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elisa19's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
3.75
Extremely eye opening and should be compulsory reading in schools. Unfortunately the very last essay was somewhat disappointing as Greer seems to be putting the onus of male violence towards women on the victims themselves. Some of the writing was a bit out of reach and convoluted, partly due to some really obscure references she makes so definitely requires a well rounded knowledge of the classics. Despite some homophobia and racism it is still overall an extremely important piece of feminist literature as it makes you question every choice you have ever made as a girl and a woman and is still surprisingly relevant to today's society.
avsheppy's review against another edition
1.0
I was bought this book as a gift and told it was a seminal feminist text. I appreciate that it was radical for its time (in favour of cis het white middle class women of its time) but I could not get past the transphobia, racism, homophobia and exclusionary gender essentialism. I won’t be recommending this book to anyone who wants to learn more about how to further our collective feminist movement for liberation, as it only highlighted the plight of a small number of privileged women and not our opportunities for communion with every ally of the feminist cause.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Racism, Racial slurs, and Lesbophobia
emmalthompson85's review
3.0
I picked up this book not only because of it's historical significance but because a friend mad a blog post about it while having not read it basically saying Greer was an self-important idiot and I really hate ignorance.
Reading this book as a feminist in 2010 there are things about it I don't agree with. I definetley have problems with the blatant transphobia which is a theme through Greer's writings, and she has a rather patchy idea about homosexuality. Some of the things she talks abuot are outdated or becoming so which is touching in a way as it means we're making progress but many of them are still cuttingly relevant today. Young girls still grow up dreaming of romance and magical kisses while boys are taught to fuck. Women are still penalised in marriage and children are still forced inwards in a nuclear family.
This is a powerful book. At times too powerful. Greer also at time inadvertently makes me laugh by criticising accademic feminism in a highly accademic book and criticising the classism in feminism which dealing mainly with middle class issues.
Maybe one of the most interesting things I got from reading this book is a view of hoiw feminism itself has changed. Feminism today is much more accessible, both in it's texts and in the way it operates, and we are started to acnowledge a lot more intersection which I think can only be a good thing. Greer quotes an argument that isms such as racism and classism are unimportant and can not be solved until we solve racism but the truth of the matter is these things are all intimatley linked, something that the feminist movement is slowly starting to admit and the faster we get round to it and embrace it the better.
Reading this book as a feminist in 2010 there are things about it I don't agree with. I definetley have problems with the blatant transphobia which is a theme through Greer's writings, and she has a rather patchy idea about homosexuality. Some of the things she talks abuot are outdated or becoming so which is touching in a way as it means we're making progress but many of them are still cuttingly relevant today. Young girls still grow up dreaming of romance and magical kisses while boys are taught to fuck. Women are still penalised in marriage and children are still forced inwards in a nuclear family.
This is a powerful book. At times too powerful. Greer also at time inadvertently makes me laugh by criticising accademic feminism in a highly accademic book and criticising the classism in feminism which dealing mainly with middle class issues.
Maybe one of the most interesting things I got from reading this book is a view of hoiw feminism itself has changed. Feminism today is much more accessible, both in it's texts and in the way it operates, and we are started to acnowledge a lot more intersection which I think can only be a good thing. Greer quotes an argument that isms such as racism and classism are unimportant and can not be solved until we solve racism but the truth of the matter is these things are all intimatley linked, something that the feminist movement is slowly starting to admit and the faster we get round to it and embrace it the better.
wannabekingpin's review
3.0
Okay, thing is, as what I am (and I'm not specifying a gender) - it's too difficult for me to comprehend the whole gender problem. A human for me is mere animal to be observed with hopes it'll develop something good, evolve into something good and so on. The things I disliked in this book were not relevant to the book and yet those are the things that costed it a couple of stars - author uses very specific words I'm not used to seeing in well-written literature, now and again she contradicts herself, and just as women she took into light - she also doesn't define any firm point (there are several, but their outlines are blurry imo) of what and how, only why. Plus - many facts are old now and I cringe at that. And I mean basic facts, not gender related facts, I do not doubt that women and minorities still have it tough, but other things, scientific things are something I'd rather skipped. But the good part is that author admits that her book will age and facts will be rendered false, and that she, in the very last chapter I might add, says that you ought to figure out what you are, what you wanna be and want to do, and then be/do it. Still, some things were ridiculous and so I can't give it more than three stars...
pooxs's review against another edition
2.0
The first half was quite interesting and established much of the societal structures in place that create inequity between genders, especially as these points are still as relevant today as when first written. However, the second half dragged with way too many examples than were necessary to support or illustrate the point. It also suffered from many incredibly offensive claims about race and sexuality, and then such a scorn towards certain type of women (traditionally feminine). I’m not sure how one can advocate for an end to women judging one another and then do the exact same thing. The author’s perceived self superiority and then hypocrisy was grating.
emilyfrizz's review
4.0
This was fascinating to read from a historical standpoint. It's interesting to see where feminist thinking has changed from the time of this book's publication in 1970. Although we may not agree on every point, this was nonetheless a really valuable read.
glindaaa's review against another edition
3.0
So I feel quite lucky to be a university student at this point and being able to borrow some books from the library to learn more about the feminist waves and so on.
As I have to write an essay about social movements, I picked the second Feminist wave and what is happening now. With that, I have been using Goodreads to find books that might have a big influence on the second feminist wave and to give me opinions about what was happening in the time and just to gather more information in general because it is very interesting.
Luckily for me, the university library had the book so I could just borrow it and read through it, at the moment my essay mainly focuses on the beauty view (how do you have to look as a woman) and sexual harassment. This book gave me a lot of that bit of information, I still have a lot more to read but it was actually quite nicely written (including the sarcasm). I only did not like the quotes in between the pieces of text because it would cut off sentences and just brought me out of what I was reading but well that can happen to other books as well.
Greer breaks up everything she wants to mention in categories, Love, Hate etc and gives chapter title so that to explain in further detail what she means and that was a very nice way and to me a good construction to how I understand or how I can find something back when I am really writing this essay, at this point I am still in the gathering phase but I have time.
As I have to write an essay about social movements, I picked the second Feminist wave and what is happening now. With that, I have been using Goodreads to find books that might have a big influence on the second feminist wave and to give me opinions about what was happening in the time and just to gather more information in general because it is very interesting.
Luckily for me, the university library had the book so I could just borrow it and read through it, at the moment my essay mainly focuses on the beauty view (how do you have to look as a woman) and sexual harassment. This book gave me a lot of that bit of information, I still have a lot more to read but it was actually quite nicely written (including the sarcasm). I only did not like the quotes in between the pieces of text because it would cut off sentences and just brought me out of what I was reading but well that can happen to other books as well.
Greer breaks up everything she wants to mention in categories, Love, Hate etc and gives chapter title so that to explain in further detail what she means and that was a very nice way and to me a good construction to how I understand or how I can find something back when I am really writing this essay, at this point I am still in the gathering phase but I have time.
eln___'s review
1.0
I appreciate that this book was written over 50 years ago, but I still couldn't get over some of the content. A lot of it came across as more misogynistic than feminist, with complete generalisations about women and absurd ideas such as "many men get violent because women goad them and women kinda love it don't they ;)))". There were a few funny observations that kept me reading but overall I view this as more of a historical document than a feminist text and definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone