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This is the sequel to the book Bread and Roses that I reviewed a few entries okay. It documents the latter part of Sonja Davies' life including the making of the movie Bread and Roses, her entry into Parliament as the MP for the electorate of Pencarrow, her daughter's struggle with Motor Neurone Disease and her eventual retirement to a house in Masterton.
As in her other book, Davies does a remarkably honest and passionate job of representing what it was to be a woman in the largely male world of the House of Representatives, alongside current and former Labour MPs such as Phil Goff (now leader of the Labour Party) and Helen Clark (now Head of the UN Development Council) and against benchmarks of 1980s and early-1990s National politicians like Robert Muldoon (who infamously called Davies Granny) and Labour politicians (like Roger Douglas, now an MP for Act). On top of all this, Davies' daughter was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. It is amazing that Davies who had already lost her husband and then her son was able to survive through all of this with the same determination that she did.
The book also documents her many overseas trips which continued to various conferences around the world and meant she met some of the leaders of women's rights and the various peace and anti-nuclear groups at the time. It is even more amazing to consider that in and among all these various events, her previous experience with TB meant she frequently caught bouts of pneumonia and would be very ill for large amounts of time. Davies retired to a house in Masterton which she created to her liking in the 90s. She maintained interests in gardening and was received regularly by her grandsons.
This is another impressive book by Davies, possibly on par with her previous one and of even more interest to me as it started at around the period I was born. Sadly Davies died in 2005 but even her long life was amazing considering her busy life and the fact that she relied on one lung for most of her life. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in New Zealand historical figures and politics.
No adequate book image sorry.
This autobiography documents the amazing life of Sonja Davies; a prominent New Zealand feminist, trade unionist, member of the peace movement and MP for the Labour Party in the late-1980s to the early-1990s. Davies shares with amazing insight her early life, born as an illegitimate child in 1920s New Zealand brought up by her grandparents in Oamaru. The chapter is entitled "A different childhood" and this conceptualises her life very well. Later on, living with her mother and life as a child in New Zealand at this time is most accurately represented. The book continues as Davies left shcool early to enter the workforce, went to nurses school and eventually became a vital part of the movement for trade unions in New Zealand. Amidst all of this, she marries at 17, before falling in love with an American marine, later killed in the Pacific part of World War II. Giving birth to her first child, she becomes very sick and this begins her years-long battle with tuberculosis. Despite this, this amazing woman came through all of this, married and continued her amazing work as an activist in New Zealand Labour Federations, child care centres and her first political contests.
There is no doubting that Davies had a difficult life, from the very beginning she was different, a 'love child' with a colourful family life. It is made clear here that this woman who thinks she was just one of many was a hero in many ways and definitely a huge figure. This book covers her life up until the 1980s and how she dealt with the many challenges life threw at her. There is nothing innately astonishing about Davies' writing, but it is her firm honesty and compassion to the cause which catches the reader. Her relationships with a wide variety of prominent New Zealand names including Norman Kirk (former NZ Prime Minister), Walter Nash (former NZ Prime Minister), Mary Varnham (former Labour Press Secretary for David Lange) and Sue Kedgley (current Green Party MP). The latter two co-editors of another book I have reviewed which Sonja Davies also had a chapter in. It is also clear that Davies had a deep connection with her environment, living all over New Zealand at various times in her life and appreciating the sights it has to offer.
The one downside I would suggest this book has is its confusing timeline. The subtitles suggest the book is written chronologically, but at many times different things happening at similar times are in different chapters. I can obviously understand why she would want to separate aspects such as her son Mark's tragic death but this did confuse me as a reader and I think it would have represented the many things this amazing woman did even more if they had all been included in the same chunk. A further review of her second book Marching On... will come later.
Overall an amazing read (apparently also made into a movie) documenting the life of one of New Zealand's forthright figures in trade unionism. I would highly recommend it to any New Zealander, regardless of their political stance. It is a highly historical account of New Zealand and growing up in New Zealand.
