Date Published: October 2, 2018

Format: Print

Source: Library

Date Read: February 22-24, 2019

Blurb

From Rebecca Traister, the New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies comes a vital, incisive exploration into the transformative power of female anger and its ability to transcend into a political movement.

In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Women’s March, and before the #MeToo movement, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic—but politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded women’s slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men.

With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel—from suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel—as is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions.

Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traister’s latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.

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Review

A good look at how angry women can change their own world and the country around us (that country being the US - which Traister makes clear in the introduction). Traister works hard to keep the conversation as intersectional as possible, ensuring many different women are heard from and their stories told. However, this is still very US centric, so I don't know how well the lessons and progress (or lack thereof) fit into other countries' progress on women and their rights. Although it centered on US politics and women's rights in the US, some of it was a little shallow in my opinion - that could be because the book was what I felt a little short page wise. Overall, I enjoyed and learned some new things and took away some ideas for improving my political/social activism when I get back to living in the US.

Yay for Snakes and Ladders for getting me back into reading mojo. My TBR went to crap and for the second month in a row, I DNF'ed a book from my Science reading list. Luckily, I impulsively downloaded an audiobook from my wishlist on RB Digital that I did finished. I didn't even get to my Nixon reading list, so I am doubling up in March. Right now, I just can't with fiction (or most fiction) and just gorging myself on non-fiction from a variety of disciplines. 

In somewhat reading related news, I got into grad school this month and started building my Wordpress blog (there is nothing there yet, but when it is ready, I will drop a link). I deleted my Blogger account and blog as I wanted to move away from Google. I am not wanting to make money off my blog, just want a place for my book and craft stuff that is not at the mercy of the big tech-media companies or small sites that might go poof in the night (*side eye* BL *cough*). 

Challenges:

BL/GR: 21/75

Nixon Reading List: 0

Science Reading List: 1

Non-Fiction Physical Shelf: 0

5 stars: 

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy (audiobook)

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder

4.5 - 4 stars:

Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection by Jacob Silverman

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister

3.5 - 3 stars:

Corva: The Perfect Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch #1) by Merry Farmer

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond Sonia Shah (audiobook)

1 star

The Hot One: A Memoir of Friendship, Sex, and Murder by Carolyn Murnick

DNF:

Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs Mysteries #1) by Jacqueline Winspear

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

"Anger is an energy."

--John Lydon

"If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."

--Unknown

As Rebecca Traister points out in this book,  women are constantly discouraged from experiencing or expressing anger.  It's unattractive; it's not received well.  Female politicians who dare express anger are chided and/or ridiculed, while their male counterparts are lauded when they do so.  Women are told anger is unhealthy; it needs to be pushed down, or it needs to be sublimated.

But as Traister demonstrates, throughout history, women's righteous anger, when channeled into political action and organizing, has effected real change.  And many women who had never considered activism or politics have been mobilized by the excesses of the Trump regime, as well as systemic abuses of male power that have been exposed (so to speak) following the Harvey Weinstein revelations.  In 2018, women have run for political office in record numbers.

Traister encourages women not to suppress the anger, not to revert to silence and comfort, but to continue so that the current "moment" continues to become an ongoing movement.

This is an important book.  Angry women should read it for reassurance that they are not crazy; that they can use their anger in productive and healthy ways.  Women who are not angry should read it to understand why other women ARE angry and to consider why they themselves are not.  Men should read it to understand why women are angry and should not be talked out of it.  And if many of them can become allies, that would be great, too.

A compelling book about the herstory and current state of being a single woman in the US. Some new information for me, but also referenced some books I've read before!

It's exciting for me that she references books I've read. It means that I might just be catching up on the state feminism and a reasonable amount of it's herstory and therefore taking that information out of "cold storage" and into active use.

I have not been "single" but because of both my and my husband's jobs, I've spent time alone and totally understand some of the reasons listed for not wanting to get involved with a partner, let alone married. I have always missed my husband when I or he was on travel for work, and my son since his birth as well, but I understand how great it can be to not have to worry about what they want to do today or how long it will take them to get ready or how long we can stay somewhere. One or the other of us has been gone for months and we've used the time to do pretty much what these single women do but without even having to worry about dating. We've also had our share of bad times enough to know that it takes a lot to have a good marriage and both have to be in it all the way. In other words, it's not something to enter into lightly and I appreciate that these women are taking their time to be sure about tying their lives to someone else's.

