I thought this was a really great collection of essays by various women on the state of womanhood in the age of Trump and radical Christian and republican politics. What makes this so much better than a lot of other anthologies is that this one really has a focus on the intersectionality of race, gender, class, sexuality and other social, personal and political factors that complicate the issue of marginality in the 21st century. I would highly recommend this to anyone seeking an understanding of feminism, both novices and feminist pros.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher and the authors.

It was a feast. Not quite everything I'd hoped for, but most of it, and even from the articles I was not keen on, there was always something to learn.

It's by an assortment of authors, only one of whom I'd heard of before, and every one a women. It's about women and women's issues, and it ought to be required reading regardless of your race, gender, or orientation. The women are of different backgrounds and circumstances and with different perspectives, which in a way is what makes it powerful since they do tend to speak with a common voice. That's not to say that once you've read one of these essays, you've read them all. Far from it.

Since it was written by a variety though, it's a bit patchy and uneven, and there were a few issues I had with it, so while I enjoyed it, I felt it did not make for the strongest voice it could have had. One issue is that it's quite insular in some respects - it's very much a Scots thing. Fortunately, I love Scotland, and have been there more than once.

That said, the voices came from women of a variety of backgrounds and even a variety of nationalities, but it made it seem quite provincial for so many voices to hail from Edinburgh and very few other places. Additionally, the cross-section of society they represented was rather narrow at least in the regard that these women were all writers, so we got only that perspective (although one was a writer interviewing a musician).

They were mostly white, and mostly young, and giving only their own personal opinion of their own experience, which is fine, but we need to keep that in mind as we read their words. The ones who wrote about the musical world - which were well-worth reading, please note - were seemingly all from the punk segment of what is a vast musical world, so even there it must be noted (pun intended!) we got a slim cross-section.

So overall it bears keeping in mind that this did not come off as a representative sample, but one facet rooted in intense personal experience. That doesn't invalidate it. Far from it. It makes it very personal and for me it was enough. Here are my thoughts on the articles.

Independence Day by Katie Muriel is a perfectly understandable opining as to why the US elected a misogynist president. For me as a US resident, it made perfect, if nauseating, sense that he was elected. I was not at all surprised by it, but with regard to this essay, I felt it lacked a vital component, especially for a feminist perspective. Muriel's essay completely ignored Trump's opponent, who was a woman! Why Muriel didn't feel any need to explore this is a mystery to me.

I know this essay was focused largely on her own personal perspective vis-à-vis her family, all of whom supported Trump (who won not on a popular majority vote but upon an electoral majority vote, let it be noted). I have to ask why Muriel didn't want to explore the fact that Trump's opponent was Hilary Clinton or why four million voters, who could have kept Trump out of office, failed to "man" up on the day.

Was the country so afraid of Hilary Clinton that they would rather have a misogynist than her? If so, why? Are they merely afraid of any Clinton? Or any "liberal"? While I appreciate that this was an up-close-and-personal story for the author, there is so much more to be said here, and so many more questions to ask. I enjoyed the essay, but felt it lacked some teeth.
Why I'm No Longer a Punk Rock 'Cool Girl' by Kristy Diaz was an exploration of musical addiction and pigeonholes, and how women are treated in the punk world. It felt a bit juvenile to me because it is such a juvenile thing to try to classify a person by musical genre. It can't be honestly done, but music is such a huge part of young people that this fact tends to be overlooked. There is nothing more shallow than introducing yourself to another person by asking them what kind of music they're into, as though that's all they are or can be, and nothing else matters!

I think the essay might have benefited from the perspective of the US, where everything is micro-labeled and rigidly pigeon-holed, most probably, in the final analysis, for purely commercial purposes. I haven't lived in the UK for a long time, so this author's perspective was interesting to me, but when I did live there, it was one chart, and that was it. All music failed or succeeded in competition with all other music, and the variety was magnificent.

The essay was also interesting for me because as a teen and a young man I never was - nor felt- categorized by my musical taste, probably because I didn't have one specific kind of music I was interested in. Music was music - not some genre or other, and I liked it or I didn't like it not because it was 'my genre' or 'my band', but because it appealed or it didn't on its own merit.