Sonja Davies died in 2005.
This is an excellent book on the physiology of the female body. Angier, a well known science writer exposes the world of biology; each chapter explores a different part of the female body from its Darwinian origins to its purpose to some "mutations" as it were of that particular part of the body. Angier's witty voice and stunning prose keeps the reader interested throughout the book.
The book concentrates on how biology (along with many other subjects) looks at the male body as the norm rather than a more gendered look at both male and female biology. While many have dismissed the book as a feminist tirade, the clear transmission of science and the stunning way in which the body is presented makes this read well worthwhile. Angier dispels several common stereotypes about the female body and fully explains the reasons for these stereotypes and the reality. There are also some fascinating case studies of more unusual women and the way they have dealt with the difference in their bodies from other women.
Angier also displays some intelligent writing on the various myths coming out about differences between females and male, she attacks evolutionary psychology primarily for its view of women as monogamous and men as polygamous.
This is the best non-fiction book I have read in awhile and I would highly recommend it to females and males alike.
According to Amazon, this astonishing book was originally written as Millett's doctoral thesis in 1968 and is now widely regarded as a feminist classic. The book looks at American literature including works by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Norman Mailer, John Stewart Mill and Jean Genet. Millett examines in depth the structures and values in the literature and the passages she quotes from each text are truly telling of the argument she puts across. The critique and analysis she provides is amazing and its in-depth look at the politics of sex is supported by the provided literature. While the reader can be stunned at these analyses, we can also see hope in the incredibly telling writings of Jean Genet.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it wasn't the easiest read in the world and more or less put me off at least Henry Miller's books for a good while, but at the same time it was incredibly thought-provoking of an area that has largely been overlooked as influencing public opinion of gender relations and sex.
The book also provided an interesting look at gender relations under the law of coverture in the Western world with excerpts from Blackstone's Commentaries - the foremost legal writings of the time included. It also took a look at sexual politics in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia among others. This part of the book was so interesting I almost changed the topic of an essay plan in fascination over it. But I will leave the eager reader to devour its brilliant contents.
As well as this, there was an entire chapter on Freud, psychoanalysis and general beliefs about women's psychology. The social pretension of the concept of "penis envy" is displayed in what is remarkable from a book of the time, when these beliefs about psychology were still so prevalent.
A stellar read I would recommend to anyone and everyone.
Virginia Woolf was asked to speak about women and fiction, these extended essays were the result. The writing in these essays is quite like her fiction: descriptive, perceptive and fair. Woolf argues that women in literature have been more than often portrayed by men. She compares these fictional women with real women living throughout time and illustrates how the fictional portrayal of them brings women to centre stage while the historical reality shows them largely ignored. She also shows that women were only shown in relation to men and never as themselves. As well as this, Woolf also shows that even when women were portrayed by women it was done within the expected role of a woman as fair and virtuous.
Another facet of the book shows the beginnings of women writing fiction. As Woolf stipulates at the beginning "a women must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Woolf looks at women authors including Jane Austen, George Eliot and Currer Bell and shows how their lives were limited by their gender. It can be seen from this that women will only be able to write fiction freely when they are free from financial and societal bounds.
This is a brilliant read and shows a side of Virginia Woolf that is not always clear in her fiction. It is a fairly easy read and makes a good argument about femininity and feminism in general.
This is an amazing read which documents a study of sixty women undertaken by the author and their experiences of and responses to sexual violence of varying kinds. Kelly sets out the idea of a spectrum of sexual violence ranging from harassment to domestic violence to rape to incest, she also stipulates that all of these forms are potentially harmful.
This study firstly sets out the different perspectives on sexual violence (it should be noted here that it only deals with acts committed against women, by men. Kelly shows historically how different offenses have been viewed and offers a range of perspectives which explain the victimisation of sexual violence. She then offers her own thoughts on the subject and introduces the concept of a spectrum of sexually motivated acts. It offers a critique of the existing research and suggests ideas for further development.
The study itself consisted of in-depth interviews with 60 women, 30 of whom had already made it clear they had survived incest, rape or domestic violence. The women were asked to identify what they thought fitted into a particular category and the results are both extremely telling and startling. This study is an amazing look at the prevalence of sexual violence and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the area.
This book is a highly useful resource of the place of women in the criminal justice system; a subject which has - until recently been largely ignored by criminologists. I read the second edition of the book, published in 1996. This text provides a plethora of information on firstly, how women are dealt with as offenders within the criminal justice system and secondly, looks at the theories surrounding how and why women get involved within the system and criticisms of these theories where possible.
The sequence of studies contained in this book are enlightening but there are definite gaps in the research up to this point which Heidensohn points out. As well as this, she illustrates the difficulties of compiling any research which can tell us anything specific about gender in relation to crime.
This is a decent read which offers a fresh perspective on the subject of criminology and offers up images of femininity as well as encouraging current research about males to assess the product of masculinity in relation to their research rather than viewing male crime as the norm. Most of all this book encourages us to look at crime and criminality through gender-tinted glasses to achieve a fuller understanding of it.
This amazing (if not a little dated, it was published in 1996) book is an excellent review and challenge of the tendency of criminology to be gender blind. It undertakes critical reviews of different feminist attitudes to the subject of crime and criminology and shows still prevalent attitudes of the subject of criminal law and how it is influenced by the male-dominated school of thought of criminology.
The author of this book is a Reader in Laws in Adelaide with lots of experience writing around the topics of criminal law and feminism. This book begins with a critical look at the history of criminological thought with its beginnings in criminological positivism followed by radical and then realist criminologies late in the 20th century. These viewpoints are all assessed both from the stance which they took and the absence or near-absence of gender in their theories and areas of research (with the obvious exception of the growth of feminist criminology). The book offers a critique in particular of the positivist introduction of the scientific method which has seen an increase in recent times with many major criminological journals (at the time of this book) only accepting massive empirical studies from apparently bipartisan, almost all male researchers. Naffine also looks at the significance of males researching males as the norm without looking at the culture of masculinity within their own research rather than as a norm (and thus females as a weird aside).
Following this is a significant discussion of Foucalt's influence on the little feminist criminology there is taken from his research on power and knowledge and the growth of Derridean feminist views which look at the very limits of language and culturally "appropriate" labelling theory. An interesting look into studies of rape as a male-perpetrated female-victimised stereotype is also looked at in depth and critically evaluated. The book ends with an analysis of a quicker growing enterprise - that of female fictional crime novels about females who incorporate and rise above the female stereotype as either females in high positions, as investigators or females who turn the very concept of gender on its head.
I found this book extremely interesting and it heightened my interest in the subject. For anyone interested in feminism, criminology or any other social science I would highly recommend this book. Despite the fact it was published over a decade ago, I think many of its points are still highly relevant.
This book was simply epic, following the life of Mira, a woman who grows up and experiences the second wave of the feminist movement firsthand. Mira grows up in the confines of her parents' expectations where she is expected to stay a virgin and marry well. Despite being an incredibly smart child, no one around her ever suggests that she go further with her education and it is simply expected she will become a housewife. Through her marriage she experiences no pleasure in sex, days filled with hard work taking care of children and cleaning the house; she is expected to have dinner on the table and the house spotless when her husband, and aspiring doctor comes home from work. Socially, in her working class neighbourhood there are friendships and relationships that remind me a bit of the TV show Desperate Housewives with affairs and secrets going on left, right and centre. One of her close friends also begins going to university which at the time she thinks is simply shocking but her viewpoint changes throughout the book.
The characters are one of the startling parts about this book. All the characters are portrayed in the book at different times in their lives with different evolving beliefs. Many of the characters' fates show how damaging and tiring the role of a housewife was when it was more prevalent back in the 1950s and 60s. Only when Mira's marriage breaks up and she decides to go to university and gets into Harvard does she meet the people who are part of the student movement for civil rights and gender equality. She also meets the man who sees pleasing her sexually as important, in stark contrast to her husband who never cared. Returning home to her parents' house she finds herself not able to explain her life as it would shock them (divorce has already made her the shame of the family). Her two children who visit her regularly also become important as they symbolise the new generation, much more accepting of her life. It is at this stage of the book that she becomes what she wants to be and who she wants to be, ignoring the people who will not support her.
