, and provide you with extra knowledge (especially as I am from the UK, I did not know much about police shootings in America).

Her essays were incredibly insightful. Some of my favourites dealt with recognising your own privilege (despite not always not wanting to face the facts), how their is a 'face' of crime, a cultural expectation (usually a man of colour) and if someone who has committed a horrific crime does not fit this cultural 'profile' then there has to be a reason WHY that person committed the crime (eg a bad upbringing, societal influences from others. This analysis is not provided for men of colour who fit the 'profile'), and the over-public involvement with female autonomy (such as bills restricting abortion, contraception).

We hold feminism to an unreasonable standard where the movement must be everything we want and must always make the best choices. When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.

Of course this book covers a lot about feminism and different aspects of it. It shows how there are such high expectations on the movement and high expectations placed on ourselves and other feminists, that when one thing fails the feminist movement is blamed as a whole, rather than just that one idea/plan. In her final essays titled 'Bad feminist', Roxane Gay highlights how she makes 'mistakes' and does not always fit in with the movement- however, she also states how she'd rather be a bad feminist than not be a feminist at all. I think this is empowering as it allows people to make mistakes and go through learning curves, and they can still be a 'feminist'.

Even from a young age I understood that when a girl is unlikable, a girl is a problem.

There are books written by women. There are books written by men. Somehow, though, it is only books by women, or books about certain topics, that require this special "women's fiction" designation. ...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Christy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

HAVE to read something by this remarkable woman who just pulled out of her next new book contract as protest over the horrific contract given to the racist (Black Lives Matter as "legal hate group"), sexist ("feminism is cancer") Milo Yiannopoulos out of the Breitbart toxic waste dump that produced Trump's main thinker, Steven Bannon. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m... This mentioned that Milo was given a promotion of $250K for his hateful vile, that was more than all five previous advance ...more

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Aug 27, 2014 KatieMc rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: barbie loving feminists

Shelves: i-am-a-feminist, librarybook

Spoiler alert: Roxane Gay is not a bad feminist. Nope, not bad. She is a thoughtful feminist. She more interested in making things better for women than being a so called good feminist. Most of all, she is a human feminist.

Bad Feminist is a collection of essays, some of which you may have read on Salon. She takes on many topics including reality TV, movies, books, gender, sex, news media, social media, politics and Scrabble. They are for the most part interesting, informative and entertaining.

So ...more

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Mar 16, 2019 Emily B rated it liked it · review of another edition

An interesting book of essays that are worth reading. I liked how the author explored a range of different subjects with different levels of seriousness and humour, using both popular culture and current serious events.

I definitely learnt a lot from reading this book and I would say it opened my eyes to things I had not considered before.

However some of these essays were not as impactful to me due to living in England and not America. I often had to look up people or events that were mentioned ...more

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Sep 01, 2014 Debbie "DJ" rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, favorites, political, cultural

It is awe-inspiring to go for a ride inside Roxane Gay's head and heart. She opens up the conversation on the word feminism, talks about her own shortcomings, and labels this word is affiliated with. She writes of her own thoughts about current events as well as past. Feminism is a demand for equal rights for women in all areas of life, yet it has become a word with endless connotations.

It is truly staggering to read how sexual violence against women is embedded in our culture. How conservative It is awe-inspiring to go for a ride inside Roxane Gay's head and heart. She opens up the conversation on the word feminism, talks about her own shortcomings, and labels this word is affiliated with. She writes of her own thoughts about current events as well as past. Feminism is a demand for equal rights for women in all areas of life, yet it has become a word with endless connotations.

It is truly staggering to read how sexual violence against women is embedded in our culture. How conservative politicians want control of women's bodies, and are succeeding through current legislation. Seven states require women to receive a transvaginal ultrasound before they receive abortions - a rape in and of itself. Thirty five states require counseling to varying degrees of specificity. Twenty six states require written material to be given. The restrictions just seem to keep on coming. Gay, states, " In 2011, fifty five percent of all women in the U.S. lived in states hostile to abortion rights, and reproductive freedom." Further, "If politicians can't prevent women from having abortions, they are certainly going to punish them." If the U.S. is founded on the principle of inalienable rights, these rights no longer include women. What freedom do women have if their very bodies are legislated? This is coupled with the fact that women live in a "rape culture." Where women no longer talk of "if" they will be raped, but "when."

