Katelyn’s Comments (group member since Jan 07, 2016)

Katelyn’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Aglaea wrote: "Katelyn wrote: "Aglaea wrote: "Samantha wrote: "I just watched a documentary on labioplasticy (surgery to the vulva to decrease the size/change shape of the inner labia, lips, and clitoral hood). I..."

Thank you for elaborating! I still don't really follow the connection with "having no say" and "random," but at a basic level as the removal of a body part, I follow your logic.

I would just caution you when you say: "What the everloving fuck is wrong with people, who think chopping off body parts from others is normal and okay? Go chop off something from yourself instead, if it's that important to carve and butcher human flesh."... I don't disagree with the sentiment that this is clearly a practice that is inhumane and wrong, but I wouldn't place the onus on any individual. It is likely that it has been done to them as well, and it has been culturally normalized to the point where not doing it would be the abnormal choice, and could also likely result in problems/backlash/scorn within the community (reminding me of the topic in The Color Purple of (view spoiler)[ritual/ceremonial facial scarring (hide spoiler)]). So blaming the individuals doesn't really accomplish anything. There's nothing "wrong with [them]", it's how things are in those communities. There may be social, political, economic, and physical risks to families and individuals who don't follow the practice, so even people who may recognize genital mutilation as a problem may weigh their options and still see it as less risky than the results of not doing it.

It's important to try to shed ethnocentric perspectives. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be seen as a violation, or that there shouldn't be an effort to end the practice, but the individuals aren't really responsible, and blaming them and questioning their sanity doesn't accomplish anything.

Aglaea wrote: "In my earlier comments, at least on my own behalf, I hope it is clear what I mean, because there's a big difference between having an actual condition and merely behaving like a child on a temper tantrum even when it would be possible to snap out of it instead of voluntarily (that's the difference) going ahead to crap on others. What I personally can't stand is when people are fully aware of what they are doing, then proceed to hurt others for fun. In some cases this PMS card is used."

I think if someone's symptoms are as bad as that, they should probably see a doctor in case there are any underlying issues. It could be PMDD, PCOS, endometriosis, etc.

That being said, sometimes even regular PMS results in some significant mood swings, but men have those as well. People who do not have female reproductive organs have their own hormonal cycle, just typically less extreme than than those of us with baby-making machinery. What we need is more compassion all around, a better understanding that regardless of whether someone is on their period, people have good days, bad days, and mood swings by the minute. So we can all try to be understanding of them, and if we are the ones with the mood swings, we can acknowledge that symptoms don't require lashing out, and it's okay to apologize for upsetting someone else, and you can mention your period or not. Periods aren't the only reason a women, or anyone else, is in a bad mood.

And... okay here I go. We need better education of what women's periods should feel like! At least we do in the U.S. Obviously everyone's symptoms aren't the same, but we need to accept that undue suffering on a monthly basis is not a necessity just for being born with a uterus. So many girls know nothing about menstruation when they reach puberty. And then throughout adolescence we are basically conditioned to accept the pain and mood swings, it's just natural. But often, young women are suffering from more extreme cases and just think they're weak and pathetic (I did!) and don't seek the help they need. This is why so many of these conditions, some of which I listed above, go years without diagnosis and adequate treatment.

Sorry for the tangent. But I think if there were simply better education on these matters, everyone would have more empathy for one another, PMS would no longer be a valid excuse for bad behavior, and men would no longer think that every bad mood a woman has is because of her period.

There are definitely still very strong biases in the U.S. regarding single women. "Dating anyone?" "When are you going to get married?" "When are you having kids?"
All standard questions that seem to make many women on the receiving end uncomfortable. Despite how impersonal and intrusive they are, they're not considered impolite. They're very much expected. Have fun at a wedding, or any family function really, if you don't have a date! People will be asking you those questions all night long.

I just finished reading All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, which documents the history and current state of affairs of single womanhood in the United States. You can read my review here if you're interested, but I'll say here that it was very interesting, and I think it is a good representation of the issues facing (and that have been faced) by single women in America. I imagine it would be relatable to women in other countries with similar cultures/economies as well.

