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| 1728295092
| 9781728295091
| 1728295092
| 3.85
| 110
| Jul 23, 2024
| Jul 23, 2024
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liked it
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I have followed Meg Vondriska on Twitter for a while now, and when I heard she was coming out with a book based on the concept of her @MenWritingWomen
I have followed Meg Vondriska on Twitter for a while now, and when I heard she was coming out with a book based on the concept of her @MenWritingWomen account, I ran, not walked, to the bookshop (well, I emailed them) to preorder. A Tale of Two Titties takes the basic concept of this account, amplifies it, but also twists it into something far more subversive and acerbic. The result is entertaining and potentially genuine helpful, albeit at times repetitive. The book is loosely organized into chapters based on common issues with how women are portrayed in fiction. From anatomically impossible descriptions of breasts (or other parts of AFAB bodies) to stereotypical roles for women, this book covers the various ways men (because it is almost exclusively cis men) write. Set up, in jest, as a course for an aspiring author to write better, A Tale of Two Titties doesn’t hold back. The book is at its best, in my opinion, when Vondriska lambastes specific examples of terrible writing of women. However, I also understand one cannot make an entire book out of quotes from other people’s writing (or at least, then it would be a sassy concordance and not a writing “advice” book). Vondriska has smartly chosen to expand the premise of the original account into something more suitable for a book length. Walking the line between parody and real advice is challenging, however. A Tale of Two Titties is a joyfully creative subversion of sexist tropes. Vondriska goes beyond merely critiquing or lampooning how men write women and elevates her schtick to a new plane. There are exercises in every chapter to prepare the reader to write their breast. I particularly enjoyed a flowchart, “Genre Detour,” to help define which genre one is writing based on the presence of women and descriptions of their bodies. All of this is to say, this book’s parody works because it’s just so damn inventive. However, I’m not sure the people who most need this book fall into its audience. Women are more likely to pick up this book in terms of its marketing and style, yet they aren’t the ones who need to read this. I nodded along, and while maybe there’s one or two points the book makes that you might not have realized, you will too. Men who want to write better female characters but aren’t sure how might not see this book, or consider to to be “for” them. Perhaps this is merely a marketing issue more than an issue with the book. It doesn’t detract from my enjoyment. I don’t really have much else to say about this one. If you’re down for this style of humour, you’re going to enjoy this! Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 11, 2024
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Aug 31, 2024
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Sep 16, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1849351341
| 9781849351348
| 1849351341
| 4.54
| 495
| Nov 12, 2013
| Nov 12, 2013
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really liked it
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Although over a decade old at this point, Undoing Border Imperialism still feels relevant today in 2024—maybe even more urgent and important than it w
Although over a decade old at this point, Undoing Border Imperialism still feels relevant today in 2024—maybe even more urgent and important than it was when Harsha Walia first wrote and assembled it. Part how-to, part manifesto, part oral history, this compact volume works hard to syncretize different modes of resistance, from academic theory to grassroots activism. It is a volume I sorely needed to read as I navigate my own journey trying to figure out how to be a more effective, more participatory activist. The core of this book looks at resistance against the Canadian state via NOII (No One Is Illegal), and specifically the NOII-Vancouver branch in which Walia has participated. Though focused therefore on migrant justice, fights against deportation, etc., Walia explicitly addresses the need for intersectionality, particularly with regards to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty, as well as anticapitalism. She discusses her own experience occasionally. However, she focuses mainly on what NOII has accomplished, how the NOII groups have functioned, and what advice she or other activists she has interviewed would give to people looking to be more involved in this advocacy. The result is impressively well-organized, incisive, and inspiring. I appreciate how Walia makes space for different lenses of activism. The book starts grounded in theory before branching out into practice, and Walia notes the tension between these two worlds. As someone whose background is heavily academic, intellectual, rational, part of my work is unlearning some of these modes of thinking, expanding my perspective so I better understand what it is like to do work on the ground. At the same time, Walia cites a lot of theorists, scholars, and writers whose names I had never heard or whose work I haven’t read. There is so much more for me to learn! Probably the most enlightening chapter for me personally was “Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory” (see what Walia did there, lol). Walia criticizes NGOs for being reliant on funding from governments or institutions that, in turn, might expect them to be less radical. She contrasts this with the model of NOII and other, more fluid groups. This analysis really helped me understand why I have felt disappointed in a local collective that I initially thought could be more radical than it turned out to be—they are organized as a nonprofit, with a board, etc. Walia sounds the alarm that the path towards respectability and campaigns for mainstream reform can be tempting but fraught with problems. At the same time, Undoing Border Imperialism does not pretend that NOII or similar groups are utopian. Walia is honest about the challenges of operating such groups, the unspoken hierarchies that can emerge, and the need often to work alongside other groups who don’t always share your values. This latter point was interesting to me. We are so polarized, and the Left has a serious problem right now with purity culture and eating itself, especially on social media. Walia’s approach is practical, compassionate, but also grounded in an unflinching commitment to her group’s core principles. Her point is that you can align on strategy without expecting one hundred percent concordance on beliefs. However, she also stresses that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to working alongside diverse groups. It’s always going to be a conversation—and that is so important too. I must admit I don’t know a ton about migrant justice issues in Canada. I learned some from reading Policing Black Lives , and I have been trying to follow the conversation around the temporary foreign worker program. Our society doesn’t seem like it is interested in having a serious discussion, however, about the racism and xenophobia within Canada; we are too interested in pretending we are so much more welcoming and inclusive than the United States. Walia and other activists whose voices are included in this book are very critical of Canada as a nation-state. As they should be. Undoing Border Imperialism might not radicalize you by itself, but it is a fantastic resource on your path to further radicalization. Ultimately, this is a book that encourages action rather than armchairing. If you want to learn more about signing petitions and posting on social media, this book is not for you. I can’t claim I am going to immediately go out and start hanging out with my local activists and putting my body on the line in direct action—I’d love to say that, but it would be untrue. But this is a book that shows you how direct action works in concert, not in opposition, with other forms of resistance. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 30, 2024
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Aug 11, 2024
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Aug 20, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1501117203
| 9781501117206
| 1501117203
| 3.85
| 99,192
| Nov 15, 2016
| Nov 15, 2016
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liked it
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I came to my Anna Kendrick obsession sideways, in a low-key way I am realizing is very apposite for Kendrick’s brand of celebrity. I have never watche
I came to my Anna Kendrick obsession sideways, in a low-key way I am realizing is very apposite for Kendrick’s brand of celebrity. I have never watched Pitch Perfect. If you asked me which of her movies cemented her in my mind as a celebrity crush, I couldn’t tell you (but I can tell you my fave—more in a moment). To top it off, I found Scrappy Little Nobody as a publisher overstock purchase from a local store and paid—wait for it—$5. Five Canadian dollars. So I didn’t even pay full price, which again, feels very on-brand for Kendrick. Kendrick’s memoir is of the “look at me, I am just like you folk” variety: witty, self-deprecating, down-to-earth. Plenty of embarrassing stories from her childhood and awkward adolescence, along with her arrival in Los Angeles and her rocky road to her present level of moderate fame. I don’t mean to sound cynical—I truly enjoyed this memoir and found it the perfect mix of entertaining and inspirational. However, let me be upfront by saying that if you hoped for Big! Revelations! about Kendrick, or if you were expecting this to be anything more than a run-of-the-mill memoir from an actor in her thirties, then you’ll be disappointed. Pitch your expectations perfectly, and you’ll have a great time. It is, after all, Kendrick’s atmosphere of being a scrappy little nobody that she projects that I think I find so alluring. Lots of celebrities understand their role in our society is absurd—too many these days seem to lean into that. Kendrick has somehow managed to find moderate success in her profession without (as far as I can tell) getting involved in anything that I call “weird shit”: cults, influencer gimmicks and scams, and so on. She acknowledges the gulf between her reality and those of her fans, but she has a foot still in the real world. Also, this girl works—have you seen her filmography? She’s busy. Indeed, her love of what she does shines through in these pages—balanced by a hefty dose of “I need to work to live.” She talks about how Twilight paid her bills while she could work on indie projects that wouldn’t. She talks about the struggle, sometimes, to afford toilet paper, the incongruity of staying in swank hotels for the publicity tour for Up in the Air when, back in LA, she could barely afford the place she shared with two others. Kendrick neither romanticizes the biz nor does she downplay how much she loves theatre and acting. It’s this sense of unvarnished honesty that I appreciate. Early on in the book, Kendrick says something that really stuck with me. Of her experience wrapping her first film, Camp, she says
That last sentence tho!! I think I needed to hear that this summer. My life is good overall, and I feel very fortunate and privileged. But I’m turning thirty-five, and I am becoming aware of my approaching middle age. Friends are creating families, and this aroace girlie is feeling … uncertain. Turning inwards, thinking about times past, feeling wistful and angsty about the inability to reclaim youth. Then Anna Kendrick shows up and rolls her eyes and says, “Get over it,” but in a far more thoughtful way. Live in the present. Keep going. If old adventures never ended, new ones could never begin. Again, I don’t want to give the impression this book is some deeply philosophical tome. It’s not. Ninety percent of this book is the most prosaic shit you could imagine. Which is what makes that ten percent, these little nuggets, all the better. Scrappy Little Nobody knows what it is about, gets in, does the job, and gets out. My favourite Anna Kendrick movie, by the way, is currently Mr. Right, with Sam Rockwell. I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago (I bought this book about six months ago but hadn’t read it until now). I was obsessed. How had no one told me to watch this nine-year-old movie before now?? Kendrick plays to type—a weirdo—and pulls it off with such an incredible balance between mania and elation that I don’t know what else to do except applaud. I know your dream already came true, but in case you need to see it again in print, Anna: Kendrick is a revelation. If you enjoy Kendrick’s performances, you’ll like this book. If you think she’s a scrappy little nobody, this book could change your mind and get you interested in her performances. Or not. I don’t know. Don’t trust me; I didn’t even pay full price for it. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 24, 2024
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Jul 26, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0374610320
| 9780374610326
| 0374610320
| 4.22
| 18,861
| Sep 12, 2023
| Sep 12, 2023
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liked it
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Wait, this book isn’t by Naomi Wolf? Why did I even bother … jk. Although, ironically, I haven’t read anything by Naomi Klein previously, and I’ve rea
