Book Review: Self-Made Man

From Goodreads: Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me) and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Norah Vincent absorbed a cultural experience and reported back on what she observed incognito. For more than a year and a half she ventured into the world as Ned, with an ever-present five o'clock shadow, a crew cut, wire-rim glasses, and her own size 11 1/2 shoes-a perfect disguise that enabled her to observe the world of men as an insider. The result is a sympathetic, shrewd, and thrilling tour de force of immersion journalism that's destined to challenge preconceptions and attract enormous attention. With her buddies on the bowling league she enjoyed the rough and rewarding embrace of male camaraderie undetectable to an outsider. A stint in a high-octane sales job taught her the gut- wrenching pressures endured by men who would do anything to succeed. She frequented sex clubs, dated women hungry for love but bitter about men, and infiltrated all- male communities as hermetically sealed as a men's therapy group, and even a monastery. Narrated in her utterly captivating prose style and with exquisite insight, humor, empathy, nuance, and at great personal cost, Norah uses her intimate firsthand experience to explore the many remarkable mysteries of gender identity as well as who men are apart from and in relation to women. Far from becoming bitter or outraged, Vincent ended her journey astounded-and exhausted-by the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. Having gone where no woman (who wasn't an aspiring or actual transsexual) has gone for any significant length of time, let alone eighteen months, Norah Vincent's surprising account is an enthralling reading experience and a revelatory piece of anecdotally based gender analysis that is sure to spark fierce and fascinating conversation. 

Thoughts: Oh dear, where to start. I can't even begin to tell you what a mess this book is. The amount of times I wanted to throw it across the room in sheer anger (but didn't because I was reading it on my Kindle) is ridiculously high - higher than any other book I have ever read before. Norah Vincent sells not only men short, but women as well. From what I can gather, men are poor put upon idiots who are unable to help themselves and are constantly manipulated and played by women. Women are calculating, manipulative bitches who want it all and a man to deliver it.
I stopped taking notes. I kept hoping I would come across some great epiphany about the gender divide. I finished it because it's our book group book this month. At the very least, it should provide some great discussion.

Self-Made Man is a definite 1 star.

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

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TED Talks Tuesday - Colin Stokes

Have you heard of TED Talks? They are brilliant. Covering a wide range of topics, they are usually no longer than about 20 minutes, although many of them are shorter. I often come across a TED talk I would like to share, so I thought I would start a meme -

Welcome to TED Talks Tuesday!

I am a feminist. I make no apologies and no bones about it. We live in a world where, despite some great strides forward, women are still not equal. One of the things that really worries me at the moment is the way girls are portrayed in the media. In this TED Talk, Colin Stokes looks at movies, how they teach manhood and how the need to change.

TED Talks Tuesday

Have you heard of TED Talks? They are brilliant. Covering a wide range of topics, they are usually no longer than about 20 minutes, although many of them are shorter. I often come across a TED talk I would like to share, so I thought I would start a meme -

Welcome to TED Talks Tuesday!

Each Tuesday I will post a TED talk - some to make you think, some to make you cry, some to amaze you and some just to entertain you. If you want to join in, feel free! Post a TED talk on your blog and then put a link in the comments. Grab the button if you want as well.

This TED talk appeals to the feminist in me. As a 40+ year old woman trying to reenter the workforce in a meaningful way, it speaks to me and is so important For me, 2014 is going to be the year I lean in. What about you?

Book Review: The Great Divorce

The Great Divorce - Ilyon Woo

From Goodreads: Ilyon Woo’s The Great Divorce is the dramatic, richly textured story of one of nineteenth-century America’s most infamous divorce cases, in which a young mother single-handedly challenged her country’s notions of women’s rights, family, and marriage itself.
In 1814, Eunice Chapman came home to discover that her three children had been carried off by her estranged husband. He had taken them, she learned, to live among a celibate, religious people known as the Shakers. Defying all expectations, this famously petite and lovely woman mounted an an epic campaign against her husband, the Shakers, and the law. In its confrontation of some of the nation’s most fundamental debates—religious freedom, feminine virtue, the sanctity of marriage—her case struck a nerve with an uncertain new republic. And its culmination—in a stunning legislative decision and a terrifying mob attack— sent shockwaves through the Shaker community and the nation beyond.
With a novelist’s eye and a historian’s perspective, Woo delivers the first full account of Eunice Chapman’s remarkable struggle. A moving story about the power of a mother’s love, The Great Divorce is also a memorable portrait of a rousing challenge to the values of a young nation.

