PDF Bad Feminist Essays Audible Audio Edition Roxane Gay Bahni Turpin HarperAudio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 11 hours and 46 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher HarperAudio Audible.com Release Date August 5, 2014 Whispersync for Voice Ready Language English, English ASIN B00LML1CWG

Bad Feminist Essays Audible Audio Edition Roxane Gay Bahni Turpin HarperAudio Books Reviews

• I didn’t know what to expect when opening a book entitled, “Bad Feminist.” I certainly didn’t expect to read about Gay’s devotion to the Sweet Valley High book series, or her obsession with competitive Scrabble, or her enjoyment of the Hunger Games books despite their literary pitfalls. She offers these reflections alongside essays lamenting violence against women and the LGBT community, and the depressing persistence of rape culture and racism. The latter essays tend to be gritty, factual, intensely-layered with a complex and nuanced perspective; they showcase her ability to imbibe culture in all its forms—media, news, movies, literature—and lay it out for us to see, think about, and agree or disagree with. In one notable essay, “The Solace of Preparing Fried Foods and Other Quaint Remembrances from 1960s Mississippi Thoughts on The Help”, Gay bemoans the ever-lingering trope of the “magical negro” and its presence in movies and popular literature. She writes “In The Help, there are not one but twelve or thirteen magical negroes who use their mystical powers to make the world a better place by sharing their stories of servitude and helping Eugenia ‘Skeeter’ Phelan grow out of her awkwardness and insecurity into a confident, racially aware, independent career woman. It’s an embarrassment of riches for fans of the magical negro trope” (Pg. 210). When I read this, other movies came to mind, such as The Green Mile, in which the person of color, John Coffey, significantly improves the lives of the white people in his life but doesn’t save himself from being put to death by electrocution. Coffey brings animals back to life and sucks cancer from a white woman’s body, accepting it not without distress and pain to his own person, and reassures the whites around him that he is ready to die, and in fact wants to die. Gay wishes for a day when people of color play characters other than a slave or a “magical negro” or a combination of the two; she wishes for a day when the script has a person of color performing significant acts for their own destiny and not for someone else.
  
  In a world where people think increasingly in absolutist claims, such as We versus Them, and use increasingly simplified and stunted language that can hardly do justice to the many ways life is lived, Gay’s writing forces the reader to consider the infinite shades of gray that exist in the world beyond the black and white, and demands through her logic that people be allowed to thrive in a variety of lifestyles, modes, and cultures and be respected and loved—despite religion, skin color, gender, chosen life paths, and level of so-called femininity.
  
  Isn’t this book about being a bad feminist? Yes, but Gay’s views of herself, what feminism means for her and what she thinks it should mean today are intertwined with her ruminations on literature and culture. There’s not just one right way to be a feminist; there’s the way of being who you are, plus feminism, and then you can be both, even if it doesn’t quite fit in the lines of what the perceived perfect feminist might be (for instance, Gay likes the color pink). As if sighing at the end of a lengthy conversation, she says in her last essay “I am a mess of contradictions.” We are all; yet few of us are strong enough to admit it.
• Show me a strong woman with opinions and I'll show you a line of detractors ready to fill her web page, her blog, her book reviews, with negative comments and thinly veiled slurs.
  
  The more Roxane Gay I read the more Roxane Gay I want to read. Not because we're so much alike, but because we're so different. 'Because we took such different paths, I being a fifty-something privileged white man, to reach the same conclusions. As I consumed Bad Feminist I found myself literally nodding in agreement, raising eyebrows in occasional astonishment, laughing out loud at her jokes and shedding a tear or twenty in painful empathy.
  
  Gay, much like Lindy West, gifts me a perspective I would not otherwise have had. Each essay, each bit, becomes a piece of the mosaic of my worldview.
• Roxane Gay writes in a casual, intellectual, and engaging manner that keeps your attention. The essays challenge your presumptions, often with dry wit and in-depth analysis derived from her education, observations, and life experiences. Her biographical stories and anecdotes are entertaining and enlightening, allowing you to empathize with her various experiences.
  
  This book significantly impacted my perspective on feminism. In particular, the challenges of advocating feminism in our world. We all have different experiences and perspectives which drive our expectations. Gay has spent a lot of time and brain power deciphering exactly what feminism means to her, especially as compared to the feminist stereotype.
  
  "I disavowed feminism because I had no rational understanding of the movement. I was called a feminist, and what I heard was, 'You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.' "
  
  Precisely because she doesn’t feel as though she fits the stereotype nor does she react to every scenario as she views a feminist should, she describes herself as a bad feminist. Gay uses these essays to empower herself and the reader to embrace her/their imperfections while still being a feminist.
  
  How did this book affect me? It opened my eyes in ways I didn’t expect.
  
  Like so many others in this world, after my parents divorced I was raised primarily by a single mother. That experience ingrained in me a sense of feminism that I didn’t even realize was there for many years. While I have always respected women, appreciated them for who they are, treated them fairly, and supported equality at every opportunity I was aware of, I never really thought of myself as a feminist.
  
  Perhaps it’s a larger hurdle to leap because I’m a man. I’m supposed to adhere to idiotic and outdated rules of masculinity if I want to keep my man card. In a way, labeling myself a feminist is the antithesis of the societal norms I experienced growing up in rural Illinois and the urban yet deeply-southern-in-beliefs Houston, Texas. Not all, but most of the men around me upheld those expectations while the boys strived to meet them. I suppose that makes for a long journey to embracing yourself as a man and a feminist.
  
  Gay’s descriptions gave me a better understanding of a woman’s experiences, as well as those of a black woman. For her, it’s a double whammy. Her life is filled with peoples’ reactions to her both as a woman and a woman of color. Bias is present in our society and government, without a doubt, meanwhile, her essays provided a personal frame of reference to the subject. Her view on current movies and books that deal with racism were eye-opening. They often exposed the narrow scope and hypocritical story of enlightenment that the public embraced. Her analysis made me question why I enjoyed the movies she ridiculed. I don’t have a definitive answer yet.
  
  While not all of the essays resonated with me, the collection is well worth reading. Especially for those who are looking to understand feminism from a slightly different angle than the stereotypical one. The takeaway from Roxane is that your view of being a feminist can be your own and still be valid.
  
  See more of my thoughts at todhilton[dot]com/reads.