Wait, this book isn’t by Naomi Wolf? Why did I even bother … jk. Although, ironically, I haven’t read anything by Naomi Klein previously, and I’ve read two books by Naomi Wolf (more on that in a bit). I don’t think I personally have conflated the two Naomis myself, but I’m sure that’s just the lack of opportunity. Doppelganger intrigued me because I wanted to hear about Klein’s deep dive into the world in which Wolf has immersed herself and what lessons that holds for the fragile state of our democracies. Though this book is built on premise of people mistaking the two Naomis to a ridiculous degree online, Klein makes it clear that this book isn’t so much about Wolf as it is about the crowd she hangs out with these days. Klein is interested in this “mirror world,” as she calls it, and how Wolf went from third-wave feminist darling to conspiracy-theory monger and general alt-right poster woman. So she listens to Steve Bannon’s podcast, plumbs the depth of Wolf’s Twitter, and generally examines the ways in which the alt right and adjacent movements use, manipulate, and take advantage of media (both traditional and social) to sway people to their cause. Because we are living in a unique tipping point in history. Mass literacy battles with mass media illiteracy. Even critical thinking doesn’t exempt one from falling prey to misinformation, of course. One of Klein’s key points is that Wolf is a smart person and a deep thinker—many prominent people in these movements are, and it would be a mistake to underestimate them or label anyone associated with them as less intelligent. Rather, Klein wants to figure out what makes the mirror world so enticing. Doppelganger is one of an emerging genre of pop culture political books looking at the effect of the internet age on politics and society. Some of Klein’s most important takeaways come from reflection on how the internet encourages us to become doppelgangers of ourselves (in how we perform ourselves online). As someone who “grew up” on the internet—on Neopets and Geocities and message boards and live chatrooms and whatnot—I feel this. To this day, I might spend more time on any given day talking to people behind my “tachyondecay” username and an avatar than my real name and face. On an individual basis that’s fine. But when you scale this up to a societal level, Klein points out, cracks appear that leave us vulnerable to the misinformation that fuels conspiracy and polarization. In this way, Klein scatters references to different forms of doppelganger throughout the book. She did a deep dive into doppelgangers in literature and film (she talks a lot about Philip Roth, shrug). I watched Dual because she mentions it here and it has Karen Gillan in it (it’s weird and not at all satisfying, IMO). Though there’s something amusing imagining Klein obsessively consuming all of these books and movies for research purposes, all in all I don’t know that she successfully connects her doppelganger discussion to her broader points about the mirror world. I understand that she’s trying to say Wolf is more a doppelganger of herself than she is of Klein, that Wolf’s trip through the looking glass has resulted in that kind of self-doppelganging. But it feels like a slightly contrived twist. As far as Wolf herself goes, well … I read The Beauty Myth when I was 22, young, naïve (though I am pleasantly surprised to find I didn’t go gaga over it and therefore can honestly say I had my own reservations). Then five years later I read Vagina and criticized it for much the same reasons Klein criticizes Wolf: mistaking anecdotal evidence for science, confirmation bias, etc. Both of these reviews are real trips to read now, given that I was writing them back when I thought I was a cisgender man (oops). But I stand by my work. I respect Klein taking the high road and refusing to dangle Wolf in front of us like a cautionary tale. Still … she is. Like Klein, I can’t speculate about the precise factors that galvanized Wolf’s slide towards authoritarian militancy and conspiracy theories—but I can watch it, judge it, and remind myself that we are all vulnerable here. That’s what Klein realizes as she canvasses for her husband in the Canadian federal election and visits with people who should be sympathetic to the NDP but are raving anti-vaxxers instead. Doppelganger offers up some cogent and prescient (in the sense that even for a relatively recent book, it feels like Klein anticipated some of what has happened since it was published) analysis of the cracks in our media world. It stumbles a bit as Klein dances around her various topics of doppelgangers, propaganda, etc., and as a result it feels a little longer and more repetitive than it needs to be. This is a book that I would recommend if, like me, you are a sucker for discussions of media literacy, awareness of conspiracy theories, and how we can strengthen our democracy. It has enough substance to be worth the read—yet having read it, I don’t feel like I particularly learned much I didn’t already know. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 09, 2024
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Jul 15, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 125027141X
| 9781250271419
| 125027141X
| 4.10
| 18,119
| Sep 13, 2018
| Mar 08, 2022
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it was ok
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Women are some kind of magic, to quote amanda lovelace, so it’s no wonder the patriarchy thinks we’re witches. The metaphor (and, for parts of history
Women are some kind of magic, to quote amanda lovelace, so it’s no wonder the patriarchy thinks we’re witches. The metaphor (and, for parts of history, literal belief) of woman-as-witch is a potent one. In Defense of Witches seeks to connect contemporary feminist struggles with the legacy of the witch hunts and trials that ran through Europe and America. Mona Chollet, translated here by Sophie R. Lewis, looks at a number of themes, like beauty standards, or the decision whether or not to have kids. I’m not sure how much I learned from this book, but it has some good synthesis of second- and third-wave feminism and presents a more European perspective than I’m used to. The chapters are long: in addition to the introduction, there are only four: “A Life of One’s Own,” “Wanting Sterility,” “The Dizzy Heights,” and “Turning the World Upside Down.” Averaging fifty pages, each chapter packs quite the punch. Chollet begins by examining the desire for independence beyond the home. From there, she talks about the pressure to procreate, followed by the idea that women have an expiration date, that after a certain age we just can’t be successful or desired anymore. The book finishes on an optimistic note, referring to progress Chollet sees through movements like #MeToo, and a reminder that we can take control of our bodies without being essentialist about gender. If I am disappointed in In Defense of Witches, it’s only because I was expecting more … witches? Like I kind of thought this book was about witch hunts and trials. Chollet really only references these in passing, however. There are a few juicy quotes from primary sources and researchers’ materials. But mainly she’s using the idea of women as witches as a lens to examine the tension between feminist writings of the twentieth century and broader society’s pushback. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but the way the book’s title, subtitle, and design lean so heavily into it, I feel like I’m sensible for expecting there to be more of a connection. As it is, I really enjoyed how many French writers and thinkers Chollet mentions and quotes. My feminist reading (most of my reading, let’s be real) is in a bubble of American, British, and occasionally Canadian authors. I don’t recognize a lot of the names Chollet drops—and that’s a good thing. I commented to a close friend of mine who is French that I felt like I was getting a window into what it’s like to come up into feminism in France. On top of this, of course, Chollet’s view itself is informed by French culture and standards—as evidenced by the very casual way in which she discusses wanting to have a lot of lovers, lol, and takes shots at American culture for being far less tolerant of this attitude among women. Chollet’s attitudes and arguments are firmly rooted in segments of second-wave feminism; indeed, In Defense of Witches can in many ways be viewed as a love letter to Gloria Steinem, whom Chollet quotes and praises interminably. On one hand, I appreciate this because my view of second-wave feminism is a little jaded and has been coloured by its appropriation by TERFs. On the other hand, although Chollet’s analysis makes offhand noises towards inclusion of queer and trans identities, it stops short of a full-throated attempt to integrate trans and nonbinary people. So in this respect, I ran up against the limits of this book’s analysis fairly quickly: it pulls together some interesting ideas, but it also doesn’t bring up anything all that new or radical. Probably the most enduring theme here is rationality versus irrationality and the way the former is inevitably masculine-coded, the latter, feminine-coded. Chollet argues that irrationality and emotionality are not the same. Patriarchy’s attempts to restrict women’s power and influence are rooted, in part, she maintains, because male-dominated institutions feared the power, creativity, and efficiency of women’s emotions. Hence the attempts to paint us as “hysterical.” Chollet makes the case that emotionality, while not an essentialist quality and something that many men can possess as well, is key to a more compassionate and just future in our society—something with which I am sympathetic. If there has been any theme to my overall arc, it has been moving away from the highly rational, academic mindset I cultivated in high school towards a mindset that embraces the irrational when needed (is it any wonder I found my true gender along the way?). In Defense of Witches is an all right book, and for others, could very well be revelatory. For me it was a fine way to pass the time, and it exposed me to writers and ideas that I might not have otherwise heard on this side of the pond. However, it wasn’t quite the book I was looking for, and in some respects, it doesn’t go as far as I wanted it to. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 2024
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Jul 08, 2024
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Jul 25, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 0062666975
| 9780062666970
| 0062666975
| 4.24
| 6,207
| Jan 21, 2020
| Jan 07, 2020
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really liked it
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We have all heard the tired refrain “boys will be boys.” Challenging this adage has been one of the main undertakings of feminism in the past half-cen
We have all heard the tired refrain “boys will be boys.” Challenging this adage has been one of the main undertakings of feminism in the past half-century. Yet how successful have we been in dismantling rape culture and teaching consent? More broadly, what messages do boys and young men receive about sex and sexuality, and how is that influencing their behaviour as they navigate their first intimate relationships? In Boys & Sex, Peggy Orenstein explores these touchy subjects by going to the source: interviewing young men in high school and college. This 2020 book is a follow-up to Orenstein’s 2011 Girls & Sex, which I haven’t read. I might go back and read it someday. I chose to read Boys & Sex because I feel like I have a strong grasp on how girls and women are told to deal with sex. Despite living the first thirty years of my life as a man (I realized I am trans in 2020), I don’t have any clear idea of what is expected of men when it comes to sex. Reading this book was a revelation in the sense that it confirmed this feeling: none of the experiences described in this book remotely resemble anything I thought, felt, or did during my adolescence or young adulthood. I don’t know how much of that to attribute to being trans and how much to attribute to being ace, yet here we are. What an affirming read in that sense. Orenstein covers a lot of broad themes chapter by chapter. Some of these include porn, hookup culture, queer men, race, consent, compulsory sexuality, toxic masculinity, and how to talk to our boys. She editorializes a lot, interjecting with her own opinions and estimations of her interview subjects. I think this is a good thing; it is a poor journalist who uncritically reports on what her sources say without offering context, correction, or in some cases, rebuttal. At the same time, Orenstein does her best to “get out of the way” of her subjects, seeking not to tell their stories for them but instead share their unique perspectives. She has a whole chapter on queer and trans men, noting in her introduction that she regrets Girls & Sex overlooks trans women. I found this chapter in particular super interesting. Although the experiences of trans women and trans men are often thought of as inverses, they are not symmetrical. So it wasn’t so much that I was like, “Oooh, this person is ‘going the other way’” as I was fascinated by the idea of a person who had the experience of compulsory sexuality from a young woman’s perspective before ultimately transitioning and looking at it as a man. In contrast, as I said above, I feel like I noped out of that from the start, so I’m tabula rasa in that regard. The same was true of the chapter on hookup culture. As Orenstein shares subjects’ stories of feeling the intense pressure to hook up and how many of them regret it as they have aged or are glad they’ve moved away from such behaviour, all I could think was, “That was not me.” Not in a superior kind of way, just a bemused, “Was this happening all around me in high school?” (It was!) and “Is this what I was ‘missing’ in university?” In this respect, Boys & Sex is enlightening for me because I never talked to my peers about this stuff back when we all thought I was a boy. Orenstein reminds us that boys and men are, contrary to stereotypes, incredibly thoughtful when it comes to these subjects. They’re just often discouraged from talking about it. The book finishes with an intense chapter around how to have difficult conversations. Orenstein shares the story of a young man who eventually realizes that he was the perpetrator of assault on a woman he hooked up with in college. At the time, he didn’t see it that way and saw himself as a “good man” who respected women and looked for consent—but as he started to understand how she remembered that night, he was ashamed. Orenstein shares how he and the woman have undergone a kind of restorative justice process. It’s a fascinating story because it speaks to something I think we often overlook. Lots of people say, “Men are trash,” and then the defenders of our young men say, “Hashtag not all men.” Which is true! But if that is where we stop, without doing anything about the men and boys inculcated into rape culture, then we aren’t changing anything. Orenstein points out that our current system is raising really flawed (and fucked up) boys and men, and they need compassion and grace as we deprogram the toxic parts of their masculinity. That doesn’t mean unconditional forgiveness or freedom from consequences—but it has to mean a more nuanced conversation. Boys & Sex is a valuable contribution to that social conversation. It’s thorough yet not too long. It does its best to be intersectional—I didn’t talk too much about it, but I really liked the chapter on race—I think the one lens I really noticed was missing was disability. Obviously, Orenstein’s is not the last word on this subject. This is one important contribution among many others that have come before or since. But if, like me, you feel particularly out of the loop when it comes to how boys and men in Canada and the US are raised to think about and act on their sexuality, this book will open your eyes. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 03, 2024
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Jun 09, 2024
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Jul 08, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1615197982
| 9781615197989
| 1615197982
| 4.50
| 439
| Nov 05, 2020
| Oct 26, 2021
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really liked it
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I came across Marlo Mack’s podcast of the same name and listened to many of the episodes. She discontinued it for a time, at her daughter’s request, w