It also showed some of the class that came to be known as 'radical feminism' and the events that leads one of Mira's best friends to distrust men totally. Throughout the book many of Mira's friends have their lives changed for the worst by reliance on and trust in men. This book is truly a work of its time. At times it has you laughing, and at other times crying and the characters are built up continually through their experiences and discussions as well as their secrets and discomforts. I absolutely loved this book, truly poignant and emotion provoking. Some have criticised it as being a bit too radical, but it wasn't just about bad men, there were also good men and it showed some of the reasoning behind the more radical facets of the movement.
Please, please read this book I can't recommend it enough. You will laugh, you will want to cry and it will open your eyes. I also recommend another of her books Our Father which is similarly sad and amazing.
To fully appreciate Tom Robbins' books, you have to be willing to wait. Most of his books open confusedly and this one was no exception. I think I enjoyed this book more than any of his others because the character of Sissy was introduced early on and expanded throughout the book.
The book centres around Sissy, a young girl with abnormally large thumbs. Random? Yes. Fits into the book well? Yes. Sissy learns about hitchhiking from an early age, she hitchhikes the wind, the cars and life in general. She is introduced to the 'cowgirls' through a part-time employer, shortly after she surprisingly gets married. Sissy's marriage, however, is also important to the book. She experiences life tied down, not as free to hitchhike when she wants and bewildered by not being able to keep moving as she is used to.
With the short-term escape to the Rubber Rose ranch, Sissy meets one of the loves of her life, aptly named Jellybean. She learns from her fellow cowgirls about loving the skin you're in (to put it lightly) and eventually journeys out to meet the second love of her life; Chink, who is a Japanese ex-prisoner living off the land. There's more, believe me but I don't want to ruin the book.
The reason I liked this book more that the others I have read was because the story flowed easily, but kept with Robbins' pattern and haphazard story-telling manor. You never quite know what is coming next and the story leads to a fanatical climax and an unusual ending. It effectively explores Sissy's unusual personality and changes in her life which lead to different outlooks. I highly recommend it, I really appreciate most of Robbins' work and his delightful imagination.
As the title would suggest, this book is indeed about sex. Not only sex, but how sex continues to inspire and support the patriarchal society. I've read my share of feminist books but this one certainly has to be the most "aim-to-shock" of the lot. It does not play around, it does not stifle in the least. Like many radical feminist works, it seeks to inspire hatred towards the way we (women) are treated by men. This was the book that famously put across that all men are rapists, while I don't agree with this sentiment, what she had to say about the subject was certainly interesting.
The first part of the book explores some works of fiction and uses them to illustrate how being female creates a state of inferiority within the works and in the context of wider human society. The latter part of the book takes this argument and shoves it in your face over and over again so that reading through the last chapter I was continually wincing at the mentions of sad-masochism, child abuse, rape and more. She does have a way with language and she puts her point across incredibly strongly but I definitely wouldn't recommend reading this as quickly as I did. You've got to love radical feminists though, they certainly try to drill this stuff into you.
What the book didn't explore that other books like Cunt by Inga Muscio did is that sex can be enjoyed and is by many people, that it is not always in a patriarchal context and can be healthy and invigorating for many women. I continue to think so that this woman does have the gift of the gab, her sentences are long and draw you through to the very end, there is no sentence in the book that is put across lightly although there are moments of humour.
I'd recommend it to you, as long as you're not one of those people who finds yourself seething at the mere mention of feminism. Though this women and other feminists do take it to the extreme, it's a pretty interesting read.
Sorry I have been a bit slack lately with university starting and everything, I actually finished this book like a week ago...I think.