Gay, through her many commentaries tackles multiple issues, including, reality T.V., the term "women's fiction," the Publishers Weekly interview with Claire Messud and her novel "The Woman Upstairs," rape stories on T.V., and Rosie O'Donnell's objection to the show Law and Order: SVU are but a few.

The issues Gay has written of are many. As a woman myself, a few quotes struck me as crucial:
"Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses - pretty but designed to SLOW women down."

"A lot of ink is given over to mythologizing female friendships as curious, fragile relationships that are always intensely fraught. Stop reading writing that encourages this mythology."

"Don't tear another woman down, because even if they are not your friends, they are women and this is just as important."

"Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights."

Thanks Roxane Gay for such a profound and timely book. This line is my favorite..."One of my favorite moments is when a guy, at a certain point in a relationship, says something desperately hopeful like, "are you on the pill?" I simply say, "no, are you?"

...more

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Jun 11, 2020 Nandakishore Varma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

When I became active on social media, and began expressing my opinions openly, I was tagged as a feminist. Even though I didn't care for labels, I didn't mind this one: I did believe in equal rights for women. I was naive enough to assume that was all there to it.

Apparently not.

I came to understand that as a feminist, I am supposed to behave only in certain ways, express only certain opinions, and hold only certain ideas. If I went against any of these, I was immediately attacked as a "bad femin When I became active on social media, and began expressing my opinions openly, I was tagged as a feminist. Even though I didn't care for labels, I didn't mind this one: I did believe in equal rights for women. I was naive enough to assume that was all there to it.

Apparently not.

I came to understand that as a feminist, I am supposed to behave only in certain ways, express only certain opinions, and hold only certain ideas. If I went against any of these, I was immediately attacked as a "bad feminist". After a couple of bad experiences online, I generally started staying away from these debates, and happily shed the tag of feminist. Now I could rest easy, and speak my mind without being held to some universal standards.

Because I have so many deeply held opinions about gender equality, I feel a lot of pressure to live up to certain ideals. I am supposed to be a good feminist who is having it all, doing it all. Really, though, I’m a woman in her thirties struggling to accept herself and her credit score. For so long I told myself I was not this woman—utterly human and flawed. I worked overtime to be anything but this woman, and it was exhausting and unsustainable and even harder than simply embracing who I am.

Maybe I’m a bad feminist, but I am deeply committed to the issues important to the feminist movement. I have strong opinions about misogyny, institutional sexism that consistently places women at a disadvantage, the inequity in pay, the cult of beauty and thinness, the repeated attacks on reproductive freedom, violence against women, and on and on. I am as committed to fighting fiercely for equality as I am committed to disrupting the notion that there is an essential feminism.

When I read this passage from this book of essays by Roxane Gay, I shouted: "My sister!" and hugged her virtually. It was nice to hear someone - that too, a talented woman - echoing my sentiments.

Mind you - Roxane is a feminist. She fiercely believes in equality for women, and is up in arms against anything that hinders or trivialises the struggle for the same. She just refuses to buy into the mythical image of the militant feminist that society has created - because any type of standardisation is unrealistic. We human beings are an infinitely varied lot.

If you go into the book looking for heavy essays on feminism, you would be disappointed. This is haphazard collection, where Roxane talks about herself and her struggles, race identities, racism, sexism, racism/ sexism in popular culture, and even her triumphs and failures at scrabble. The essays are a mixed bag; but each one, eminently readable. (And insanely quotable. Just look at my status updates.)