I came across Marlo Mack’s podcast of the same name and listened to many of the episodes. She discontinued it for a time, at her daughter’s request, which spoke highly of her commitment to putting her daughter’s needs before any possibility of notoriety or listenership. The podcast briefly got an update last December, where Mack mentions she might podcast infrequently with updates about her life and less about her daughter’s, which makes sense. In any event, I knew immediately I needed to read this book. How to Be a Girl is Just as heads up this review will be a little more personal than most, given how entwined this book’s subject is with my identity as a trans woman. Mack tells her story chronologically, which makes sense, starting with her daughter’s insistence that she’s a girl. This occurs as Mack is in the process of divorcing her daughter’s father, who to his credit seems like a good dude in the sense that he accepts his daughter’s gender identity pretty willingly. Mack does not sugarcoat or suppress the anxiety, discomfort, and reluctance that she feels. She struggles with the revelation. Hopes it isn’t true. Tries to find any possible alternative, up to and including the idea that her son might a gay and effeminate boy—but still a boy. It’s a long road for her to come to terms with things, and she’s plenty critical enough of herself—I won’t judge her. That’s one reason I wanted to read How to Be a Girl. I came to my identity as a woman later in life, when I was thirty (though, in hindsight, I think I had inklings as far back as Grade 7 or 8, maybe younger). My coming out to my (supportive and affirming) parents was far more expository than beseeching: I was letting them know what I had decided, not requesting their help. In the case of M., as Mack refers to her daughter throughout this book, at three or four years old, she is so dependent on her parents’ good will. This is the first of many stark differences between my gender journey and M.’s, and it’s why I’m glad I read this book. Every trans experience is different, and even though this is not a memoir of a trans person, it is a transgender memoir of a kind, and I will keep collecting these stories as I live my own. Mack shares some of the details of reconciling with M.’s identity: the visits to therapists and psychiatrists, the paperwork and sorting out of procedures at school. I can’t imagine what supportive parents go through as they navigate these bureaucratic and social hurdles on behalf of their trans children. This should be required reading for cis people in positions of policymaking power at school boards and similar authorities: there is a difference between being tolerant of trans and gender-diverse kids and actually working to dismantle the systemic barriers that make it harder for them to learn, grow, and succeed. Mack is great at crystallizing those barriers, both from her perspective as a mother and from what she shares of M.’s perspective. On that note, the perspicacity and simplicity of M.’s understanding of her gender and how she relates to her friends is beautiful. I appreciate Mack’s willingness to step out of the way and repeat her daughter’s wisdom as verbatim as she can remember. Trans kids are, ultimately, kids. They just want to have a childhood, live their life. Mack marvels at M.’s resilience even as she bemoans M.’s precocious understanding that she is different from other girls and exists at a disadvantage in the system as it is set up. So we marvel and bemoan as well. This was a hard book for me to read. “There but for the grace of God…” and all that. I often (like, weekly) contemplate how my life could have been different had I transitioned sooner. I likely would have had a much harder time, to be brutally honest. Transitioning at thirty, well into my career in a union job in a country with imperfect but progressive human rights protections for gender identity … I did it from a position of immense privilege. Transitioning at twenty-three just as I was moving to England? At seventeen, on the cusp of university? At ten, still in elementary school? Wow. Even as I mourn the childhood I didn’t have, I can’t conceive of what that childhood could have been like. So it’s hard, reading Mack’s memoir, because even as I feel for her and M., I’m also incredibly envious. I want M.’s childhood. I want her life. No, that’s not precisely it—I don’t really want to be coming of age during this tumultuous time for trans rights. But I’m getting emotional as I write this paragraph because I’m reflecting on how the massive sense of loss welling up from within me. Even though my transition has been an exceedingly happy one. Even though my parents have both been unfailingly affirming from the moment I came out. Through no individual person’s fault but rather through the fault of the society in which I grew up, I missed out in a way that M. won’t, thanks to Mack and her advocacy. That’s the power of this book. It’s a simple memoir told simply—Mack is not an exceptional writer, but her words are raw and honest. She avoids sensationalizing. She avoid being dramatic. When sucky stuff happens, she sketches an outline of the incident. Even those individual incidents are few and far between for the family, emphasizing how anti-transness and transphobia, much like racism, are more about systemic acts than individual ones. It isn’t the people in Mack or M.’s world that give them problems so much as it is the systems that make it hard for M. to live authentically—and, though this book was published just prior to the surge of anti-trans lawmaking the United States, the legislation or lack thereof to support transition, especially for trans kids. I don’t know what else to tell you. This book is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s not perfect. If you have read other trans memoirs or memoirs of trans parents, you will recognize many of the themes here—though like I said, every journey is unique. Mack herself acknowledges the privileges she and M. have, being white in America, being middle class enough to afford (if barely) a private school that’s more inclusive and affirming. Racialized trans kids have it even harder. Privilege aside, though, Mack’s story—and her daughter’s story, but M. is not old enough to tell it from her point of view yet and may never want to tell it, which is totally valid—matters. Would I recommend this to other trans people? Sure, though be prepared to find it provocative-on-the-verge-of-triggering like I did. More obviously, this memoir is for the cis folks in the room. You need to do your homework, especially if you’re a parent or becoming one soon—because, yeah, your kid could be trans. And that isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a thing, one thing among many that our society happens to make more difficult at the moment. So do your research. Read this book. Prepare yourself for the possibility, and if your kid doesn’t end up questioning their gender, cool—you’ll be ready to support your parent friends whose kids do go through this. The more we can do that, the more we can tear down these systems, the more kids who get to grow up like M.—or even more smoothly. And the fewer who grow up and realize later, like me—or who never grow up at all. Sorry to end it on a downer. It’s a good book. It’s important. But that’s really what this comes down to: survival. How to Be a Girl is a story of trust, of believing one’s child, and of coming through to the other side stronger as a family. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 30, 2024
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May 30, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0807006475
| 9780807006474
| 0807006475
| 4.33
| 10,431
| Jan 10, 2023
| Jan 10, 2023
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really liked it
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Embodiment is so strange. We all have bodies, but we don’t all have the same body. Some bodies are judged more than others. In “You Just Need to Lose
Embodiment is so strange. We all have bodies, but we don’t all have the same body. Some bodies are judged more than others. In “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People, Aubrey Gordon debunks twenty prevalent anti-fatness myths. Anti-fat bias is consistently the only form of discrimination that has increased over the past decades (other types have decreased or stayed roughly the same), and sometimes it is so pervasive that we don’t even realize we are engaging in it. Gordon, a white fat woman and cohost of the podcast Maintenance Phase, organizes her myth-busting into four parts: “Being Fat Is a Choice,” “But What About Your Health?,” “Fat Acceptance Glorifies Obesity,” and “Fat People Should….” She makes it clear that this book is an introductory guide aimed at thin readers like myself and designed to get us thinking about our implicit biases and the systemic biases of society. Most chapters include calls to action at the end: concrete steps someone can take to challenge the discrimination described in that chapter. Some of these myths I had already heard debunked, many from a longread written by Michael Hobbes, Gordon’s podcast cohost, in The Huffington Post called “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong.”. I already knew that being fat is not a choice, that exercise is not usually an effective way to lose weight, that there are many factors—some genetic or epigenetic—that contribute to weight gain. I knew the BMI is racist and anti-fat bullshit. Nevertheless, it was good to refresh myself and to hear about more of the science (or questionable science, in the case of studies that supposedly validate anti-fatness). I’ve long wondered how to take action against anti-fatness with what power I have as a thin person and an educator. Once upon a time, a student of mine chose to write a research essay all about the obesity epidemic. She tried to argue that fat acceptance is unhealthy. I remember being so uncomfortable reading it, but I also wasn’t sure how to challenge the student effectively. How do I speak up on an issue with which I have so little experience? Then again, I challenge students who inadvertently share racist myths all the time—why should this be different? So reading “You Just Need to Lose Weight” is important to me professionally as well as personally. On a personal note, there are connections I made while reading between Gordon’s discussion of body acceptance and my own journey in my thirties with transition. Even as my dysphoria decreases, I find myself surprisingly vulnerable to the anti-fat messages our society targets all women with. I find myself far more concerned about, obsessing over, my weight and my body shape than I did pre-transition. I won’t equate this to the struggles of fat people (especially fat trans women), for that would put me into Myth Nineteen territory—but I wanted to share for a moment the connections I was making to my own experiences. What I took from this was how, like any liberation in our society, challenging anti-fatness “lifts all boats.” It helps thin people as well as fat people—and I am not saying that’s why we should do it; obviously we should challenge anti-fatness simply because it’s the right thing to do. But I think it is important to note that anti-fatness shares its roots with anti-transness, anti-Blackness, etc.: white supremacist and patriarchal desires to control people’s bodies, particularly the bodies of people who aren’t white men. For that reason, I’m pleased that Gordon’s thesis trends more towards the systemic rather than the individual. Her points at the end of each chapter are individual actions (because that’s all we can do as individual readers). Yet her aims are social and systemic. This isn’t just about being “nicer” to fat people or more tolerant. This is about moving the fucking needle, about dismantling the systems that make it hard and expensive for fat people to fly or find clothing, the medical biases that prevent fat people from receiving dignified care. This slim volume packs more of a punch than you would expect, and I highly recommend every thin person reads it. I love how careful and inclusive it is when talking about gender, race, and disability. I love how focused and organized it is. I love how Gordon doesn’t coddle the reader, challenging us while simultaneously—I hope—motivating us to do better. This is a book that should make a difference. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
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May 27, 2024
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May 29, 2024
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Jun 25, 2024
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Paperback
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| 4.46
| 1,148,576
| Aug 09, 2022
| Aug 09, 2022
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really liked it
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Every time someone mentions iCarly, I feel old. This teen sitcom bookended my university years, 2007–2012, and as such its actors are my contemporarie
Every time someone mentions iCarly, I feel old. This teen sitcom bookended my university years, 2007–2012, and as such its actors are my contemporaries even though they play younger roles. It’s easily the kind of show I would have watched had it premiered five years prior. As it is, I never got into it, and so I knew precious little of Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, or indeed, Jennette McCurdy. So when my best friend gave me I’m Glad My Mom Died for Christmas a couple years prior, I shelved it with mild interest, waiting for the right moment to pull it down and start reading. This might not have been the right moment, but I read it. Wow. It has been a while since I read a book simultaneously so heavy yet so easy to get through. I’m not sure if McCurdy had a ghostwriter, but I really liked how she organized her thoughts and shared her story here. This memoir, pretty much chronological, starts in McCurdy’s early years as her mother pushes her into acting. It brings us through the iCarly years (McCurdy’s “big break”), past that, and then takes us just past her mother’s death. Divided into “Before” and “After” sections, the book is, not surprisingly, largely about McCurdy’s relationship with her mother and how that has influenced her career (not to mention her entire life). It’s equal parts fascinating and horrifying. McCurdy slices through stereotypes about actors like a Jedi with a light-sabre. She wasn’t born into the biz. Her family doesn’t come from wealth. She also wasn’t “discovered.” She gets into acting because her mom is incredibly stubborn and ambitious on her behalf, and when she slowly begins to find success, she isn’t launched into stardom overnight. Most of her money goes to her mother and her family’s bills, and even when she does splurge on something like a home, it proves a bit much for her. Similarly, McCurdy belies the conventional notions of child actors: she isn’t spoiled, and if she is a bit out of touch with what a typical childhood and adolescence is like, it might be more because she grew up Mormon and homeschooled than because she grew up acting. In this sense, I’m Glad My Mom Died is a clarion call to reform the acting business, especially where child actors are concerned. I don’t think anything that McCurdy shares in this book is surprising or even shocking. We have heard this story before, probably too many times—we just don’t listen. Tacitly, as a society, we accept that experiences like McCurdy’s are the price we pay so that we can have an endless rotating cast of child faces on our screens. Consider, for instance, everything she writes about Dan Schneider. McCurdy calls him only “the Creator” in this book, but it’s transparently obvious to whom she refers. Serendipitously, I started this just after Quiet on Set premiered (though I haven’t watched it yet), which does refer to Schneider by name. Everything I heard about him in the media surrounding this documentary matches with what McCurdy shares here. The structure of our television and movie industry is such that people who enjoy abusing positions of power find it relatively easy to carve out their own little fiefdoms—and we let them, because they are “geniuses” and “auteurs.” McCurdy’s abusive relationship with her mom is a whole other thing. It’s hard, reading her recollection of what her mom did to her. She strives to maintain a present tense, describing each memory as if it is happening in real-time rather than editorializing it. So she’ll be like, “Yeah, my mom showered with me,” and we the readers will be yelling, “That’s sexual abuse!” at the book until our voices are hoarse, but it isn’t until much later in the book that McCurdy processes that memory from that point of view. While effective at conveying how normalized her mom’s abusive behaviour felt, it’s also incredibly jarring. It’s no wonder McCurdy struggled to maintain even basic friendships, let alone deeper platonic or romantic relationships, even after her mom’s death. Good for her for quitting acting. Good for her for getting out. All these “where are they now” articles that talk about has-been stars who haven’t had another hit since their early days of acting tend to downplay any actor who has successfully left the business on their terms. It’s easy for me to say this, I guess, as someone who didn’t watch iCarly and didn’t fall in love with Sam Puckett. Most of the actors I’ve enjoyed who have since left acting seem to have done so because they joined cults and went to prison (yikes, Allison Mack). Though not a big part of this book, McCurdy occasionally mentions how unsettling it has been to have people recognize her almost exclusively as Sam, to request that she identify herself with Sam in a way that is essentially traumatic for her. I joke sometimes about being a fangirl, but I’m not sure I will ever have it in me to obsess so much over any one person, character, or TV show. (I mean, I did name myself after Kara Danvers, and I adore Melissa Benoist and Nicole Maines, but I like to think I do this at a healthy distance….) I’m Glad My Mom Died is a stellar if sad story. I hope that sharing it has helped McCurdy make some peace with how long it took her to get off the rails of her mother’s ambition and find her own. I wish her luck in whatever she is putting her hand to these days—even if it’s just growing a garden or, you know, existing. Everyone deserves to walk their own path. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 20, 2024
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May 21, 2024
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Jun 09, 2024
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ebook
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| 0306831252
| 9780306831256
| 0306831252
| 4.27
| 895
| unknown
| Mar 26, 2024
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really liked it
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With most memoirs, I already have a good sense of who the author is, like in the case of
Making It So
, and I’ve picked up the memoir because I’m i
With most memoirs, I already have a good sense of who the author is, like in the case of
Making It So
, and I’ve picked up the memoir because I’m interested in hearing their story in their own words. In the case of But Everyone Feels This Way, I hadn’t heard of Paige Layle before. Instagram recommended a Reel by her. I don’t remember the Reel or what she said in it, but she mentioned her book coming out soon. I was intrigued, looked it up, and was able to get an eARC through NetGalley/Hachette. Paige Layle is a twenty-three-year-old from Ontario, Canada—the same province as me, and a fact I only realized when I was well into the book and noticed she was using a lot of Canadian school terms, like saying “Grade 3” instead of “third grade,” and then she mentioned Toronto, and I was like, “CANADIAN. WE HAVE A CANADIAN HERE. FROM ONTARIO LIKE ME.” Sorry, I get unreasonably excited when unexpected Ontarians show up in my to-read list. Anyway, Layle is quite young to write a memoir, but they are passionate about being an autism communicator. Layle takes us chronologically through their life, sharing how they struggled through early childhood and adolescence. She expected her autism diagnosis, received at fifteen, to change everything and was surprised when it didn’t—but it allowed her to better express her needs, work on her relationship with her mom, and figure out what she wanted after high school. Autism as a condition is drastically misunderstood. At its core, But Everyone Feels This Way is a first-person account of “discovering” autism. It has two major audiences: allistic people like myself who want to learn more about autistic people’s experiences, and young, neurodivergent people who might be autistic and not realize it. For that latter group, I hope some of them find this book illuminating. Women in particular are underrepresented among autism diagnoses. This compounds misunderstandings about what it means to be autistic, what “#ActuallyAutistic” looks like, as the hashtag might say. I briefly perused Layle’s Instagram as I prepared to write this review, and I noticed a disturbing trend of comments like so: “You aren’t autistic, stop pretending. If you were autistic you wouldn’t be able to talk to us like this.” Now, it’s no surprise that the comments are a toxic trashfire. Still, I think these comments represent an unwillingness among the public to believe that autistic people can be verbal, can communicate with grace and elegance, can have complex and nuanced takes on things. This comes down to stereotypes—but I’d argue it’s also symptom of insecurity among neurotypical and allistic people who are invested in the idea that autism is something to be feared rather than embraced, at best tolerated as opposed to accepted and even celebrated. It’s these people whom Layle hopes to disarm, I think. But Everyone Feels This Way is quite raw and pointed. While some will call Layle’s style simplistic, there is a difference between simplistic and simple, and Layle’s writing is the latter. It’s clear, and it’s honest—allistic readers are just used to people not saying exactly what they mean, engaging in ellipsis, etc. While I won’t litigate the legitimacy of Layle’s autism, let me say that Layle’s writing is, to me, one of the clearest indicators that they are autistic. It’s not bad writing; it’s just different from the range of styles that tend to be drummed into neurotypical writers—and if that isn’t your thing, cool, but I think you would be missing out. What I found most compelling about this book is how Layle builds, layer by layer, our understanding of her experience of autism as she moves through the each year of her life. I like to think I had a good handle on general facts about autism, many of which Layle shares in various fact-box sidebars throughout the book. However, there is a difference between holding a mental list of autistic traits in my head and actually hearing an autistic person describe how she embodies and experiences those traits on a daily basis. In this way, this book serves its primary purpose as a memoir: to build a richer empathy for autistic life than a work of more general reference nonfiction could ever achieve. As a teacher, I found the chapters in which Layle is in high school very helpful and challenging. She describes in detail the process of getting an IEP, an individual education plan (this is the point where I realized she’s in Ontario) and how some teachers would abide by this plan while others would … not. This doesn’t surprise met, but it does sadden me. I would like more Ontario high school teachers to read this book so they can hear directly from an autistic person why the accommodations in an IEP are not niceties, not wants, but needs. The problem, Layle makes clear here, is not Layle themself. It’s that we built our society for neurotypical people, so neurodivergent people are often at a disadvantage in meeting expectations. School is difficult because you need to be quiet, sit still, not challenge your teacher’s authority or expertise even if you’re confused by how they are teaching you, etc. Neurotypical people, and most allistic, neurodivergent people like myself, learn how to play the game well enough to mostly fit in. (In my case, for example, I can relate to a lot of Layle’s experience in terms of being highly intelligent and academically motivated while not very socially involved. However, I didn’t experience her struggles to understand her teachers’ or peers’ emotions and motivations, so I had an easier time figuring out “how to behave” in high school. This is the privilege of an allistic brain.) Ironically, for a book with a subtitle all about the diagnosis itself, this aspect of the book seems to be the least well-developed. I thought it was really interesting how Layle admits to disappointment that their diagnosis did not magically fix how people relate to them—there is a particular scene between Layle and their former best friend that highlights this keenly. I wish Layle had gone more into this side of things, but instead she focuses more on how the diagnosis changed her family dynamic. This isn’t a perfect book, and of course it behoves me to observe that Layle in many ways fits the mould of influencer: young, white, woman. But Everyone Feels This Way runs the risk of being elevated into some universal tale of autistic experience because we would like it to be that simple. We like it when we can read one book about something and say we know about that identity. But it’s not that simple, of course. Layle can’t speak for all autistic people, doesn’t pretend to, and if you expect this to be a general crash course in autism, look elsewhere. Although there are some basic definitions and facts sprinkled throughout, this book is a memoir first—it just happens to be a memoir by an Actually Autistic person. And that, in my opinion, is a good enough reason to pick it up. Layle’s unrelenting honesty, the way she matter-of-factly links her struggles to her suicide ideation and attempts, is a good enough reason to keep reading to the end. Because ultimately this is a book about someone trying to come to terms with the fact that the world was not built for them—and the people for whom it was built have no idea just how different things seem the people on the outside. Sometimes bemused, sometimes distraught, sometimes nonchalant, Layle’s memories reveal the kaleidoscope of rich, wonderful, uplifting, terrifying truths that accompany being a young autistic person coming of age in the 2010s and navigating adulthood in the 2020s. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 19, 2024
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Mar 20, 2024
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Apr 07, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 052551144X
| 9780525511441
| 052551144X
| 4.18
| 362
| Mar 12, 2024
| Mar 12, 2024
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liked it
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Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t l
Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t learn the true history of the US in school. The same goes for Canada, where we learn about the enslavement of African people in the US, but we don’t learn about slavery in Canada or our own history of anti-Black racism following abolition. So I do my best to read and learn, especially from Black women. In You Get What You Pay For, Morgan Parker engages with the legacy of slavery and nearly four centuries of anti-Blackness on this continent. Her tone is brutally forthright, holding nothing back as she looks at how the shape of American society has influenced her life. In an era that has too long billed itself post-racial or colour-blind, Parker insists that, yes, you need to see her race in order to see the arc of her life so far. I received an eARC from NetGalley and Penguin Random House in exchange for a review. This is an essay collection loosely masquerading as memoir and following a rough chronology of Parker’s life. She returns to a few regular motifs throughout: her next therapist, the slave ship as a metaphor for living under white supremacy in the US, the impossibility of survival for so many Black people as a result of police brutality. Many of the essays engage with seminal moments of the American zeitgeist in the past couple decades: the ascension of Serena and Venus Williams, Ye’s infamous remark about George W. Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the trial of Bill Cosby. Parker acknowledges the complexity of her subject while writing with an appealing simplicity. Some of her discussions of her therapists reminded me of It’s Always Been Ours , by Jessica Wilson. Both books were illuminating. We white women often fail to consider race as a factor in our professional interactions, whether it’s therapy, treatment for eating disorders, or in my case, teaching. Which is not to say that race is the only factor in finding a good fit with a professional. But as Parker makes clear in this book, it wasn’t until she found a Black female therapist that she was finally able to connect in a way that was authentic and useful for her. Her white therapists prior lacked the experience and ancestors required to see all of Parker. That’s what we are talking about here. Seeing. Seeing the weight of intergenerational trauma. Seeing resilience not as a buzzword (“oh, you are so strong”) but as a rebellion against being put into a box. Seeing and understanding that racism isn’t simply, “Oh, people are mean to you because of your skin colour?”—racism is a kaleoidoscope of Rubik’s cubes of dominoes that fall every single day. It’s a behemoth, visible and invisible at the same time. You Get What You Pay For is dolorous at times. It lacks the rah-rah inspirational tone that we have come to demand from racialized writers. This is my first time reading anything by Parker that I can recall, so my point of comparison is to Roxane Gay, who is likewise unapologetic in her take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards her opinions. This is something we unthinkingly praise in white writers but often see as too adversarial or cynical in Black writers. While Parker has obviously met with a fair amount of success, she opens up and discusses how that hasn’t always translated into better mental health. This reminds me of Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey’s Harvard Business Review article, “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome”. Before I read that article, I probably would have labelled Parker’s description of her experiences as imposter syndrome. Now I know better. Now I know that the driving force is systemic, misogynoir. At the same time, I think it’s important to emphasize that this collection is not hopeless. It’s just honest. You won’t exit it with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and you aren’t meant to. Now, that might not be what you want on your reading schedule right now—and I don’t blame you; I won’t pretend that I revelled in reading this. At the same time, I did fly through it, for as bleak as this book feels sometimes, Parker’s writing is also compelling. Intergenerational trauma is no joke. White supremacy is alive and well in the US, as well as here in Canada. You Get What You Pay For brings a powerful voice to the conversation. Above all else, Parker insists that survival is not enough. She wants her life to be hers, as she should. Freedom on paper is not freedom in reality. Not yet. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 12, 2024
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Mar 14, 2024
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Mar 29, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1942254199
| 9781942254195
| 1942254199
| 4.44
| 104
| unknown
| May 20, 2023
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liked it
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When you really think about it, the idea of gender is such a fraught concept. How can we ever really know our gender? What even is gender, anyway? It