Because of this, I cannot properly express my appreciation of Traister's inclusion of the facts on marriage, specifically bad marriage. It is far from a guarantee on almost everything that people tell you to get married for. In fact, if someone is  telling you that you should marry, you probably shouldn't. In my opinion, it's a sign you aren't ready yet. I love her sentiment that marriage is increasingly being reserved as special. It is special. It is something that you should want more than anything when you do it, much like having children. But it's also not something that everyone should do and not something that everyone needs to want (also like kids). I don't understand the craze over the declining birth rates but I have noticed that we've stopped talking about overpopulation, which was a major problem that needed solving when I was a kid. Now we're back to encouraging women to get married and pop out babies.

Well, affluent white women. Yeah, it was also great that Traister includes the differences in the messages to women of color and poor women. Marriage is not the answer to financial stability. It can help and for some it is an answer, but financial stability is not a good reason to hitch your life and well-being to someone else. They may not deliver. You may grow to hate them. They may grow to hate you. They might leave or die. There are no guarantees in life and Traister reminds the reader of that.

Marriage is great, when it's great. Some of us are in it good enough to even work through what we consider hard times. Others of us have to deal with various forms of abuse. It is not an answer to how to make life great because it can be awful. It can be the worst thing for you. So waiting to marry until you really want to, I have always thought was a good idea.

More than all this, painting the picture of a single woman as one who is happy with her life is an incredible and beautiful thing. Yes, being in love is great, but so is being you. We shouldn't be painted as needing a partner to be whole or fulfilled or happy. We should be able to be happy with ourselves. I have known plenty of women who are happy on their own and with what their lives are giving them and don't feel a family would increase this feeling. Mine does for me, but I know these same two people could make others very not happy. Between the book and personal experience, I am compelled to believe that surrounding ourselves with people who we can be ourselves and happy around is the best way to live, it just doesn't always include legal styles of partnering like marriage.

I love the idea of celebrations of singledom. I don't have many single friends (it just happens when you're married or single that we migrate to separate circles) but I would happily buy one a present for some other milestone. I also find that the way we lavish expense on weddings to be extreme and unnecessary and demanding friends to partake in expensive gifts is not cool. I've had a big wedding and a small one and I can tell you that they require so much compromise and cause so much stress that the lavishness wasn't worth it for me. The small wedding was better, more hectic in the preparations but relaxed during the ceremony and party and I could actually enjoy myself instead of worrying about all the tables I needed to stop by and other disasters, including that I've just put myself and my family in extra debt for just a day. Though, I guess it can seem okay when we expect to reciprocate eventually, but when most women get married around the same age, it can be drain on everyone around us. And then, yeah, baby showers are completely necessary still and those don't preclude single women, though they can be drain on the wallet too. Personally, I'd rather save it for the baby shower because babies require a lot of set up costs.

Still, we should be able to celebrate singledom. We should be able to be happy for each other when someone is doing something we wouldn't necessarily do. I don't know what those celebrations should be, but I'm all for it. Maybe a 'moving out on your own' party, or something. I don't know. Single people, let us know!

I really enjoyed this book. It did get a low at times, explaining the realities of both singledom and marriage in many of their forms both good and bad, but overall, it was an enjoyable read. It gave me hope for the future and the direction that women are going in this country. It was inclusive of many ways of being single and/or married and the evolution of some problems for both. It's an important book to read and I'd pair it with The Feminine Mystique if you haven't read it. Not only is it mentioned, but they work well together to further illuminate the evolution of women in this country in a way that neither does well on it's own. Obviously, The Feminine Mystique is technically about 55 years behind the times, but you'll cringe to see how similar the times can really be while appreciating those changes that have been made.

Progress is slow but real. It seems like a crawl and like we take two steps back for every step forward, but reading some of the older texts definitely helps me realize the changes, though subtle, that have taken place in our impressions of our own society.

How women came to embrace being unmarried, and some of the marvelous things they’ve accomplished with that freedom, and how much USian society still hates all those women on their own.

Library copy