I quite enjoyed this book, some of it was a little too radical for my liking but it was written quite unusually which really gave it a sort of character of itself. For me, it spent a bit too much time going on about the wonderfulness of masturbation, but that isn't any judgment on the book itself, more on me (I hate sex and most near things to it). So maybe I should have taken it in more, or something but it didn't quite convince me. Again probably not a reflection on the book itself, I should probably be more open about such things.
It started with a reflection of the transformation of the word 'cunt' from sacred honour to expletive which was incredibly informative.
It was definitely a book that was quite enjoyable to read, it covered most aspects of being a female and had some interesting tips about avoiding medical abortions and using more homey sort of 'remedies' which I found quite educational. It speaks of the way abortion patients were treated, when she had abortions anyway which says quite a lot about the shame that still surrounds it, even in this day and age. Women are still being given very little recovery time at the place where it takes place, and in my opinion this is mainly because of the negative regard a lot of people still hold in abortions. The presence of both anecdotes and factual evidence was useful as well.
I did like the way she challenged the status quo and actually came up with solutions, didn't just complain and whine like some books like this do. She also deliberately didn't make it solely about how women are treated in relationships and rape, domestic violence etc. It is nice to read a book that's not fully critical of men (although suggesting we throw bloody tampons at them is a bit much for me).
I would recommend this book however, it was a definite educational experience and it encourages us all to be the 'cuntlovin' ruler of her sexual universe', quite a good motto if you ask me.
Next up: White Teeth by Zadie Smith
I was recommended this book by a friend of mine, it came out in 1899, and was immediately banned in most bookshops and libraries in the USA and brought an early end to Kate Chopin's career as an author. The fact that it survived although she never got to see a good review of it pays testament to its literary brilliance an underlying themes.
It weaves the story of Edna, a wife, a mother and a woman who has not found herself and is confused in upper-class American society in the 1890s, when she finally does find herself she is not what she is expected to be and the book comes to a shattering but brilliant end.
The book is not a normal novel, it doesn't follow a destined plot, it is a slice of life, and important slice of life book. The journey of self discovery is not made totally obvious but is more hinted at in every chapter and exposed in the final chapter. It is sad, but it is also beautiful and amazing that Chopin had the guts to publish something this scandalous in 1899. Its themes feature female relationships, marital affairs, women's rights, depression and a woman's quest to find out what she truly wants from life and how she goes about finding it. It is written beautifully, the chapters are separated out more by strains of though and remembrance than by particular subject matter which makes it all the more delightful to read and more enticing to the reader as well.
Edna is surrounded by people all through the book, that exist in a society quite peacefully that she can not seem to happily make peace with. Women in this society are happy to stay at home and receive guests, to obey their husbands, to cherish their children and not want anymore from life than domestic bliss. Chopin challenges this expectation brilliantly, and the ending made so much sense although in other ways it made very little sense.
It is definitely a product of its time. Like any other pre-20th century novel you have to put yourself to a certain extent in the shoes of the author.
Please read this book, it is brilliant!
This book was recommended to me by my Criminology tutor when we were talking about feminism in class. No I am not a radical feminist or anything but I do believe that women and men are entitled to equal rights.
This book was separated into chapters such as Work, Sex, Hunger etc. The Hunger chapter especially interested me I suppose because I had and still do have an eating disorder. Although I don't agree with Wolf's tendency to blame it all on the media I can definitely see where she was coming from and it was illustrated brilliantly with her style of writing.
The chapter on Work shocked me, simply hearing about cases women have filed (and lost) in the USA, getting fired for being "too womanly" or "not womanly enough" or even better allowed to be sexually harassed because of the uniforms they were made to wear.
The Violence chapter also made me learn a lot simply about the sheer amount of it that is going on, I mean of course you hear about it every day in the paper etc etc etc but you never realise the enormity of it until it is put before you.
I think it's a good book to read purely for educational purposes, even if you see yourself as a radical anti-feminist. It's purely focused on the USA and there was a lot I didn't know.