It was engaging to read about Diaz's experience, though. In some ways I felt bad not that she was labeled for her clothing and appearance, which is an awful thing to do to anyone, but because in some ways she seemed to be limiting herself when there is so much more to be had. but it takes all kinds and I enjoyed her story and learned from it. That's never a bad thing.
Black Feminism Online: Claiming Digital Space by Claire L. Heuchan really reached me. It was a light touch which carried a heavy weight, and it was a joy to read. You can't properly understand what these events in a person's life are like unless you've lived them, but you can get an inkling from reading a well-written essay like this one. The only sour note for me was when I read this: "Samantha Asumadu, a Black woman, is the founding editor of Media Diversified - a news site with content written entirely by people of colour."

In an essay about racism, that appalled me. It really struck sour note that a business named Media Diversified employs only people of color. How racist is that? Racism isn't something that's just done to black people by white folk. It's any skin color lording it over any other skin color, and for the author to write something like that uncritically, and apparently not see the hypocrisy in it was quite shocking.

You can't fix a pendulum in society that's swung too far in one direction by ramming it just as far in the other. You have to halt it in the middle and never let it move again. That said, the rest of the essay spoke volumes to me - and in a much better way than that one sentence did.
Lament: Living with the Consequences of Contraception by Jen McGregor was a heart-breaking history of one woman's ill-fated exploration of contraception. This is one more thing that guys expend little time upon, but which in all its ramifications, occupies a large part of every woman's life, if only through problems with the monthly red tide.

In this case, Jen McGregor's co-dependent relationship (as it seems she's describing it!) with Depo-Provera is told in an informative and very engaging way, and it makes for a sad, sad reading experience not because it's written badly, but because it's written only too well. This author is a very creative writer.
These Shadows, These Ghosts by Laura Lam was an oddity because I didn't see how this was specifically about women's issues. Yes, the story she told was about a female relative of yesteryear, but the things which happened to her grandmother are not things which are specific to women. They can affect men, too, and spousal abuse isn't solely something that's done to a woman by a man, so I'm not sure what this contributed except in that it was written by a woman about women.

I guess you can slap the label 'Nasty Woman' on a woman who purposefully shoots her husband (and this author had two relatives, both of whom did this: one merely shot him in the leg, but the other woman shot her husband to death and ended up in a psychiatric institution (She got better!). The story was interesting, but it's hardly something you can generalize to all women! I guess you can in a vague way, but this seemed not of the same hue as the previous essays I'd read to this point.
The Nastiness of Survival by Mel Reeve was a hard one to read, but it has to be read and understood. And probably more than once. Horrors like this one (although they're all individual) are the reason I wrote Bass Metal. You can't put a label on this and neatly file it away in an appropriate category. It doesn't work like that and anyone who thinks it does or that it should isn't getting the message. I can't speak for anyone but me, but as I see it, the message is that unless you have a clear, positive, unambiguous, willing, sober, mentally competent, age legal, un-coerced, un-bribed, unforced consent, the answer is a resounding "NO!" It's that simple, and everyone needs to fully internalize this.

Against Stereotypes: Working Class Girls and Working Class Art by Laura Waddell was a great article with some interesting and observant things to say. I've never been big into paintings or sculptures, but this author has a way of writing that engages the reader and brings her point home. I liked and appreciated this.
Go Home by Sim Bajwa

Errata: I had probably wouldn't have had access to the opportunities that I've taken for granted." One too many words here! I suspect it's the second one in that sentence.

This sentence caught my eye: "I'm scared and grieving for anyone in the US who isn't white, straight, cis, male, and able-bodied. The terror is bone deep." While I probably live in an area which is more liberal (even if in a more conservative state), I have to say that there isn't any terror here, despite this state being home to the third highest number of hate groups in the nation. That doesn't mean it isn't happening at all, just that Bajwa's sentece is a bit panicked. Hateful crime - mostly graffiti, but including threats - has increased since Trump's election, but to make a wild blanket statement like this is inflammatory and scaremongering.

Here's another sentence I take issue with: "He said very clearly that he would ban Muslims and refugees from entering the United States. With the Executive Order he signed in January 2017, he did just that. People's lives, security, and families snatched away, for no other crime than being an immigrant."

This is a blanket statement which unfortunately mixes crackdowns on illegal immigrants with legal immigrants and residents, thereby muddying the water, with ridiculous suggestions that all people of color are being turfed out! This kind of wild accusation helps nothing, least of all the case this author is trying to make. Is the author arguing that that illegal immigrants should not be deported? I've noticed this 'reverse' viewpoint often in this kind of rhetoric - where the illegality of what's been going on is never addressed. You cannot trust an author who writes so indiscriminately, so the power which this article might have had was lost for me.
Love in a Time of Melancholia by Becca Inglis

This is the name of a song by Prolyphic, but here it's a paean to Courtney Love, who has never been a love of mine, so this fell completely flat for me! If a person wants to write about someone who helped them, that's fine, but it;s also a very personal thing. As for me, I'm frankly tired of reading stories about people who somehow fell off one wagon or another, and later reformed (whether permanently or not) and then having praise heaped upon them. Where are the stories about people who never fell off the wagon and helped someone? I think those people show greater heroism, and for that they are sadly under-served, so this story really just rubbed me the wrong way. But it's not my story and maybe others will see things in it I did not, so I have nothing else to say about it. You either like ti or you don't - or worse, you're indifferent to it!
Choices by Rowan C. Clarke is a great story about her unhappy childhood, her constant 'at odds' status with regard to the utterly absurd and downright evil 'standard' of beauty we as a society forcibly impose upon women almost right from birth. This is another reason I wrote Bass Metal. It's also the reason I wrote Femarine.

You cannot go into supermarket without being paradoxically bombarded on the one side of the checkout aisle with fattening candy, and on the other side of that same aisle with magazines aimed at women, every one of which obsessively-compulsive tells women they are fat, ugly, and useless in bed and they'd better get with the program or they never will get a man (the LGBTIAQ-crew don't count for squat in any of these magazines, please note).

I'm not a woman, I don't even play one on TV, but half my genes are female, so I think that gives me some sort of a voice, and that voice has to say that those magazines - the ones available in open public sale, and visible to children, are far more pernicious and abusive to woman than any amount of porn if only because they are out there, insidious and so very "innocent" aren't they?

So I was with this author all the way from "You can distill a life..." to "...my story was just one of them."
'Touch Me Again and I Will Fucking Kill You' by Ren Aldridge

This author argues that "...we're not brought up to feel that we're entitled to other people's bodies.", but this is exactly what advertising does - to make people feel that the body you see in the ad, and by extension, the body you see on the modelling runway, on TV, and in the movies, is that one you ought to have instead of the one you're stuck with, and if you only spend enough money on our products, you can have it. Really.

This pressure, from birth very nearly, forces far too many women to chase after a dream which may or may not, in any individual case, be attainable, and people chase this without questioning whether it's realistic, or even a sensible thing to do. This plays into the culture where unless a woman is thin and pale and dressed like she's ready to get it on, she's not worth shit.

This is pounded into our heads, men and women alike, and even into children's malleable minds on a daily basis. This in turn plays into the idea of male privilege - that these are the women who need to be available to men, and if they fall short of the standard, there's something wrong not with the men, but with the women who fall short of what men think they should be.

If you want to take the wider perspective - and several of these writers have argued that - then you need to really take in the bigger picture, not just focus on a few tiny jigsaw pieces, mistakenly thinking that in this microcosm, you have it all. You don't. I'm not sure I agree that there's a rape culture out there, but there's most assuredly a male privilege ethos, and perhaps a part of this can be described as rape culture.

I'm a male who has never been raped, never been ogled or fondled. Well once I was fondled, in Israel, and by a man! And when I was a lot younger! Does that give me any idea of what it's like to live with this day in, day out? No, it doesn't, which is why I need to read articles like this one, even if I don't get it all or don't always agree with viewpoints. We don't need to read these until we agree with all viewpoints. It would be a sad world if we all always agreed on everything, but we do need to read these articles until we get some real understanding of what it's like, and put our asses in gear to end this evil ethos which is all around us.