When you really think about it, the idea of gender is such a fraught concept. How can we ever really know our gender? What even is gender, anyway? It shouldn’t be surprising I have spent a great deal of time in recent years thinking about this, yet I don’t know that I am any closer to an answer. So I was very intrigued by Gender Without Identity, by Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini. This discussion of gender formation from a psychoanalytical perspective, along with thoughts on practical application to the field of analysis, seeks to challenge a lot of ideas about what’s “normal” for gender. I received a review copy. I went into this book hoping to be challenged. It has been almost four years now since I transitioned. Much of that time has been spent rebuilding my identity around my new understanding of my gender. It isn’t easy. I know, and am confirmed in this knowledge with each passing day, that I am much, much happier living as a woman in this world (despite all the challenges attendant in our misogynistic, patriarchal, transphobic society). Transition has not only been a joyful experience for me; it has provided me with perspective and courage to grow in ways beyond or in addition to gender. At the same time, four years in, I’m not sure I have any better grasp on what gender actually means to me. Am I a woman because the label of “woman” enables me to feel more comfortable expressing myself in the ways I want to express myself? Am I a woman because there is, deep down within me, something intrinsically and ineffably feminine? I just don’t know. Gender Without Identity takes the perhaps unsettling position that this uncertainty is irrelevant, because gender itself is process rather than permanence. Key to this book is Saketopoulou and Pellegrini approach to gender, which rejects what they call “core gender identity” in favour of
They are quick to establish, however, that they are not seeking to invalidate how queer and trans people express the “story of their own origin” even if it includes “born this way” or other such core narratives. Rather, their approach to gender without identity is one of psychoanalytical praxis: it is most useful, they argue, for analysts to look at gender in this way, whether the subject they are working with identifies as cis or trans. Reading this made me think of Julia Serano and her theory of intrinsic inclination as outlined in Whipping Girl . Serano, a biologist, was unsatisfied with the idea that trans people’s identities are purely social construct yet also thought that locating transness within a purely biological cause was insufficient as well. At first glance, one might think this is incompatible with Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s conception of gender as experience rather than identity. I’m not so sure. I think that both interpretations have value. Certainly, I recognize now in hindsight that I have always had inclinations towards the feminine long before I understood that being transgender was an option for how to label myself. On the other hand, Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s framework helps elucidate why so many trans people, myself included, only come to realize ourselves later in life. It isn’t just that I didn’t know that being trans was an option; additionally, I hadn’t yet reached a point where I was ready to improvise in that way. So I appreciate that this book did indeed challenge me to think carefully about what I even mean when I say “gender.” I also appreciate Saketopoulou and Pellegrini’s unequivocal affirmation of the validity of trans and nonbinary identities:
I am not at all familiar with psychoanalysis and am perhaps wary of it (or maybe just wary of Freud, let’s be honest). My experiences with psychotherapy have been positive. Nevertheless, I know I am an outlier among trans people in that regard, and it doesn’t surprise me to learn that psychoanalysis as a field needs to grow. Hopefully books like Gender Without Identity have the desired effect in that regard. For those of us outside the field, this book can still be useful (as my earlier musings demonstrate). However, be forewarned that the writing is clinical, full of jargon and vocabulary that, quite honestly, challenged even me. Saketopoulou and Pellegrini are not writing for a general audience—which is fine, not a criticism of the book but definitely a caution for the general reader. I won’t pretend I understood fully everything that they discuss in the book. But I did enjoy this glimpse into how analysts and therapists approach these concepts, as well as the challenges of dragging the field kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. So from this position, I found Gender Without Identity to be what I expected: challenging, occasionally inscrutable, yet altogether quite clever and thought-provoking. While I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to just anyone, for someone who is curious about the intersections of psychology and gender, I think this is an important and powerful read. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 05, 2024
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Jan 14, 2024
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Jan 29, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1982167734
| 9781982167738
| 1982167734
| 4.32
| 14,850
| Oct 03, 2023
| Oct 03, 2023
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really liked it
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Anyone who knows me knows that Star Trek is my first fandom. Before Doctor Who. Before Supergirl, the show that gave me my name. I have watched and re
Anyone who knows me knows that Star Trek is my first fandom. Before Doctor Who. Before Supergirl, the show that gave me my name. I have watched and rewatched Star Trek to the point where it is now in my DNA. I love all the series (albeit not equally), but Captain Picard is my captain. So, naturally, when I learned Patrick Stewart had written a memoir, I had a mighty need. Thankfully, my dad gave it to me for Christmas! Thanks, Dad! The structure is a simple chronological one, starting from Stewart’s birth and early childhood in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, and moving from there into his acting career and adult life. It culminates in discussing his two most well-known roles (Captain Picard and Professor Xavier) along with his more recent stage acting, his marriage to Sunny Ozell, and his feelings on the pandemic as well as reprising Captain Picard for Star Trek: Picard. It’s easy to read—beautifully written, in fact. I’m not sure if he had a ghostwriter, but if he didn’t, I’m impressed. My favourite line was, “If I kill Paul McCartney, it will be the only thing I will be remembered for.” (Spoiler alert: Stewart did not kill Paul McCartney.) Making It So, despite its allusive title, does not spend as much time on Stewart’s Next Generation days as one might hope. This is not a tell-all behind-the-scenes memoir of all the hijinks on the sets of the Enterprise-D. I suspected, as I read, that some would be disappointed, and reading other reviews has subsequently confirmed this. While that’s a valid opinion to hold, I think it’s an unfortunate one. If you’re willing to open yourself up to a different experience, there is a lot to discover through this memoir. First and foremost, this is a love letter to the performing arts and to Shakespeare in particular. Stewart is unequivocal: he only got to where he is today because of state funding for the arts, luck, and people with pull who saw potential in a country kid. I really enjoyed learning more about his early childhood, how he grew up post-war first in a one up, one down house before his family moved into a slightly more spacious council house. How acting captured his heart, and the hoops through which he had to jump to get a serious chance at it. There’s a lot of humour and lightheartedness to Stewart’s stories. Captain Picard is usually a stern figure (with a kind heart), but Patrick Stewart strikes me as a mischievous softie. Capable of summoning great rigour and dedication when needed for his craft, Stewart can also recount his involvement in practical jokes, amorous adventures, and silly moments of good fun. He tells you all of these stories with a smile and a wink, never taking himself too seriously. At the same time, there are serious and sad parts too. Stewart frankly discusses his father’s abuse of his mother. I had some inkling of this, for I had read how this had influenced the second season of Star Trek: Picard. Nevertheless, it hits different when the actual events are discussed in the context of Stewart’s childhood. I appreciate Stewart discussing this so openly in this book, for it provided me with great insight into the complexities of growing up in a situation of domestic abuse. Even as he recognized, as a child, that his father’s behaviour was unacceptable, he continued to learn from his father and seek his father’s approval as a man. Stewart is also very open about his romantic relationships, from flings to his three marriages. Perhaps more surprising is how open he is about the role that his cheating played on the dissolution of the first two marriages. I imagine many will judge him for that, and fair enough. Maybe I judged a little too. Yet if perfection is our bar for someone to write a memoir, no celebrity—indeed, no one—would be allowed to write one. Told from Stewart’s perspective, of course he is liable to make himself look like the good guy—so the fact that he cops to being the bad guy on more than one occasion makes me respect him all the more. I try very hard not to have idols, especially not celebrity ones, for they will inevitably let one down. There is something comforting in the fact that Patrick Stewart, who certainly approaches something I would say I idolize, has done his best in this book not to set himself up as someone to idolize, if that makes any sense. There is also a sense of sadness in the way that Stewart discusses how so many important people in his life have passed away. At eighty-three, of course, this is to be expected. Statistically speaking, he is beating the odds, and the cruel irony of survival is that the longer one sustains it, the more one sees loved ones … not. As he eloquently espouses his deep affection, appreciation, or admiration for someone, only to pivot and remark, “and I was deeply saddened when…,” it becomes a bit of a refrain through the book. I sit here, thirty-four years old, fortunate enough not to have lost that many people close to me just yet, pondering how I might feel if I reach Stewart’s age. Perhaps this introspection hits all the harder for how well Stewart recalls and, more impressively, recapitulates the energetic and brash youthfulness that is such a curious contrast to the statesmanlike composure for which he is most known on stage and screen. Indeed, this lifetime of performance is, above all else, the central theme of Making It So. Even more so than his marriages or his acting career, however, Shakespeare emerges from this book as the biggest love of Stewart’s life. His experience with Shakespeare seems obvious to me in his portrayal of Picard; not only does it influence every fibre of Picard’s characterization, but the character himself occasionally quoted the Bard, had a book of Shakespeare’s plays on display in the Enterprise-D ready room, and tutored Data in performing Shakespeare. I can understand how reassuring it might feel that, in a time as far removed from us as we are from Shakespeare, his words might yet offer guidance and consolation. For Stewart, as he tells it here, it is clear that these plays and sonnets offer great value. It’s wonderful, listening to him geek out about something that is clearly his passion. Making It So is a finely tuned memoir that is overall neither saccharine nor bittersweet, though it has moments of both. Stewart shares plenty of juicy details and intimate moments with us in tones variously sly and tender, affected and genuine. Diehard TNG fans will be disappointed that this is not solely, or even principally, about that part of Stewart’s career—but I think it is a mistake to make that the fulcrum around which one balances judgement of this book. I love that Stewart embraces so fully that vital and powerful character, to the point where he agreed to return to it one more time—yet while there might be more Patrick Stewart in Jean-Luc Picard than in any of his other characters, he is not that character. His story, as a living, breathing, real human being of the twentieth century deserves its own remarkable recounting as much as that of a fictional twenty-fourth-century explorer. Picard’s mission was to boldly go; with Making It So, Patrick Stewart shares with us how he has boldly gone. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 29, 2023
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Dec 31, 2023
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Jan 20, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 9798888900574
| B0BYDCQ3XQ
| 4.44
| 135
| unknown
| Jul 04, 2023
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really liked it
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White supremacy is a problem for all of us, not just Black people. But Black people are best positioned to critique it—and to defend the need for acad
White supremacy is a problem for all of us, not just Black people. But Black people are best positioned to critique it—and to defend the need for academic responses to it. As Florida and other US states decry “critical race theory” i schools, Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies is just that. Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor have selected a treasure trove of historic essays that explicate the need for strong academic programs that focus on studying Black literature, Black histories, Black cultures—both within the African American context and beyond. I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. As I often do with these kinds of books, I like to start off with a positionality disclaimer: I am, of course, a white woman. This book will hit differently for me than it will for Black readers. The book also acknowledges that it is very focused on the United States, and therefore on anti-Black racism through the lens of African American enslavement and oppression. The editors have done this on purpose to make sure the volume is slim and accessible. I understand that desire, and it was probably the right call—yet my biggest takeaway, having now read all these essays, is that I need more. I’m Canadian, so my familiarity with and relationship to the history of slavery and other, often ongoing anti-Black racism will be different from American readers. That being said, Canada desperately needs more Black studies here, at every level of the education system. So much of this book still applies north of the border! Another strength of this book is how it focuses on historic writings over contemporary. The first two parts, the bulk, are taken up by these essays—or more often than not, excerpts from what are much longer pieces. At first I was annoyed by this strategy, but now I see the value in it: if I was moved enough by one of the excerpts, it is easy enough for me to locate the full-length version elsewhere. This way, Kaepernick and the others expose readers to a wider cross-section of discourse from Black thinkers and writers. I like it. Some of the authors are famous names you have (hopefully) heard of, such as Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, etc. Others might be more niche but no less talented, no less important. I particularly want to highlight “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” by Barbara Smith from 1977. Smith, cofounder of the Combahee River Collective, argues that Black women have too long been invisible in their contributions to literature and art. Black women writers and artists need spaces to share their experiences without being erased by white feminists or by Black men. Smith especially highlights the plight of Black lesbian writers, who face three axes of oppression. In this way I hear a lot of echoes of critiques from Audre Lorde or bell hooks. Indeed, the writing of Black women is so important to elevate and amplify for exactly the reasons that Smith gives in this short excerpt. A feminism built exclusively on the complaints and experiences of white, straight women will never liberate all women. This collection goes hard, by the way—I hope that was obvious from what I said above. These essays don’t pull their punches; if you were looking for something to coddle white fragility, don’t expect anything here. This book makes it very clear that Black people in the US are fighting for survival, still, and that Black studies programs and Black literature are vital to that survival. Part 3 caps the book with three essays written for the collection. They emphasize the need for resistance against the unjust laws and censorship occurring within the academy and the wider education system in the US. Again, as specific as this book is to that context, these ideas are taking root in other places around the world, so these essays are still relevant. This book is an excellent collection of thoughts, arguments, and purposeful expressions of resistance and struggle. It epitomizes why racists are so terrified of allowing critical thinking and history to be taught in schools, of why they are working so hard to ban these books and ideas from classrooms and lecture theatres. Black scholars, Black writers, Black thinkers have always been at the forefront of anti-oppressive thought and action. Now they need our help. Our History Has Always Been Contraband reminds readers that it’s the same dance, just a different tune: the struggle has existed for centuries, and it’s time to fight again. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Oct 23, 2023
