Tag: Gender-studies • BookLikes

review 2015-10-27 20:16

Review: Targeted and Trolled by Rossalyn Warren

Targeted and Trolled: The Reality of Being a Woman Online (An original digital short) - Rossalyn Warren

Follow the official blog tour:

https://lemebefictional.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/blog-tour-targeted-and-trolled-rossalyn-warren/

A book about the reality and facts which women faces everyday in their lives. Targeted and Trolled is precisely written and portrays the true image of this gender oriented society.

The book highlighted some incidents which happened to some of the renowned women who are raising their voices against sexual harassment and supporting the victims. Abuse and shaming are the very common examples of online harassment which women faces more than men. Most of us would have witnessed these acts on many of the social networking sites.

Often men are not aware that women are sexually abused and shamed on internet. Mostly, online harassment is gender biased. Men are usually harassed and shamed for intellectual in abilities where as women are harassed and abused sexually for being an online user.

Minorities are also targeted often. Muslim women are mostly trolled for sharing their opinion online and they are usually sexually harassed and abused by male online users from other religions.

Being a Pakistani female citizen, I can totally understand the way society often blames the woman. In some rural areas women are not allowed to have social media profiles and to be an online user. The main cause of this mindset is the fear of being sexually harassed online. Due to media awareness and campaigns led by NGOs this mindset is changing.

Most of the times Pakistani women are not even aware of the term online harassment. As Rossalyn has stated in the book, that most of the times women think that online harassment is a part of the deal for being an online user.

"Do no harm, take no shit." -- Wilson

Wilson also put an emphasis on women that owning their voice is a powerful tool which they must use online.

Kati Heng's way to spread out the word against harrasment: http://stopthecatcall.tumblr.com

"Rememeber this is your internet, this is your technology. This is your online space you need to reclaim." -- Nighat Dad

Nighat's work against cyber bullying: http://digitalrightsfoundation.pk

It good to know that women all around the globe are fighting in their own ways against online harassment and sexual harassment. Victims are raising their voices and spreading out the word through social media to spread awareness and to support each other.

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This is a must read book.

Rating: 5/5

Disclaimer: I got a galley of this e-book via publisher and getting a review copy does not altered my opinion of this book.

Source: lemebefictional.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/blog-tour-targeted-and-trolled-rossalyn-warren

review 2015-02-28 01:12

Neither bad nor good, just pointless and past its sell-by date

After Octavian

Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Hetrosexuality - Hanne Blank

This isn't a "bad" book per se, but it's curiously pointless. While Blank sets out to limn the history of heterosexuality as a concept, what she really ends up doing at great length and to little new effect, is to write about the legal and social concepts of marriage (companionate and otherwise) and the cultural history of dating. None of this is fresh, none of this has not been done dozens of times before decades before, most more thoroughly and from a more deeply informed historical and/or philosophical perspective. None of this illuminates our current understanding of what's "heterosexual" and what's "homosexual". In fact, beyond the brief personal revelations that open and close the volume, there's virtually nothing here I haven't read many, many times over.

I guess I just can't imagine who's the audience for this book. Anyone seriously interested in the subject of sexuality, sexual/gender identity, and the history of how society and individuals assign labels is not going to find anything fresh, interesting, or particularly useful here. And those who aren't especially interested or knowledgeable are probably not going to read or seek out this book. Sooo?

Sexuality Social History Gender studies queer-theory lgbtqi sexology