The author argues that, "What needs to be fought for, is survivors' rights to define and position our own experiences on this continuum." I don't think anyone in their right mind is seeking to deny that, but this statement confuses two different needs: the absolute right of a person who has suffered to define it in their own terms, and the need to define it in legal terms for the sake of not only prosecuting the law but of identifying and reporting the problem. It's a mistake to conflate these two things in my opinion.

I get where this is coming from: "They don't try to prescribe what sexual harassment, assault or any other form of gendered violence is, but leave it open to the survivor to define their own experience," but that doesn't help to make this a thing that's illegal and/or unacceptable, nor does it make it something that can be taught to others to be on guard against, and to cease perpetrating. It has to be objectively defined for those purposes, but that doesn't mean a person upon whom this violence was perpetrated cannot define it in their own terms as well! But this was a great personal testimony.
On Naming by Nadine Aisha Jassat was one of the few essays in the collection which fell a bit flat for me. On the one hand I can see where the writer is coming from, but on the other, it felt like a baseless rant in many respects.

The author writes, "I look at my signature and sigh, enjoy the full sight of it next to the name of my organisation making clear who I am, what I do, and what I stand for. I feel a certainty that I will not accept anything less going ahead. People need to know who they are dealing with." Having read this, I have to say that I do fully empathize with the author. I'm one of the white males who are railed at so often in these articles, that the writing itself comes off as racist at times, but I get Ian (ee-an) pronounced as "eye-an" often, and I also get 'Wood' with an extra 's' added on the end, like there's more than one of me, and I live with it. You know why? It's because I am not defined by my name. My name isn't all that I am. Realistically speaking, it's an insignificant part of me when you get right down to it.

It's not even my name. I didn't choose it. I didn't have any say in it, and that last name came from my father, not my mother. I had no say in that either, and if I had been a girl, I would have lost my mom's name! But wait, it wasn't her name, it was her father's! That's why I find it so hilarious that so many women chose to keep their "maiden" name given that it's far from a maiden name - it's a male patriarch's name! This is why I read this article with a certain amount of wonderment at this author's rather strident protestations.

While I do believe anyone is entitled to be called whatever they want to be called, and certainly they're perfectly within their rights to protect that name from mispronunciation, I'd advise keeping in mind this fact: it's a serious mistake to confine yourself in a box where your name is all you are.

Now that may well be the wrong impression, but it is a distinct impression I kept getting from this essay, and I think that's a bigger insult to yourself than any mispronunciation of a name could offer you. You are more than your name and while you're obsessing over that, you're missing so much else in life. So yes, please do make a point of correcting people who get it wrong, but remember there's more to life than it, and you make yourself seem very small when you focus so tightly on that one thing.

I found it curious that this author wrote: "Even now as I write at my computer, a red line zigzags under Uzoamaka, whilst Tchaikovsky goes unchecked. A subtle reminder, programmed in, of who the system works for and who is out of place."

I'm sorry, but I found this to be entirely wrong-headed! If Uzoamaka had been a famous composer (or artist, or sports personality or movie star), then you can bet it would be in the spell-checker, but no word processor can possibly accommodate every variation of every spelling of every person's name out of seven or eight billion on Earth! I'm sorry, but that's quite simply an idiotic expectation! It truly rendered this into a juvenile rant rather than a reasonable argument, and for me it didn't help her cause one bit.

I invite this author try a few more names before she counts her sampling complete. How about Sacajawea? That get red-lined? I thought not. What about Basquiat? Nope? Aung San Suu Kyi? No red-line there, either (not in Word, but Google can;t handle it as I write this! How about Uhuru? None there! Malala Yousafzai? Not an inkling of red ink. Imran Khan? Nope! Whoopi Goldberg gets in even under her original name: Caryn Johnson! Even Li Nguyen made it past the red-line and that's a fictional character in another review I wrote.