Griselda wrote: "My bad, I meant to write 12% in (in the last comment)

Also, I don't know why they removed the section I was quoting. I read in last month's thread to include spoilers> so people had the option t..."

Bunny's got it! Also, if you're using the App, it is my understanding that the app does not have the capability of opening spoilers, so it'll appear as if it's just been removed. But I'm not 100% on that.

Cristina wrote: "It might be a little off-topic, but talking about so many great writers remains me of how in literature courses, women are study separately from men. Like if Women's writing was a subgenre or somet..."

Cristina, your English is great. Thanks for posting even though it is not your first language. It's so wonderful to have so many people here from different parts of the world, from different cultures, and with different language levels communicating and interacting here.

What you said here is exactly the point I think she is trying to get across: "So if there are not so many well-known women, it doesn't mean they didn't exist. It just means that those who were able to invent/write/whatever, despite living under a patriarchal society, are still looked down on, and ignored."

Bunny wrote: "Katelyn wrote: "So when she says we don't have a Mozart, or an Einstein, etc., she's not saying those women didn't exist...."

But then Astrid quotes her as saying, "Let’s stop exhaustingly pretend..."

I'd argue that they weren't "victorious" or "on an equal with men," and there isn't a "parallel history." They weren't given the chance.

Again, maybe I'm giving her too much benefit of the doubt, but I don't think she's saying anything offensive here. Perhaps she could have given more of a qualifier, that of course women were doing amazing things. But they weren't being recognized for it, and we still don't focus on the accomplishments of women much at all in school curricula (at least in the U.S., sorry to be ethnocentric here), which is where most people are getting their historical information. So there isn't a female Mozart or Einstein, because we haven't discursively created them.

*shrug* Idk. I get why it's frustrating to you all. I reread it and thought about it for awhile and this is the interpretation that makes the most sense to me. Not to say you all haven't thought about it a great deal ;)

If there is an interview planned, Emma will announce it as soon as she can in the Announcements folder, so it'll be prominently visible at the top of the page. It is her intention to get the authors involved in some way whenever possible.

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The problem is that you've just listed attributes that can be taken as offensive to women, without qualifying them in any way. If you are saying that these characteristics are the "natural" way that men and women are, then you're simply incorrect.

I don't want to be a snob, but you say you spent years learning these lists of characteristics, but where and from whom? Because claiming that these are the natural way of the genders or sexes is completely at odds with decades of research, theory, and philosophy in multiple fields, including psychology, gender and queer studies, history, sociology, the list goes on and on.

These fields may agree with you, qualifying that the reason these characteristics are prominent in one gender over another, is because of patriarchy, socialization, capitalism, and a host of other cultural forces and systems.

If that is what you are saying, then perhaps in the future, you can add this to your argument, and more women are likely to be receptive. But if you are arguing that these characteristics are natural to one gender or another, rather than being created and enforced by culture, you're going to need to provide links to facts or explain your methodologies of coming to this conclusion, or where or from whom you learned them, because like I said, the majority of fields of study would not agree with this conclusion.

I can't help myself. I always read the comments. It keeps the fire going inside.

I read the comments on the article that you posted, and it's mostly hilarious how many men respond with "But that's not why I'm not voting for Hillary!" defensively. Even though in the article she states that having policy-related reasons for voting Bernie is not at all what she is referring to. Clearly didn't read carefully, but feel they are entitled to share their irrelevant, defensive opinions anyway.

I've just reread the passage and I have come to the following conclusion, whether or not it is correct. When she makes the statement that women have been doing nothing for 100,000 years, she's simply throwing into sharp relief the fact that this is obviously untrue, impossibly so, but we've been educated to only pay attention to the work of men.

So when she says we don't have a Mozart, or an Einstein, etc., she's not saying those women didn't exist. She's saying when you think of the top people listed in their fields historically, they are almost all men, whether or not there are women who have also had similarly important accomplishments.

