Bad feminist roxane gay amazon
She wants to be independent but also wants to come home to a loving husband. She likes the colour pink and stupid reality television shows and make-up and shaving her legs. She dances to music that contains lyrics degrading towards women, she acts dumb in front of repairmen, she doesn’t speak up when a man tells her she’s wrong. Roxane Gay ends her book with the declaration that she is, in fact, a bad feminist, and that may not be such a bad thing. A woman should always have the right to choose what she does with her own body”. When a woman decides to terminate a pregnancy – “it is not a decision taken lightly, and if a woman does take the decision lightly, that is her right. She says at one point something that I feel those in power over abortion rights repeatedly forget, or pretend to forget.
She talks of stereotypes and contradictions in society – where “We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes.” For me, reading this book from a country in which the reproduction rights of women are eternally contested, Gay’s views are deeply, deeply welcoming and I can only wish one day that Irish authorities might take a leaf out of her book. Gay’s writing is provocative and enlightening, accessible and stimulating. That acknowledgement is so important, Gay asserts, because it means that I can look at other peoples’ experiences and understand that relativity and context must always be underlined. I suffer from privilege – perhaps ‘suffer’ is the wrong word to use here – but nevertheless, I must acknowledge the fact that I am a white woman, from a middle-class family living in a developed country and with a bachelor degree almost under my belt. This essay broadened my view, in many significant ways. However, what remains crucial in Gay’s eyes is our acknowledgement of that privilege.
We all have it – in some shape or form, some more than others. If I were to focus my review on one essay, I would choose the one entitled “Peculiar Benefits” in which Gay discusses the concept of privilege. It’s a book about her personal life, her political views, her views on popular culture and gender and her sexuality and her body image and the list is endless because at its simplest, Bad Feminist is a collection of essays that describe an individual woman’s life.
It’s divided into five sections: Me, Gender & Sexuality, Race & Entertainment, Politics, Gender & Race and Back To Me. Her book Bad Feminist is about all four of these labels she identifies with and so much more too. Roxane Gay is a black Haitian American woman. It is only now, in my 21st year on this planet,that I’ve finally started actively seeking them out. And I think it’s very important that I’m aware of that fact – that realisation that not many books are widely available about such topics. Recently, I’ve delved into Asking For It and followed it up by plunging into some good ole proto-feminism with The Yellow Wallpaper and Sylvia Plath’s depressive, but utterly fantastic The Bell Jar. The past two months, in retrospect, have been submerged in deconstructions of the patriarchy, strong female voices and society’s issues surrounding reproductive rights and sexual violence. So, I just want to start this one by saying that yes, I am on a serious feminist kick right now and I’m not ashamed to admit that.