So no, I think the issue here is whether the name is one likely to be used - just like it is with every other word in your word processor dictionary! Try English spellings of words in Microsoft Word when it's set for American usage, and see how many red-lines you get! It's not racism. It's not bias. It's not misogyny. It's not an attempt by da man (that didn't get red-lined!) to keep you down. It's just a matter of what's practical and what isn't.

As I write this, neither Nadine nor Aisha is underlined, only 'Jassat', but that gets no praise from this author that two out of three ain't bad! Seriously, The final joke of this essay was that never once in this entire rant does Nadine Aisha Jassat actually tell us how her name is pronounced, so for me this essay was one of the very few complete fails in this whole collection.

Laura Jane Grace in conversation with Sasha de Buyl-Pisco

This was an interview with a mtf transgendered musician. I found it curious that the author had nothing to say about a couple of articles I read in the British newspaper The Guardian which indicate on the one hand cluelessness on the part of the subject of the interview, and on the other, cluelessness on the part of the guardian writer!

Here's the first:

...[Laura Jane Grace's] fear that she wouldn't be able to cope with raising a son ("knowing I wouldn't be able to be the proper male role model he would need")"

- because no child can possibly grow up healthily without a male role model? That's an appalling thing to say!

Here's the other:

Grace doesn't look like a woman, but then she only began taking hormones a month ago. There's a subtle feminity [sic] in her posture, though, and in the way her features soften as she talks.

Excuse me? She doesn't look like a woman? What does "a woman" look like, exactly, Decca Aitkenhead? In my expert opinion (as a man!), Laura Jane Grace looks just as much woman as Aitkenhead does, so does she consider herself not looking much like a woman? That aside, what a lousy thing for a journalist to write. Tell it like it is my ass. You have to have a decidedly warped sense of what a woman is to write something like that, and from a woman writer too?

That rant aside, I have nothing to add to this. I have never heard of this band (which is quite a successful one), and there really was nothing new here except in how public Laura Jane's 'coming out' was, so the article really didn't deliver much to me.


Adventures of a Half-Black Yank in America by Elise Hines was less of a woman's issue than it was of a race issue: of finding oneself in a very insular, and lets call it what it is, downright racist culture after having grown up in a much more accepting community. It was another one that will make you (hopefully) uncomfortable (if you're white), or sadly make you nod your head familiarly (if you're not). It needs to be read. And we need to ask why people are forced to consider themselves half-black instead of half-white. Aren't both terms equally applicable? If not, why not?



Foraging and Feminism: Hedge-witchcraft in the 21st Century by Alice Tarbuck

This is the only author I've heard of out of this collection, which is sad because this article fell flat for me. I've never been interested in foraging, and it can be downright dangerous unless you know what exactly what you're doing. While I do love nature, I've never been a fan of immersing myself in it, especially not in the USA where there is so much that can sting, bite, poison, or eat you. Finding a scorpion in the bathtub one night was closer than I ever honestly want to be, and personally, I think it needs to be left alone as much as possible. Enjoy it, but please don't mess with it! We have no entitlement to rape and pillage no matter how great we think we are.


Fat in Every Language by Jonatha Kottler is in some ways tied-in with Ren Aldridge's essay which touches on appearance and judgment. This author writes, "I have weighed between 140 pounds to 267 pounds" which tells us little without knowing the author's height! Maybe that was intentional! That is a wide range, but really it's not helpful without any reference to the author's lifestyle because for me, it's less about appearance than health, which is the only sensible way to look at it, and this author tells us nothing about her eating habits or exercise or general well-being, so she deliberately makes it all about skin-depth, which I think was a mistake.

Out of curiosity, I looked up this author to see how she looks and she doesn't look fat to me - or any of the euphemisms we employ to avoid the three-letter word: corpulent, plump, curvy, rounded, or whatever. She looks fine. It's a pity that we live in a society which calculatedly makes people see themselves in the worst light for the sake of our advertisers unloading some product on them.


Afterbirth by Chitra Ramaswamy is about pregnancy and birth. Every man should read this or something like it if they haven't already - and even if they have, let's face it, it's worth going through again since it's nowhere near the journey every pregnant woman takes. Don't be a baby! I think I can say without fear of contraception that this is definitely a women's issue, and it was nice to read something educational and real - and entertaining - about pregnancy and childbirth when all Americans seem to be fed is the ridiculous caricature that seems to pervade every American sitcom - usually written by men - that I've ever seen where a woman is giving birth. This was so refreshingly different and welcome.