I guess this "Bad Feminist" has converted me into her fan! ...more

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Jun 29, 2015 Nnedi rated it it was amazing

Fabulous. Great read. So much I could relate to, but also so much that I'd never thought about. I didn't agree with all of it, but I don't need to agree to grow and learn from an opinion. My only complaint is that it wasn't longer. I wanted more more more. Thumbs up.
Also, now I feel a little less conflicted about cranking up J Cole's 2014 Forest Hills Drive album (it's not the worst in terms of vulgarity, but it's got plenty that I have a problem with...yet it's so good). I see myself as more o ...more

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Jan 13, 2018 Lotte rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ge-memoir, ge-essays, t-fuck-yeah-feminism, a-non-fiction, 2018-read, recent-favourites, 2018-favourites, t-pop-culture

Bad Feminist isn't the ultimate feminist manifesto and it doesn't try to be. It is incredibly successful, however, at what it sets out to do: pinpointing small and big injustices, analyzing constructs of gender and race in everyday life and popular culture and finally, calling for action and change.
Some reviewers seem to criticize that a) Roxane Gay references and talks about pop culture too often and b) she talks about her personal life too often — two aspects of this book I personally really a ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 Faye* marked it as dnf · review of another edition

DNF ~30%

You know how people sometimes say they feel as if they read a completely different book than everybody else? So, I guess what this book has done for me is that I finally know what that feels like.

The best way I can describe my experience with Bad Feminist is this: Imagine yourself outside, maybe in a park, on a crisp autumn day. Leaves are falling, the sky is a greyish blue but it's dry, the sun is just about to come out. It's cold but not too cold, sunny but not too sunny. The perfect ...more

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Sep 15, 2015 Becky rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, audiobook, highly-recommended, non-fiction, tear-jerkers, social-justice, humorous, politicalish, reviewed

I finally finished this audiobook, after a kinda unofficial semi-hiatus from it (well, reading in general, to be fair) while on the plane to San Francisco, a town that some random guy on a plane once called "too liberal". So, appropriate timing?

If you're hoping for this to be an insightful or in any way analytical review, you're probably new to my reviews. I'm not really great at those. If you want that kind of review, there are many other people out there doing it better than I ever could. Thi I finally finished this audiobook, after a kinda unofficial semi-hiatus from it (well, reading in general, to be fair) while on the plane to San Francisco, a town that some random guy on a plane once called "too liberal". So, appropriate timing?

If you're hoping for this to be an insightful or in any way analytical review, you're probably new to my reviews. I'm not really great at those. If you want that kind of review, there are many other people out there doing it better than I ever could. This review will be my usual jumble of random thoughts and opinions and stuff.

So, about the book. It was good, and important, but it was far from perfect. I picked up this book expecting it to be about feminism, and instead I got a whole lot of other isms and issues essays I hadn't expected. That's not really a complaint in and of itself, because I really enjoyed it, though I wish that it had been more focused... or maybe had a different title. Something like Bad Everythingist? LOL

Anyway. It made me think. Sometimes that was not a great thing, because these essays contained a plethora of concepts and ideas that made me slightly uncomfortable and guilty about not having realized before. I consider myself to be an intelligent, liberal-minded, empathetic person, yet I've never thought about my privilege, or how non-white characters are portrayed so stereotypically in movies and books, or about how invasive and demeaning it is for women to be expected to justify their reproductive choices, or the double standard that goes hand in hand with it, because men are never questioned on the same topic. Or why books by women are judged and categorized differently just because of the author's gender. Or why female characters must be "likable". I don't notice the "magical negro" trope in movies. I don't give much thought to music lyrics or the objectification of women in... everything. I don't question that there's a changing station in the women's restroom but not the men's. Men are parents, too, right? I tend to give a pass to comedians who say shitty and offensive things because they are comedians, and that's what they do, right?

This collection has shown me how narrow my experience truly is. And it kind of makes me ashamed of how unobservant I am.

The essay dealing with The Help was especially disturbing. This was a book that I loved. I've read it several times, and own a copy. In hardcover. I loved it. But listening to Gay's scathing commentary about it made me see it from a different perspective, and, I admit that it's not a pleasant experience. I was ignorant of my own ignorance, and then had that ignorance hauled out an spread on the table and examined. As much as it was awkward for me, though, I imagine it had to be even more uncomfortable for Bahni Turpin, who read this audiobook, to read about the various ways that The Help was nothing more than a stereotypical white fantasy. She read the audiobook of The Help as well. Maybe she's just a super professional and a job is a job... but I know that I would have felt embarrassed. Hell, I do feel embarrassed and I only liked the book - I didn't perform it.