not set
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Nov 04, 2023
not set
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Dec 09, 2023
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Paperback
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| 1804291242
| 9781804291245
| 1804291242
| 4.17
| 850
| Sep 05, 2023
| Sep 05, 2023
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really liked it
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Back in my day, the internet used to be better. I feel old saying that—I only just turned thirty-four—but it is true. When I first started using the i
Back in my day, the internet used to be better. I feel old saying that—I only just turned thirty-four—but it is true. When I first started using the internet in the early 2000s, the web had become functional enough to be fun, the walled gardens of nineties CompuServe and AOL had come down, and anyone (including fourteen-year-old Kara) could make a website for free on a place like Geocities. And then it all got terrible. Or, as fellow Canadian writer Cory Doctorow puts it, “enshittified.” But unlike yours truly, Doctorow doesn’t just want to complain about this problem: he also has a plan to fix it! Enter The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a book-length distillation of thoughts he has been putting out for, well, about as long as I have been alive at this point. Doctorow writes and speaks about enshittification and interoperability (the two main motifs of this book) quite a bit—I recommend this essay in particular if you want a sense of his writing style and ideas before diving into this book. Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review. Let’s break this down in to the two parts of the book’s title. “The Internet Con” refers to that first concept I mentioned, enshittification. Basically, it means that in the current regulatory climate, Big Tech corporations have a financial incentive—indeed, one might argue they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders—to make their services worse in a way that locks users into them. (As an aside, credit to the CBC radio program Spark for pointing out to me that only tech companies and drug dealers refer to their customers as users….) There’s more to unpack here—which is what Doctorow spends the first part of the book doing—but there are plenty of simple examples. Social networks like Instagram don’t offer strictly chronological feeds anymore (though that might be changing, at least for some, thanks to new EU regulations) because those feeds don’t keep people engaged very long, which means they serve us up fewer ads. Apple has total control over what runs on an iPhone because that locks you in to their ecosystem. And so on. Doctorow attributes much enshittification to weak laws (in the United States, but exported to or emulated by other countries) around monopoly and monopsony. Doctorow’s solution? Legislate interoperability, i.e., force companies to allow others to play on their playground, to make systems that interface with their own, etc. This ensures users’ data can be portable and also gives companies incentives to make their apps, etc., you know, actually good—because there will be competition. Big Tech is, understandably, opposed to interoperability. Doctorow spends most of the second half of the book explaining how a couple of types of interoperability work, and he gives examples of successes in history—a notable one being how the VHS tape won out over Betamax. There’s a lot to love about The Internet Con. Doctorow effortlessly moves among the domains of history, law, economics, and more. He provides important context, stirs up resentment, and then proffers up platefuls of hope. That’s my main takeaway from this book, and it feels so necessary in our current climate of ever-increasing prices for worse and worse streaming services, not to mention the walled gardens of social networks. I really appreciate that Doctorow adamantly insists something can be done. His utter rejection of Big Tech as it currently exists at the apotheosis of late-stage capitalism is also so refreshing. I’ve been spending too much time on LinkedIn lately (one of the hazards of starting a freelance copyediting business, lol). Too many people on that platform talk about “creating change” in tech, usually through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. But then they turn around and embrace super problematic trends, like crypto or generative AI. It feels so rare these days to see a cis white man selling a book that says “down with Big Tech!” The book ends kind of abruptly. There isn’t really a conclusion; the last chapter is called “What about Blockchain?” and focuses on debunking that as a potential solution (following a series of chapters where Doctorow addresses a single objection or alternative to mandating interoperability). Then there’s a further reading list and an index, and that’s it. I found that peculiar—it must be deliberate, perhaps to send the message that this fight is far from over. Or maybe Doctorow just thought he had made his point clear and didn’t want to overstay his welcome—the book is under 200 pages, and I respect that. Though some of Doctorow’s digressions into history or economics might require people to reread them a couple of times to fully grasp what he’s saying, his writing overall is super accessible. This is actually the first nonfiction book by Doctorow that I’m reviewing here—but I’m starting to get the impression that I enjoy his nonfiction writing far more than I do his fiction projects. His voice and style in his novels just doesn’t do it for me—it’s far too polemical, too bare, which I don’t want in my stories but love in my nonfiction. The Internet Con is a book about what is wrong with the internet and Big Tech and, more importantly, provides a roadmap to fix it. Doctorow has been around long enough to understand these problems and advocate for workable solutions. Now he’s explaining it in a way that all us laypeople can understand, so that we can do the work of organizing and, as he puts it, seizing the means of computation. It’s time to get interoperable, baby. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 16, 2023
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 28, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0992009669
| 9780992009663
| 0992009669
| 4.00
| 1
| unknown
| Oct 05, 2022
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really liked it
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The rallying cry of so much reactionary thought in politics and education is, of course, “But this is the way we have always done it.” This is seldom
The rallying cry of so much reactionary thought in politics and education is, of course, “But this is the way we have always done it.” This is seldom true. So much of our modern systems emerged from the paradigm shift that was the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, of course, you have the tech bros at the opposite end of the spectrum claiming that their innovation is the next paradigm shift, that crypt or “AI” or whatever will prompt a dramatic reorganization of society. Maybe, but I doubt it. In any event, the trick, as it usually is with these things, is to figure out the way forward between those two extremes. Too much change all the time is chaotic and unworkable. But to insist that we can never change up a system, even when we readily admit its flaws, is unethical. In Can this be School?: Fifty years of democracy at ALPHA, Deb O’Rourke chronicles the history of a prominent alternative school in Toronto. ALPHA is an exemplar—for those crying “we have always done it this way,” ALPHA’s half-century of operation belies their implicit claim that alternative schools are new or a fad. O’Rourke believes ALPHA offers lessons learned for any other school boards or communities seeking to rethink mass education. The author and publisher provided me with a review copy. Told roughly chronologically, this book presents eighteen chapters of history, quotations from interviews with former students and parents, and meticulous research that documents not only ALPHA’s genesis but the political and cultural forces at work in Toronto in the sixties and seventies that allowed for that genesis in the first place. This is sourced and structured like a thesis (which it was originally), though it has a more personal and admiring tone than a thesis might have—O’Rourke was a parent and employee of ALPHA for a time and obviously believes in the school’s mission. That being said, she freely catalogs the school’s failures as well as its successes—though it’s worth noting that even the idea of categorizing such things into failure and success is suspect if the framework we are using is the one established by over a century of mass schooling. I come to this book as somewhat of an alternative educator with over ten years (cannot believe I can write that) of teaching experience. Trained here in Canada, I taught in England for the first two years of my career before returning home. Then I was hired at the adult high school. It’s on the opposite end of the age spectrum from ALPHA but otherwise is very similar: part of our school board yet unlike the other high schools, always slightly misunderstood by other stakeholders in the education system. Indeed, the concerted effort not to discuss alternative education in our media and everyday conversation is, when you pause to think about it, rather astounding. If it is mentioned, it is almost always in the context of critical discussions about homeschooling. Every few years you get a “gee, whiz” article about an alternative school like an Africentric one, or a school established by a First Nation—almost always acting as if this is a brand-new phenomenon rather than the latest instance in a long line of resistance. Nobody talks about adult education that is not post-secondary, and few people outside of education talk about alternative schools. In spite of my longstanding involvement in alternative education, it should give you an idea of how vast the province of Ontario is that here in Thunder Bay I had never heard of ALPHA down in Toronto. Thus, I went into this book expecting to be sympathetic to the concept but also skeptical. Given its longevity and the glowing reviews it receives from former students and parents, why has ALPHA’s success not been replicated more? Why does it persist when other efforts have failed? Or is it too good to be true, and will I have to read between O’Rourke’s lines to discover the sinister conspiracy afoot to mould young minds into radical progressives bent on establishing a new world order? (OK, probably not that last one.) A few running themes emerge over the course of the book: the importance of parental involvement and commitment, the impossibility of being everything to everyone, and the challenges of maintaining true independence and alternative ideals in a system not designed for them. ALPHA’s successes and failures correlated quite a bit with its ability to involve parents in the day-to-day running of the school. O’Rourke chronicles the value found in Meeting, an all-hands affair at the end of each school day attended by parents but coordinated by the students. When ALPHA lost its ability to do full-day kindergarten, it was a blow to Meeting because parents who might otherwise be picking up their youngest ones would have trouble attending. In a school where freedom of activity for students is such a big part of its DNA, having enough volunteers to supervise and assist, when necessary, is huge. This has opened up ALPHA and other alternative schools in its vein to accusations of elitism, something O’Rourke addresses here. It’s true that ALPHA’s model specifically works best for middle-class families whose parents have the flexibility to volunteer in some way. It’s also true that ALPHA had, for a time, difficulty attracting nonwhite students and families. I appreciate O’Rourke’s willingness to engage with these shortcomings and discuss them honestly, for I think it can be damaging to alternative schooling movements—especially progressive ones—to make antiracism an afterthought in their missions. O’Rourke documents how ALPHA has, over the decades, sought to improve its admissions process and otherwise expand. At the same time, she also emphasizes that ALPHA is not the be all end all of alternative schooling. That’s an important point that I often think gets lost in these discussions of reforming or revolutionizing education. The whole point is to get rid of mass education in favour of something that I would argue is more compassionate (holistic is another good, albeit somewhat loaded, term). Different communities are going to have different needs and desires; a single model (especially one predicated on Eurocentric ideals and ideas of intelligence and learning) cannot satisfy all of them. These models prove themselves time and again. Yet the proliferation of alternative schools within the Toronto District School Board at the same time that they tend to fly under the radar of the public’s awareness attests to the disconnect and discomfort that even the board itself has with these models. O’Rourke looks at this through her own memories as a young radical and the writings of her contemporaries, along with documentation from school board meetings, reports, etc. As a younger teacher, I found this recounting invaluable. I grew up during the Mike Harris government of the nineties. As Ford’s government recapitulates, quite literally, the neoliberal “back to basics” model that Harris and Snobelen introduced when I was a child, Can this be School? feels more and more relevant to the here and now. These battles in education are cyclical, each generation fighting the same fight, gaining or giving ground as economic and cultural pressures allow. Consequently, it is vital that we do not forget our history so that we can learn from our successes and avoid repeating the mistakes from the previous cycle. In this sense, Can this be school? succeeds. It is not quite a blueprint nor is it quite an oral history, but it has elements of both. It doesn’t quite offer a structural analysis of what else, outside of education, in our society must change to make alternative schooling more palatable and practical on a larger scale. However, what it does offer is detail and salient analysis of a single alternative school in the context of the larger alternative-schooling movement. ALPHA is not the only way to do alternative school; nevertheless, I would say this book goes on the required reading list for alternative schooling. I found it reassuring—so much of what O’Rourke describes of ALPHA is present, albeit in more adult-friendly forms, in my praxis, so there was a little preening happening as I read this on my deck. I also found it galvanizing. I can’t speak to how a parent or interested party who isn’t a teacher would find it, but for teachers less familiar with alternative education, I think this book is a good place to start. It’s up to date, complete, and careful to acknowledge that this could be school—but the choice is ultimately up to the communities a school will serve. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 29, 2023
