Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 04, 2018 Cari rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, nonfiction

Listening to this audiobook was somehow both predictably rage inducing and simultaneously cathartic. Using the lens of women’s anger results in by far the best distillation of the last ~30 months that I’ve read so far, on a personal level. Plus there’s history! And intersectionality! I want to press this into the hands of every woman I know because it’s so affirming and ultimately hopeful. What saddens me is that not enough men will read this book.

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Dec 06, 2018 Denise Cormaney rated it it was amazing

I saw her at Sixth & I in DC when she was promoting this book, and it just happened to be the week of the Kavanaugh hearings. I was feeling so much rage, and it was cathartic to hear her speak so eloquently on the power of female anger. I took my book and went home and didn’t read it for two months.

I was worried it would be a 250-page rant. I was worried it would make me even angrier, if that was possible. I shouldn’t have worried. I want everyone to read this book. The women who feel angry will I saw her at Sixth & I in DC when she was promoting this book, and it just happened to be the week of the Kavanaugh hearings. I was feeling so much rage, and it was cathartic to hear her speak so eloquently on the power of female anger. I took my book and went home and didn’t read it for two months.

I was worried it would be a 250-page rant. I was worried it would make me even angrier, if that was possible. I shouldn’t have worried. I want everyone to read this book. The women who feel angry will feel so validated; the men who are wondering why we are so pissed will have some insights. And all of us will be given an overdue history lesson and a much needed correction on how we view women’s anger in this country.

She has done her research. She gives example after example of women’s rage leading directly to positive political change that benefits us all. Women are not given the credit they deserve in our history books, and it is not part of our collective narrative. We do, however, hear about white men’s anger as being a vital part of our nation’s founding, an admirable force for good. Give me liberty or give me death! White men angrily broke free of imperialist control, then built a nation on slavery and the oppression of women, disenfranchising the majority of the population while holding literally all the power. Women aren’t mentioned in the Constitution, not once. We’ve had to fight for every right we enjoy today. No wonder we are so mad.

She talks in depth about the #metoo movement. She also addresses the need for white women to look at how women of color have been angry for a long time. While most of us got really angry and politically engaged after the 2016 election, women of color have been fighting against a white patriarchy all along. We cannot just come in and take over the resistance and act like we invented the idea.

We also need to recognize that white women are still part of the problem. The majority of white women voted for Donald Trump and for misogynist candidates like Roy Moore. Black women overwhelmingly did not. We need to take a hard look at how white women are willing to take the benefits and the protection of the white patriarchal power structure at the expense of all oppressed people. This is a reckoning that is long overdue.

I have bookmarked the heck out of my copy of this book. It is so well done. Sometimes a book comes along that perfectly captures the political and societal moment as it’s morphing into a movement. Traister has done an excellent job here. I highly recommend reading it; don’t be afraid of your anger. ...more

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Dec 08, 2018 Lianne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, feminism, 2018

This was so timely and cathartic. I read it slowly over the past two months, and found it especially validating when I was particularly angry about something happening in the world. It just happened that this book was released around the time of the Kavanaugh hearings and Christine Blasey-Ford's testimony, so there was ample opportunity to be angry and to really reflect on what Traister was saying.

Traister paid a lot of attention to issues of intersectionality in women's experiences and anger, ...more

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Jan 06, 2019 Jana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, kindle, 2019

4.5 stars, rounding up to 5.

Well-researched book that seamlessly blends traditional reporting on the history of women’s anger with personal essays. I will read anything Traister writes, so I’m not exactly objective about recommending this, but it is exactly what I needed to read right now.

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