Bad Feminist in Discourse in a Digital Age

Apr 02, 2016 aj rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminism-etc

This was a wonderful read. My favorite chapter described the author's foray into competitive scrabble as a way to be social in a small community. The writing is both entertaining as well as a compassionate perspective on the frequent negotiations and crises of feminist identity. A refreshing change for anyone who reads a lot of thinkpieces.

cw: one chapter dwells a lot on discourse regarding sexual violence. ...more

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Jan 12, 2018 Kenneth Hardcastle rated it really liked it

Shelves: paperback, feminism, race, culture, essays, nonfiction

Bad Feminist is a collection of compulsively readable essays. Roxane Gay is extraordinarily keyed into popular culture. You will see takes on all of the talking points you might expect from a black woman cultural maven publishing in 2014: Girls, The Hunger Games, Daniel Tosh, Orange is the New Black, “Blurred Lines”, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Help, Django Unchained, 12 Years a Slave, Tyler Perry, Fruitvale Station, Twitter, Abortion, Trayvon Martin, the Boston Marathon Bombing. Some of the topic Bad Feminist is a collection of compulsively readable essays. Roxane Gay is extraordinarily keyed into popular culture. You will see takes on all of the talking points you might expect from a black woman cultural maven publishing in 2014: Girls, The Hunger Games, Daniel Tosh, Orange is the New Black, “Blurred Lines”, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Help, Django Unchained, 12 Years a Slave, Tyler Perry, Fruitvale Station, Twitter, Abortion, Trayvon Martin, the Boston Marathon Bombing. Some of the topics are older - Flavor of Love, Chris Brown, Twilight, and an adorable obsession with Sweet Valley High - but no less relevant to the conversations she is having. With each of these topics, she takes a look at why they are so popular or so controversial or both, and plainly states what frustrates her about them.

The through-line of the piece examines the standard of perfection required by women, whether they are in the public eye or not. She acknowledges that you can love something and still have significant problems with it. I sometimes feel pressured to disavow a book (or a film, or a celebrity, or a fast food chain, or a political position) entirely if she/he/they/it has a flaw. This is essentially her position with feminism itself - it’s flawed as an ideology and a movement because it’s led by people, and people are flawed. But that doesn’t mean you throw away the principle of equal treatment. You don’t have to abandon feminism entirely because you like pink or you shave your legs or you dance to Robin Thicke’s music. The cultural caricature of feminism is a ridiculous barrier designed to prevent people from embracing a movement that should honestly be a no-brainer.

One essay in particular really spoke to me as a literature reviewer and book club leader, and that was “Not Here to Make Friends”. She dissects how differently we treat male characters and female characters. Male characters with bad traits are typically mysterious tormented souls seeking redemption, but women with bad traits are shrill, senseless, mentally-diseased harpies when they flaunt convention. I know I’ve made the “unlikable” evaluation of female characters before, especially with her example of Gone Girl. Now that book represents a particularly egregious case, but this essay is a wake-up call for me to examine my internal biases going forward.

These essays were released at different times in many different publications, so sometimes the overall effect is a little disjointed if you’re reading it straight through like I did. The essays were ordered very well - her personal life stories were a fairly gentle introduction, lending some effective foreshadowing for events in her life described later, and seeding references to cultural touchstones she dives into with more detail later. There’s an immense focus on popular culture throughout the book, and you will be a little lost if you have not seen or read the media she is reviewing. You can still follow her point, though. Overall, it was well worth reading. I would suggest taking your time with it. ...more

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Jan 09, 2018 Teresa rated it really liked it

It was different than what I thought it would be. There was not as much about being a feminist in the book as I thought there would be. Not as many stories of her life. They were short essays, more about different subjects, not just feminist idea's.
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