What I thought: In the early 1800's, Eunice Chapman was just like any other woman - property of her husband, dependent on him for support and access to her children. On the day she returned home and found her husband had taken their three children and gone to live with a religious group known as the Shakers, she decided to fight back.
Over 5 years Eunice petitioned legislators (at the time the only way a woman could get a divorce was to prove adultery or have it passed into law), wrote books and harassed the Shakers all with the single minded objective of getting her children back.
Woo does not make Chapman out to be a saint. By all accounts, Eunice was not above using whatever tactics she thought would work for her in her fight against the Shakers. However, at that point in time, there were not a lot of options available to women who chose not to follow their husbands and were therefore seen by the law as "civilly dead." This means she was unable to own property, testify against her husband or lay claim to their children.
Woo tells the tale of an amazing feminist, who fought for her children and never gave up. A highly recommended read.

Challenges: 13 in '13 Challenge

Book Review: The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism

The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism - Jane Caro & Catherine Fox

From Goodreads: When it comes to the work/life balance, modern women continually find themselves in a no-win situation where they are criticized regardless of the path they choose. The F Word: How We Learned to Swear By Feminism argues that the pervasive idea that women will never be able to effectively combine work or interests outside the home with marriage, a social life and parenting is a furphy. In their lively and topical new book, Caro and Fox combine both personal experience and the stories of a range of women with the big picture, and provide practical suggestions for forgiving ourselves, having fun and not giving up while holding it all together.

What I Thought: I think one of the great myths of today is that woman have achieved equality. We haven't - at least not in reality anyway. While it all appears good on paper, reality proves otherwise.
You see, equality is about more than the right to a career, more than about equal pay for equal work, more than the right to make decisions about our own bodies, our own money, our own lives (although all of that is important), it's also about being viewed as equals in society regardless of our marital status, parenthood status, age or appearance. It's about not being judged because we return to work, don't return to work, have ambition to reach the top of the corporate tree, have a spotless house, have a messy house, serve home cooked meals, pick up takeaway - you get the picture. It's about not having to "play the game" a way a man does in order to get ahead, being able to be ourselves without being labeled a slut, a ball breaking bitch, a macho cow. You only have to spend half a day listening closely to conversations or cruising social media sites to realise all of these happen every day. Whether it happens in your house or not, reality is that regardless of their work outside the home, women still do the majority of work inside the home as well. Our clothes, our weight, our whole appearance is still open for comment and debate. Violence against women is still seem by many as a joke, and when women don't laugh, show our disgust, we are called names and told to develop a sense of humour. Reality is, it's not funny. Don't believe this stuff still goes on? Go to Google and type in the following and see the suggestions you get.

Women shouldn't...

Women should...

Women need...

Women want to...

Now put men at the front. Notice the difference? 

Jane Caro and Catherine Fox discuss all of these things and more. They also celebrate how far we have come, how our sisters in other cultures are still facing days we have left behind and how important it is to continue. We need to reclaim the word feminism and make it about what it really is - men and women who support positive change and want true equality for all.

Challenges: 13 in '13 Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge

Coming Out of the Feminist Closet

There's a picture I've seen on FaceBook the past couple of days which has finally spurred me to come out of the feminist closet - I am a feminist and proud of it.

Anyway, back to the picture. It's a picture of Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard and US President Barack Obama about to do the traditional cheek kiss greeting. It's captioned "Kiss me, Ketut" - A reference to this Australian insurance ad.

I'm not going to post the picture - I'm sure you can find it if you want, but I have no intention of giving it space.

A lot has been said in Australia recently about misogyny and sexism, especially in the wake of this speech by Julia Gillard.

(It's about 15 minutes long, but well worth listening to)

To me, the Gillard/ Obama picture is indicative of an ongoing problem. It's sexism on the sly. It's considered innocuous enough that if you protest, say it's sexist, that it's not funny, you are accused of not having a sense of humour, of being too sensitive. And therein lies the problem. We have been sold that line - we have no sense of humour and we are being too sensitive. It's the same line we were sold when we started to complain about sexual harassment behaviour from work colleagues. The difference is we continued to say being patted on the backside was not acceptable, would not be ignored and laughed away. But now we are suppose to find pictures such as this funny - after all, who is it hurting? The truth is, it's hurting all of us. It's hurting your mother's, your sister's, your daughter's. It's say it's OK to use someone's gender as a comedic tool.

I don't want my daughter (or my son for that matter!) growing up in a world where this is classed as humour, where this is thought of as OK. It's not and it's time we stopped letting it be seen as such.

Just as an additional note, for those who are aware of my political leanings (left wing, Labor Party, if I was an American, I'd vote Democrat), I would have written this post if the picture had been Julie Bishop, a woman whose politics I definitely don't agree with.