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Aug 04, 2023
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Aug 14, 2023
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0306827697
| 9780306827693
| 0306827697
| 4.49
| 214
| Feb 07, 2023
| Feb 07, 2023
|
really liked it
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Bodies are complicated. In addition to the indignity of merely having one, the way it constantly needs maintenance and has such a limited warranty, bo
Bodies are complicated. In addition to the indignity of merely having one, the way it constantly needs maintenance and has such a limited warranty, bodies are one of the primary ways we interact with our world. And our world is racist. It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies is Jessica Wilson’s attempt to sort through how anti-Black racism permeates diet culture and eating-disorder treatment when it comes to Black women. I found it super insightful and easy to read; Wilson is making a valuable contribution to what should be a much larger conversation. I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for a review. First, my positionality in the conversation on body image, body liberation, and most importantly, race and racism. I’m a white woman, and I am tall and thin. I have the economic purchasing power to ensure I can buy the Healthy foods and products we’re supposed to buy, and I have the privilege of looking such that when I choose to buy junk food, people don’t roll their eyes or mutter under their breath as I do so. My upbringing, education, and access to opportunities and healthcare—none of these things have been adversely impacted by racism; if anything, I am the beneficiary of white supremacy in our society. My identity as a transgender woman complicates this story of privilege. As Wilson herself notes in this book, queer bodies also get policed. I have a complicated relationship with my body and how I am read (or not read) as conforming to feminine beauty standards. But mine is a white queer body, not a Black queer body; I don’t intend to equate my struggles with body image to the struggles faced by Black women and people of marginalized gender experiences. As I hope I made clear in my introduction, I loved this book. However, I’m also not the best qualified to critique it—Wilson explicitly states in her introduction that this book is intended for Black women. So I just want to foreground the voices of some Black reviewers: Christina, Sarah, and Nariah on Goodreads. As I discuss my impressions of this book, keep in mind that my opinion and perspective aren’t as attuned to what Wilson is trying to accomplish as those of her target audience. When I started reading It’s Always Been Ours, I was expecting a book that discussed medical anti-Black racism and threw lots of facts about Black women’s bodies at me. I thought we would get a lot of history of anti-fatness and wellness culture. Indeed, these elements run through the book. However, Wilson more explicitly and emphatically grounds her narrative in discussions of white supremacy and the need to dismantle it. In other words, this book is actually very aligned with a lot of the antiracist reading I’ve been doing, a perfect addition to that shelf, if you will. Wilson is critical of any analysis of eating disorders and diet culture that acknowledges racism’s role in these issues as only one of many factors. She observes,
This hit me because I am absolutely guilty of minimizing racism in this way. Look, language is complicated. The terms we use to describe the struggle are always evolving. Sometimes—especially, I think, those of us who are more verbose—we trip ourselves up in our desire to be as expansive in our terms as we can be. When that happens, we actually end up erasing important differences (a good example of this is the tendency to lump together very disparate experiences under the umbrella label of “BIPOC”). So I appreciated Wilson’s adamant stance that we treat racism as baked in to diet culture. In other words, there should be no conversation about Black women’s bodies that does not explicitly centre the role of white supremacy in creating the standards for those bodies. This thesis might seem obvious. Yet Wilson shares many stories from her experience as an eating-disorder specialist that belies this. Most of her patients come to her seeking quick fixes, reassurance, granular plans to adjust their eating habits to help them feel better about their bodies. They resist doing the work she asks them to do to dig deeper. Similarly, her colleagues (particularly her white colleagues) resist her attempt to discuss diet culture and eating disorders in this way. In other words, there is a deep, structural desire to maintain the status quo. Although Wilson’s intimate narrative positions her as the brave rebel and maverick in this scenario, she undercuts self-aggrandizement by sharing examples of her own development along this axis. She critiques her performance in her first two years as a dietitian, recapitulating this at the end of the book by sharing how a longtime client of hers noted that, years ago, her advice would have been dramatically different. In this way, Wilson reminds us that no one comes to antiracism work already knowing all the answers. Doesn’t matter how you are racialized. We all internalize white supremacist ideals as we grow up, and it takes work to unlearn that (that is exactly what getting “woke” meant, after all, before the right decided to appropriate and distort the term). Wilson’s very personal and careful anecdotes of her experiences both as a practitioner and a Black woman are the heart of this book. To others in positions of power (and I count myself as one of these in my role as an educator), she is saying that every day is another opportunity for you to do better. To the Black women reading this book, she concludes on a note of celebrating Black joy. She wants Black women to know that their bodies—whatever their shape or size—are not a problem. On that note, however, I was also happy to read such a deep and incisive critique of the body positivity/fat liberation movements. I have heard a little bit about this here and there, particularly how it intersects with Instagram. Basically, there is a fine line between advocating for a positive view of one’s body, especially when one is fat, versus enforcing a kind of toxic positivity that can backfire. Wilson draws on the experiences of activists in this space. While none of what she has to say in these chapters strikes me as particularly new, it’s all a very useful summary of these issues. Again, I’m a very thin woman. I won’t pretend I don’t have body image issues or a complicated relationship with food. But I can generally find clothes that fit me, and people don’t look askance when I wolf down a cheeseburger. It’s Always Been Ours establishes how, for Black women of any size and shape, food is just another item on the list of mental gymnastics they complete each day. Hair too kinky? Eating too much or too little? Clothing too tight or too loose? When you add anti-Black racism on top of misogyny, you get misogynoir, as Moya Bailey coined, and it’s a hell of a thing. Speaking of new vocabulary, this book introduced me to the term food apartheid. This term complements and builds on the idea of a food desert (which I was already aware of); as Wilson explains, it clarifies that such areas are not naturally occurring but rather deliberately constructed as a result of racism. Neat! (The learning, not the racism.) It’s Always Been Ours is moving, well organized, funny, and helpful. This is a book about racism. Its language is more accessible than that of an academic press book, its stories more personal. But it is a book about how our society polices Black women and what Wilson thinks we should do about it (hint: resist). She challenges us to do better instead of simply going along with the narrative of the status quo because it is easier and lets us stay comfortable in the power we have. I’m glad I picked this one up! Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 21, 2023
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Jul 23, 2023
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Jul 26, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 1479823961
| 9781479823963
| unknown
| 4.67
| 6
| unknown
| Nov 22, 2022
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really liked it
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Thunder Bay is not the most diverse place, demographically, in Canada, but that has been changing. For various reasons, more immigrants have been arri
Thunder Bay is not the most diverse place, demographically, in Canada, but that has been changing. For various reasons, more immigrants have been arriving here in recent years from a wider array of countries. This includes many Muslim immigrants, as well as people from MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) countries. Not only do these newcomers often face challenges with language, but my city can be a racist place. So I was intrigued by Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion because I hoped that I could learn more about the systemic anti-Muslim racism in our society. As is often the case, this book primarily talks about the United States yet the lessons are applicable to Canada as well. Evelyn Alsultany speaks from a potent combination of lived experience and scholarly knowledge. I received this book for free in exchange for a review. This is an exquisitely organized book. The introduction and epilogue are excellent end caps, wherein Alsultany lays out her thesis about how Muslim inclusion primarily works through a kind of neoliberal crisis diversity. Each of the five main chapters explores how this crisis diversity (dys)functions. Chapter 1 discusses stereotypes in entertainment; Chapter 2 is about the limits of increasing representation in industries like Hollywood or even politics. Chapter 3 introduces the idea of racial gaslighting, i.e., that how authorities and media downplay crimes against Muslim people (and other marginalized people) when classifying them as hate crimes is, Alsultany argues, important. Chapter 4 looks at examples of what we often call cancel culture: the purging of prominent individuals after they do or say something so racist that their sponsoring organizations have no choice but to distance themselves. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at the issues with diversity and inclusion on college campuses and similar places. Throughout, Alsultany establishes a firm line when it comes to not letting institutions off the hook. At the same time, I really appreciated her ability to empathize with people’s ignorance and prejudice. I am definitely biased, but I think she portrays other perspectives fairly and with nuance. This is particularly true whenever she discusses anti-Palestinian discrimination: she is unapologetic in her analysis of Israel as an apartheid state and condemnation of how Zionist groups weaponize and distort the definition of antisemitism; however, she also recognizes that Muslims and Jews both face a lot of discrimination. Indeed, a great deal of her discussion in Chapter 5 relates to how systems try to divide and conquer, pitting different minority groups against one another. I really appreciated the wealth of examples and analysis that Alsultany brings to each chapter. She looks at specific TV shows, such as All-American Muslim and Shahs of Sunset. She engages with specific scholarship, citing her own contributions to research (like the Obeidi-Alsultany Test) as well as those of scholars whose names I recognized and many I did not. This book is a great entry point into the wider literature around anti-Muslim racism (Alsultany explains in her introduction why she prefers this term to the more common Islamophobia, a distinction I found very interesting!). The nuance I mentioned earlier is also present in how Alsultany discusses improvements we have seen so far. Notably, her analysis of Shahs of Sunset points out that while the show is far from perfect, there are aspects of it that improve the portrayal of Muslims on screen. But she is adamant that there is no “quick fix” for diversity on or off the screen. I think this is an important takeaway—so often people are looking for the easiest, fastest solutions, but the problem here is neoliberalism and a deeply baked-in white supremacy that will take more than bandaid solutions to fix. Broken is a very considered and detailed exploration of an important topic of our day. If we are going to make our society a better place for everyone, we need to make it a better place for Muslims. I appreciated the solidarity Alsultany shows to trans people here, and I hope other non-Muslim trans people will return that solidarity—we are all in this together. Allow this book to arm you with the knowledge you need, regardless of your background or privilege, to change the systems that have failed for so long to include Muslim people in authentic and compassionate ways. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 20, 2023
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Jun 25, 2023
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Jul 15, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0231556608
| 9780231556606
| B0BMWQ8DY4
| 3.33
| 9
| unknown
| Jun 06, 2023
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it was ok
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First off, shout-out to this book for no subtitle! That’s rare for a work of nonfiction—not that I have any great hatred of subtitles, but the absence
