A review by se_wigget
The Women's Room by Marilyn French

5.0

 

This is such a depressing book—well, for the first half. If Mira hadn't been sexually attracted to men, she wouldn't have dropped out of college, gotten married to an asshole, and gotten unwillingly pregnant. Failing that, if she had been in college at a time and place where birth control and abortion were easily accessible and legal, she wouldn't have married at the age of nineteen and completely lost control of her life. She would have stayed in college, gone straight to grad school, and gotten that Ph.D. before she hit thirty. 

But... she was sexually attracted to men and in college in the 1950s. 

Occasionally I'm struck by how little I truly relate to straight people, and this book brought that up. It also got me wondering, not for the first time, how it's possible that anyone female is heterosexual. It's quite baffling. 

But… it takes quite a shift later in the book, and the protagonist isn’t as hetero as she seemed earlier. The feminist community she finds is delightful. 

There’s a lot of realism, and it’s a wordier book than something publishers would accept and publish today.