Using music as an example, specifically Western composers of what we generically/colloquially refer to as classical music, when asking someone with a basic education in music history, or even just history in general, who were the greatest composers in history who made the greatest contributions to the canon, they are going to list in some order: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner...
Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, and all of the other female musicians we learn about don't make this list because their contributions were not significant enough, both because we undervalue them because of their gender now (or when current curricula in music history were being established throughout the 20th century) and because their genders held them back during their lives (I wrote a bit about this in the thread I linked to in message 20 on this thread).

But again, it's not effective if readers aren't able to follow her argument if it's too much obscured by attempts at humor, although I agree with LaFrousse a bit that we may also be splitting hairs.

I assumed she was being sarcastic, but I may be giving her too much credit. And regardless, if this many people didn't pick up on the joke, then I'd categorize it as a poorly executed joke.

There was another thread discussing famous women in history that is now buried in the Feminism folder, but I think it is well worth the read: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I talked a bit about Fanny Mendelssohn, and the issue of gender inequality in music history.

Thanks Bunny! I'm going to move this to the Intersectionality folder... Feel free to move it to either Feminism or Miscellaneous if you think it'll fit in better. I think it fits best there though, given discussion of race and mental health-related issues.

Aglaea wrote: "It's just about pondering different perspectives, which when reading reviews on various books on GR is rather absent in many cases."

Agreed! And, side note, there are plans for the coming books to cover more ground with different perspectives as OSS continues on :)

First off, I just edited my post from earlier. I wrote it while drinking my morning coffee so it was riddled with typos. Oops!

Just to clarify my earlier post, I was responding to the book on its own, not really knowing much about her larger public presence. I guess I'm not totally into the idea of criticizing a book for things that are said by the person outside of those pages. But obviously people aware of someone's general public presence first would justifiably choose not to read that person's work.

Re: trans issues. Yeah, the "do you have a vagina" thing is not inclusive. But prior to that she also refers to "male feminists," so it seemed clear to me that she was not meaning for that moment to be "All feminists have vaginas!" but specifically referring to young girls who aren't sure if they're feminists, in which case, this short checklist would be a quick and efficient way to answer that for themselves. I just read it as addressing a particular subset of people. So yeah, exclusive, but moreso in that that's who she was addressing in that moment. She tends to address that subset throughout, specifically young girls, because that is who she is referencing with her recollections of her own childhood (at least, as far as I am into the book so far). So in context, I don't find it to be too much of a problem for my own reading of the book as a whole. At the same time, I totally understand why it would be offensive to others.

Her use of the word tranny is complicated. Coming at it from a music scholarship perspective, the way it is used here, in alignment with the "power balance [resting] with the person taking her clothes off," as well as "camp," the word in context fits in with a legacy of performance reaching back to the mid- to late-19th century, with a close relationship with drag and performance art. Caitlin Moran, with some amount of background writing about music and performance, is likely familiar with this context. Whether or not that is the case, most people would be unfamiliar with this context, so perhaps it would have been wise to avoid the word for its other offensive uses.

Hope I don't come across as working too hard to defend her. I'm not really that invested, but I think the discussion of intersectionality is an interesting one when it comes to books like these, where the purpose is nebulous and it's not really clear what we should expect. I'm surprised that it was marketed somehow as a "feminist manifesto," because it doesn't read that way at all. It reads like many other celebrity/comedian "popular" feminist books that are mostly autobiographical with some advice based on personal experience.

Tim wrote: "Astrid wrote: "Tim wrote: "Katelyn wrote: "Christie, yes, and that's translated into the porn industry (also for the reasons Moran states about visibility).

Tim, shaving the pubic hair is typicall..."

Moran spends a good few pages establishing the argument that the main problem with porn as a concept (abuses within the industry aside) is that sex education is so desperately lacking in so many places. Porn becomes the sex education for a lot of young people.

We are also conditioned to prefer shaved pits and faces, but this is not tied up in practical planning for potential sex (although a lot of women plan to shave their legs, grown out for the winter, in preparation for sex as well). We shave our pits because we know people see them all the time so it is worthwhile to adhere to those beauty standards if we feel that we want to. The pubic hair is shaved in the case of sexual activity, or not at all, which is the problem. It's not FOR the woman, when it goes down like this.
(I'm speaking in the context of Moran's argument, but of course there are many women who simply have the preference either way)

Sorry, I just repeated myself from my earlier post, I know. I just wanted to clarify in case I was unclear :)

Helen wrote: "Has anyone read any other work by Bell Hooks? If so, what did you think of it in comparison to All About Love?"

Some people are discussing their previous experiences with hooks's works on this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

No, not against the rules at all! We 're here to discuss the good and the bad!

I'm about halfway through so far, and I definitely see where those criticisms come from.

But my questions about the criticisms are mostly with regard to what people are expecting to get out of this book. Each chapter begins with a recounting of personal experiences, and from there she riffs on the theme. So while even in a book about someone's personal experience, there are ways of being terribly exclusive, it also doesn't mean that it's problematic necessarily.

Again, I'm only halfway through, and there are parts that I've been a bit put off by, but hasn't made me write it off entirely (yet)... I'm trying to be critical as I read. But I am also reading this book knowing that it is based on the life experiences of a white, cisgender, heterosexual English woman.

Perhaps it's the title that causes problems here. But who knows if she even chose it. Regardless, the whole thing reads like a love letter to her younger self, like advice she wishes she could've sent back into the past... Like she's teaching herself how to be a woman.

I wonder if there are particular passages that have upset people that have caused such harsh criticism? I've balked at some of her word usage (retarded, for one).

Christie, yes, and that's translated into the porn industry (also for the reasons Moran states about visibility).

Tim, shaving the pubic hair is typically less hygienic, itchy, and results in less odor. Moran talks about this a bit in the chapter. No matter what someone chooses to do about their pubes, there are different ways to take care of the area depending on how you choose to groom. But we do have hair down there for a reason, and our natural hairiness does not make anything less hygienic. As long as you wash yourself regularly, as you would anyway. That being said, anyone who can deal with he itchiness and knows how to keep things healthy down there alongside their chosen hair removal regimen, good for them! I just don't think it's that big of a deal either way, and should come down to personal preference rather than societal pressures. Like Moran says, no one is seeing this until you have a sexual encounter, so what's the point of doing something for others who may not even see it?

I think her main point in making a distinction between pubic-region hair and armpit and facial hair has to do with her larger point about the porn industry and sexual gratification of men. The aesthetic pressure to shave/wax the latter areas are still problematic, but the pubic-region hair is extra strange because it is based on unrealistic expectations based on standards from a professional industry, and revolves around the sexual gratification of others, and as she talks about at length, the advance planning for something that may never happen makes the whole thing particularly ridiculous. I read her larger narrative in this chapter as "Do what you want, but please stop making your hair removal choices based on preferences other than your own based on an imaginary sex schedule that hinges on possibility." Wax or don't. Enough of the "But if I'm gonna get with this guy..." No! If you don't like it enough to do it for you, it's not worth it! Whereas with pits and face, that hair is more readily visible to others on a regular basis, so the decision for hair removal in that case is based in the real fact that people WILL see it, not just MAYBE see it.

Anyway, my personal belief is that as long as we are aware of the reasons that society expects these things from us, we should just do what makes us happy and comfortable. I know ladies who do indeed wax for the sole purpose of (potential and/or definite) sexual encounters, but because they genuinely prefer it that way during sex. Whether or not this is conditioned from the porn industry and male pressure is still a question, but regardless, they enjoy sex more when they're hairless, so I say do everything you can to enjoy yourself! :)

Thanks for sharing Kelsey! We reserve the Announcements folder for posts specific to Our Shared Shelf and usually from Emma and the moderator team, so I'm going to move this to the folder for My Life On The Road.

Hi Flavia,

Thanks for the recommendation. In the interest of organization, we do not allow individual threads for book suggestions. You can suggest it for the group by following the directions here: How to Suggest a Book.
Additionally, you can suggest it in relevant book lists in the book suggestion folder. Those lists are based on subject matter, genre, etc. You can start your own list if you don't see one on a particular topic or genre already, but please check first, as we will remove duplicate threads.

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