First off, shout-out to this book for no subtitle! That’s rare for a work of nonfiction—not that I have any great hatred of subtitles, but the absence of one here is notable. Anyway. Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet caught my eye because the history of computing, intertwined as it is with the history of mathematics and the history of feminism, interests me a lot. Ted Striphas discusses how we conceptualized both the word algorithm and the word culture prior to “algorithmic culture” emerging as a more recent phenomenon from the past few decades. This book is really not what I expected from the description, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad time. Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the eARC! Striphas takes a very intertextual and interdisciplinary approach to answering the question of, What was algorithmic culture like before we had the internet? These chapters span centuries, languages, and draw on everything from philosophy to computer science to linguistics and semiotics. It’s truly impressive how Striphas synthesizes writings and ideas from these various fields into his presentation. He references entire areas of study and scholars I had no idea existed (and I have degrees in math and education as well as minors in English and philosophy!). In particular, Striphas grounds his approach through his own expansion of Raymond Williams’s Keywords publication/theory. Look, I’m not going to pretend I have enough background to evaluate this approach. Readers more familiar with this angle of attack and Williams might be better poised to critique Striphas’ strategy. As it is, I liked the emphasis on looking at language as something constructed by and responsive to changes in our society—along with the potent reminder that even a concept like culture, whose meaning we might assume is to be taken for granted, shifts over time. So Striphas definitely exposed me to a lot of new (old) ideas, got me thinking, and that alone is something I appreciate in a nonfiction book like this! On the other hand, this means that Striphas often gets bogged down in the weeds of theory. So much so that I’m not sure each chapter actually accomplishes its mission of supporting his overall thesis. Striphas attempts to trace the history of the word algorithm, then culture, and finally algorithmic culture, but along the way he gets lost in discussing, say, the historical context of the Cold War, suspicion and oppression of gay people in civil service and academia, etc. I’m not dismissing that these could be relevant threads to his argument, but the amount of digression feels, if not boring, then distracting enough to divert me from the overall point he’s trying to make. As a mathematician, I really liked the chapter about the origins of algorithm, algebra, and al-Khwarizmi. I learned a lot I didn’t know. Striphas carefully questions the “official,” simplified narrative we often learn (if we are lucky) in our math classes. He makes it clear that he isn’t trying to downplay al-Khwarizmi’s role, or the wider role of Islamic mathematicians, when it comes to their influence on European mathematics. At the same time, he points out that a reductive approach—tracing algorithm back to al-Kwharizmi’s name, algebra back to a book he wrote (on a method that he probably did not originate)—actually does an injustice, flattening and erasing the complexities of that time period and al-Khwarizmi’s life. I really appreciate how Striphas clearly acknowledges the power dynamics at play, both in contemporary writings of each period along with modern views, the roles of racism and sexism, etc., influencing our perception of algorithmic culture. He references many luminary scholars whose names I’ve heard of (Ruha Benjamin) or work I’ve read (Safiya Umoja Noble). In this sense, Algorithmic Culture Before the Internet continues the intertextual conversation, not just engaging with it but building it and then throwing the ball forward, into the future, hoping that someone will pick it up and engage with Striphas later down the line. This book is very specifically targeted towards an audience with more knowledge of this field than me. I think some people might pick it up (as I did) because of its title and description, expecting a more straightforward history (as I did) of computer science prior to the computer and the intersections with culture. But this is an academic book, not a pop history book, and it shows. If you’re willing to wade into deeper intellectual waters, then you will find parts of this book rewarding—challenging but rewarding. If you’re not wanting that workout right now, then you should skip this one. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 27, 2023
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Jun 2023
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Jun 11, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0231555571
| 9780231555579
| B0BLJ2RWTJ
| 3.63
| 30
| unknown
| May 16, 2023
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it was ok
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As an aromantic asexual person, all three things in this book’s title have confused me at one point or another! Attraction, Love, Sex: The Inside Stor
As an aromantic asexual person, all three things in this book’s title have confused me at one point or another! Attraction, Love, Sex: The Inside Story examines our scientific understanding of makes humans interested in one another, romantic stylez (yes, with a Z). Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist, brings together research from psychology, biology, chemistry, and more in order to help the reader understand the physiological, psychological, and even evolutionary underpinnings of sexuality and romance. There’s a lot of good science in this book, along with some really bad science that left a bad taste in my mouth. An eARC was provided by Columbia University Press via NetGalley. This book is organized into discrete chapters that are easy to pick up and put back down. LeVay takes us on a tour, if you will, through different aspects of sex and sexuality. Each chapter has a simple title, like “Love” or “Attraction,” yet that simplicity conceals the beguiling complexity of each topic. I really liked the structure and especially the way LeVay consistently includes a conclusions section at the end of every chapter to give us the bottom line. What I liked: this is a book that doesn’t oversimplify and clearly acknowledges that science can be a flawed, human endeavour. As LeVay mentions various studies and the theories they support, he is ever diligent in noting if a study couldn’t be replicated or was contradicted by a more recent study. This is a practice I respect, for I find that sometimes science communicators, in their desire to distill science into a more streamlined narrative, pick one theory (or a couple of most likely theories) and present that version of the science as more settled than it actually is. Given that science is an ever-evolving discipline, LeVay’s approach to discussing these topics is a lot more transparent. In particular, I appreciated how he presented evolutionary psychology theories in a more skeptical light. I also think this book has a great deal of useful information in its pages. For anyone just setting out to get a comprehensive overview of all things love, you could do worse than to read Attraction, Love, Sex. Even a single chapter in isolation, for example as an excerpt in a high school class, could be really useful. LeVay’s writing is skilled, and I learned all sorts of useful tidbits. On the other hand, there were times when this book frustrated me as a queer person. Now, LeVay is gay and also, from what I can infer here, attempts to be trans inclusive. At one point he discusses sex-linked differences in the brain and includes the intriguing result that brain scans of binary trans people are often more similar to the sex they identify as rather than their sex assigned at birth (something also discussed in Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender . So I want to give LeVay some credit here. Nevertheless, I have some reservations. First, LeVay seems to put a lot of stock in defining sexual orientation in terms of physical arousal and being able to quantify this by hooking people up to machines that measure that arousal through, say, blood flow. I understand the desire from a scientific standpoint to be able to talk about sexual orientation in a more objective, measurable way. Yet plethysmography has a troubling history (undiscussed here) linked to authorities wanting to out gay people and even then subject them to conversion therapy. More broadly, I think LeVay misses the point. While there is undoubtedly a physiological component to orientation—whether that is neurological, hormonal, genetic, etc.—like so many other emergent aspects of our identity, I don’t think we will ever be able to reduce orientation down purely to a single test or to concrete and tidy definitions like the ones he mentions here. Second, LeVay’s treatment of asexuality is woefully inadequate. Again, credit where credit is due: he at least mentions asexuality and explicitly declares that “asexuality is not a problematic lack of sexual desire” and also states that “most asexual people are satisfied with their orientation.” So why am I dissatisfied with this mention? Simply put, even though LeVay charitably says that “asexuality should probably be thought of as a sexual orientation,” this single mention of asexuality (all of these quotations come from a single paragraph) occurs in the chapter on “Having Sex” rather than the “Orientation” or “Attraction” chapters. We are once again an afterthought, little more than a footnote—a positive, inclusive one, yes, but not much more than that. Third, I take major issue with how LeVay characterizes trans people. LeVay uncritically draws on the work of Ray Blanchard and his theory of autogynephelia. (Julia Serano has a very cogent explanation of why Blanchard’s work is harmful, so I’ll leave that part to her.) LeVay draws a very artificial distinction between what he sees as “classical” transsexuality and autogynephilic trans women (you’ll notice that this discussion and Blanchard’s original research both focus solely on trans women, with nary a consideration for trans men or non-binary people, insert audible eye-rolling here). Just the label of “classic” sounds icky to me. As with his conversations on orientation, LeVay’s conceptions of gender identity miss the mark in a profound way. I don’t know anything about LeVay outside of reading his Wikipedia article. It sounds like he has been a longstanding expert in the study of sexuality as it relates to neuroscience, along with an advocate for gay rights. With that in mind, I don’t want to be the uppity youngster who criticizes her elders with undue harshness. Even so, as I sat down to write a much softer version of this review … well, I got to the part about trans people, and I found myself unable to be conciliatory. LeVay might be a towering giant in his field and have a long career behind him, but it’s irresponsible to publish remarks like this in 2023 in the current political climate around trans people. I cannot in good conscience recommend this book, because well-meaning and curious allies who read this might inadvertently think that LeVay (and by extension, Blanchard) are accurately discussing transgender people. As much as there are valuable nuggets of information elsewhere in the book, this one section alone is too problematic. Additionally, it represents the challenge of talking so broadly about a topic like this. Rather than specializing, LeVay decided to take on all of human sexuality—and even with his decades of experience in the field, that task proved to be too elusive for him to complete with reasonable fidelity. Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter. [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 13, 2023
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May 17, 2023
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May 31, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 3.85
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liked it
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Aug 31, 2024
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| 4.54
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really liked it
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Aug 11, 2024
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Aug 20, 2024
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| 3.85
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liked it
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Jul 26, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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| 4.22
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liked it
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Jul 15, 2024
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Aug 06, 2024
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| 4.10
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it was ok
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Jul 08, 2024
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Jul 25, 2024
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| 4.24
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really liked it
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Jun 09, 2024
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Jul 08, 2024
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| 4.50
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really liked it
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May 30, 2024
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Jul 02, 2024
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| 4.33
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really liked it
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May 29, 2024
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Jun 25, 2024
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| 4.46
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really liked it
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May 21, 2024
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Jun 09, 2024
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| 4.27
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really liked it
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Mar 20, 2024
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Apr 07, 2024
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| 4.18
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liked it
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Mar 14, 2024
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Mar 29, 2024
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| 4.44
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liked it
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Jan 14, 2024
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Jan 29, 2024
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| 4.32
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really liked it
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Dec 31, 2023
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Jan 20, 2024
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| 4.44
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really liked it
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Nov 04, 2023
not set
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Dec 09, 2023
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| 4.17
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really liked it
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Sep 21, 2023
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Sep 28, 2023
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| 4.00
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really liked it
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Aug 04, 2023
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Aug 14, 2023
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| 4.49
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really liked it
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Jul 23, 2023
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Jul 26, 2023
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| 4.67
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really liked it
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Jun 25, 2023
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Jul 15, 2023
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| 3.33
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it was ok
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Jun 2023
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Jun 11, 2023
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| 3.63
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it was ok
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May 17, 2023
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May 31, 2023
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