There were some essays in this book that were gut-wrenchingly brutal and honest, and I found myself nearly in tears a few times. It really never ceases to amaze me the depths of human shittiness. Just when I think we must have reached a bottom, someone gets out another shovel. The essays dealing with rape and rape culture in this book were heartbreaking and infuriating. I want to start handing out copies of this to every person I know just for those essays alone. But... this is nothing new. This is a debate that's like the Lambchops song... it goes on and on and never ends. It's baffling to me that it should be this way. It seems pretty fucking cut and dried to me. Do not rape someone. But everyone's got a justification for something.

Anyway. A tighter focus, and maybe a better format (better delineation between essays for the audio) would have definitely helped this book, but still, I am glad that I read it. I appreciated Gay's honesty about her humanity and her imperfections about these issues, and how she's come to terms with the fact that she can like a song like "Blurred Lines" and still see it as a problem for how women are objectified and treated by men who think they know what women need (read: a good fuck). It was worth reading for the perspective awareness I've (maybe? hopefully?) gained from it.

Oh, and her breakdown of 50 Shades of Grey? Priceless! ...more

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Aug 15, 2020 Elle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to read one of Roxane Gay’s books. I’ve read pieces she’s done for various publications, I’ve seen interviews she’s given and I hang off her every word on Twitter (highly recommend following her, btw, she reviews books, people and [formerly] airlines.) In fact it was 10 days ago when she tweeted about Bad Feminist going into its 18th printing that I decided now was as good of a time as any to dive into her backlist.

The main reason I think I haven’t read he I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to read one of Roxane Gay’s books. I’ve read pieces she’s done for various publications, I’ve seen interviews she’s given and I hang off her every word on Twitter (highly recommend following her, btw, she reviews books, people and [formerly] airlines.) In fact it was 10 days ago when she tweeted about Bad Feminist going into its 18th printing that I decided now was as good of a time as any to dive into her backlist.

The main reason I think I haven’t read her books is that I don’t really do much nonfiction, and of those I do very few are essay collections. So I’m even more thankful that the audiobook version, read by Bahni Turpin, was available on Overdrive. Turpin does an excellent job capturing the tone I can imagine Gay using if she had done the narration herself. She brought the words to life and made it feel like a friend was just telling me a story instead of reading me an essay.

Bad Feminist covers a variety of topics, most centering around feminism (duh), but also included are the intersectional parts of Gay’s identity and some more personal parts of her life. For example, there’s an essay on competitive Scrabble competitions, which I really enjoyed, even as someone who isn’t particularly good at the game. This essay is also where one of her infamous ‘nemeses’ is discussed, and as a very nosy person I am very interested in finding more out about these people.

Additionally I loved the analyses of pop culture figures, including: Quentin Tarantino, Robin Thicke, Daniel Tosh, Tyler Perry and so on. Some of these were a little more relevant when the book was originally published in 2014, but plenty hold up exceptionally well. The movie The Help, based off of the book, has recently come under renewed scrutiny when it catapulted to the top of Netflix’s Trending page after the George Floyd protests. Gay’s examination of American culture’s obsession with the ‘White Savior’ narrative feels timely, but was in fact ahead of its time for most white people I know, myself included. The way these essays seem almost prophetic now only make me wish I had read this book years ago.

But this book is not limited to just film reviews. Gay discusses more serious topics as well, from discrimination she’s faced as a black, female member of academia to her own experiences with sexual violence. As separate as any of these subjects seem, they’re all connected through the society that continuously enables them. Opening up honestly not just about the details of these assaults and slights, but the way she’s able to move through the world afterwards, I think will be helpful to a large number of people who have been through something similar. It won’t make any of it okay, but it might provide some hope or relief.

Though these essays may appear to carry contradictions, that’s what in the end ties them all together. Gay is, like all of us, an imperfect feminist. But feminism doesn’t require perfection in order to be committed to the cause. It just requires some sense of self-reflection and a good amount of listening to those the movement has in the past ignored. Roxane Gay acknowledges her privilege, so we can too. She enjoys things she’s maybe ‘not supposed to’, so we can too. She speaks up when she sees injustice, so we should too. ...more

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About Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Ba ...more

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Quotes from Bad Feminist

“I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I’m right. I am just trying—trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself.” — 562 likes

“I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.” — 430 likes

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