Reviews

Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture--And What We Can Do about It by Kate Harding

historyofjess's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

3.5

There's a lot of info packed into this short volume, but I wasn't always sure who it was for, especially when, early on, Harding indicates that if you're reading this book, you probably already understand rape culture. I can't say that I really learned anything new here (except for maybe a few horrific stories of sexual assaults, in particular, a brief section in which she rounds up some gruesome gang wrap stories). That's not to say there's nothing useful here, for anyone that doesn't fully comprehend the scope and consequences of rape culture, but if it's something you've been well-read into for awhile, this is probably not for you and has the potential to be quite triggering at times.

alyshadeshae's review

5.0

This book was difficult to get through and for good reason. Reading about rape and rape culture should never be easy, but maybe someday it will be history rather than current events.

I leave you with my favorite video on consent: https://youtu.be/oQbei5JGiT8

wrasea's review

4.0

Must-Read.

kevin_shepherd's review

5.0

I wish I lived in a country where my politicians didn’t say things like…

“Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” ~Clayton Williams, Texas

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that thing down.” ~Todd Akin, Missouri

“Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” ~Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania

“Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, it is something that God intended to happen.” ~Richard Mourdock, Indiana

…but I don’t.

I wish I could turn on the television and not hear things like…

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape.” ~Whoopie Goldberg on Roman Polanski vaginally and anally penetrating a 13 year old girl

or…

“The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted.” ~Bill O’Reilly on the kidnapping and repeated raping of a 15 year old boy

…but I can’t.

I wish people would believe Dylan Farrow when she writes…

“…when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies.”

…but they don’t.

I wish the term “Rape Culture” was a ludicrous exaggeration…

…but it isn’t.

Kate Harding writes with both fervor and exasperation. Published in 2015, Asking For It predates Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo and the 2016 election of our “grab ‘em by the p*ssy” POTUS.

I wish the people that most needed to read this had actually read this, but they didn’t, and they haven’t, and they won’t.

notallbooks_mp's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

bluestjuice's review

5.0

This is excellent, and it is recently published, so I would recommend reading it sooner than later, as the landscape of rape culture is changing yearly (and not all to the bad, on the whole, although there are also some troubling trends that seem to be on the upswing). I wasn't sure what to expect from this, and thought it might be fairly derivative and generic, but Harding actually does an excellent job citing from other works and studies and distilling many of the ideas in ways that make them easier to grasp. As rape culture and gender relations are not a new topic for me, I was pleased to discover more than one instance where she was able to articulate and clarify topics that I have found ambiguous, or at least difficult to fully articulate my reasons for feeling a certain way. Go read this. It's a distressing topic, but Harding's writing hit a sweet spot for me in managing to remain informal and conversational without negatively impacting the seriousness with which she treats her topic. Really very well done.

melodyseestrees's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

Plenty of citations and a handful of footnotes. I did find the use of the term "effing" to be frustratingly common and I think in a book unafraid to say 'penetrate' and 'penis' that the author should either use the word 'fucking' or rewrite the sentence to avoid the temptation to use 'effing.' Basically, swear or don't. There's no need to hide the urge behind asterisks or cutesy other terms. I wish there had been a bit more separation between hypothetical scenarios and actual cases and televised episode featuring sexual assault as it was somewhat easy to muddle up the information. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Rape

Moderate: Fatphobia

stevenyenzer's review

3.0

As Harding acknowledges in her concluding chapter, Asking for It was outdated almost as soon as she finished it — and especially so with the Reckoning that is sweeping across politics, entertainment, and many other fields. Still, the book is a solid introduction to rape culture written in an enjoyably non-academic tone (i.e. plenty of cursing).

kitkatmn's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.0

larryerick's review against another edition

4.0

Much like Katha Pollitt's book, Pro, is nominally about abortion but is really about women's rights in America, this book is about rape, but is also really about women's rights here in the United States (despite the fact some rapes are not upon females.) While Pollitt takes a bit more formal debate club approach to presenting her case, this author is more of the center of attention at the social party, demanding your attention with great verve and style. Much of what is presented in this book reminded me of many years ago during my last semester of college, I presented a research paper intending to connect a particular communications theory to battered spouse syndrome. The concept of a battered wife was just taking hold in America and had just started to be introduced to law enforcement and in the courts as a viable defense. As I started to itemize the concept of battered spouses to the class, a female student sitting directly in front of me had her jaw drop and her eyes became the size of cannonball targets. At the time, I thought I must have been describing her relationship with her boyfriend. Later, it occurred to me that she may have just been extremely naive about such matters. (Would she have been equally naive about date rape?) I mention this only because many of the stories presented in this book about rape reminded me a great deal of the state of battered spouses back then. And yet, I would argue that both wife battering and rape culture in America are similar means of degrading women and are similarly not going away with any rapidity. You notice I said not going away while the author's book subtitle mentions the "rise" in rape culture. Rise? Anyone familiar with black civil rights figure, Fannie Lou Hamer? Hamer's grandmother had 23 children, 20 of which were the result of rape. Such was the lot of black southern women in her time. Is it possible to have a "rise" in rape culture from that point? And is spouse battering really so much better handled now than earlier? A woman was arrested, charged, and sentenced in such a case. What had she done? She had fired a gun into the ceiling to warn off her belligerent male partner. Nobody was killed or even injured. Just firing a gun to scare off her partner from hurting her. But she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. And yet, the author ends her book on a rather optimistic note about how colleges are finally getting more serious about adjudicating rape complaints. Good, good. But what about the military? How much better is that rape culture in light of the "new improved" but watered down Department of Defense policy changes recently adopted. And lordy, how will non-college, non-military women get relief without a major institution managing their rape complaints appropriately? I found the author extremely engaging in what she had to say and her information valuable, especially to anyone faced directly with our rape culture, but I felt totally caught off guard by her book's excessively positive ending.