Hard Dumplings for Visitorsby Christina Neuwirth was a very personal story about an assortment of incidents from her life. While I found it interesting, it didn't really have a huge impact on me in the way some of the other stories here did. I'm not a fan of memoirs and this felt rather like one. Perhaps that's why it didn't really resonate with me.


Resisting by Existing: Carving Out Accessible Spaces by Belle Owen was great. It was about accessible space for people who are not your 'standard' human being which is all society seems interested in catering to. naturally they can't cater to everyone, but in this day and age of technology, there is no reason extraordinary lengths cannot be gone to. Her story of her being bodily ejected from a concert because they couldn't cope with a woman in a wheelchair has to be read to be believed. While, on the one hand coming from a company which has a tight focus on safety, it also has a tight focus on security, so while I can (if I squint) see their point of view, there was no excuse whatsoever for their behavior and attitude. This is why this essay is so important to read. Put yourself in someone else's wheels for once.


The Difficulty in Being Good by Zeba Talkhani

he thought it would be funny to joke about how I will no longer be allowed to enter America (while it was already quite disturbing then, it hurt even more following the January 2017 order to temporarily ban citizens from predominantly Muslim countries from entering America).

This is another case of misleading writing and why this essay didn't impress me. Trump's executive order, while execrable and ridiculous, banned individuals from seven majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and for 90 days following the signing of the order on Friday 27 January. This is seven countries out of almost fifty which are predominantly Muslim, so the statement made by this author is simplistic at best and downright dishonest at worst. It took away from a much more important message that she touched on only tangentially. I think that was a sad waste of an opportunity.
The Rest is Drag by Kaite Welsh while ostensibly about butch and femme lesbians felt to me more like an article about fashion, which has never been an interest of mine. I liked her message and found her writing interesting, but I wanted more that she seemed prepared to give on this topic. I would have liked her to get into it over why fashion is such a hassle for women - what is it about society that dumps this trip on us all, male or female, and why so few of us realize what's been done to us? One thing she didn't get into, which seemed like an obvious route to explore was how easy it was for her to be free to adopt a variety of clothes - or costumes, or disguises, however you might classify it, and so hard for men to do the same. A woman wearing trousers isn't anything these days, especially if those trousers are jeans, but a man wearing a dress? There was so much more to be said here and I missed not having it.
The Dark Girl's Enlightenment by the amazingly-named Joelle A. Owusu was a sad way to end this fascinating display of essays, but it was a necessary one in many ways because again it went into how being not only black, but female, gives a woman a whole different perspective on life. This was a strong way to end this collection because it was so sad and so anger-inducing.

While some bits were less than thrilling for me, and the whole was a bit uneven, Overall this was an awesome collection and worth reading - even the patchy bits. I recommend this to anyone and everyone.

This resonated so much with me, I read it all in one evening. As a mother to two children, I feel it's my responsibility to raise in them the values I think they deserve to have in the future. One of these qualities is embracing uniqueness and accepting people for what they do rather than what they look like, what gender they have or what their sexuality is. It's such an important issue to raise at the moment when the country is facing so much uncertainty following Brexit, the election of Trump and the rise of racist attacks - and this little anthology of stories may have helped resort a bit of faith in me that there are still people out there who care.

The story about contraceptives (why must it always be the woman's responsibility?) and the awful side effects that have come with it, the abject horror of realising Trump has been elected, the black dog of depression. None of these women are perfect, yet all of them are me. I might not be Black British, or Indian British, but I'm an ally. And every single story stirred up some kind of emotion - whether it be anger or sadness.

I've always been a bit of a 'backseat feminist' if that is such a thing. Happy to call myself a feminist if asked but never really getting vocal about it. After reading these, I might just get a little more vocal.

This novel was everything I expected it to be! It's a collection of essays by some very inspiring women who come from all different walks of life and cultures.

I thought the subject matter of most of these essays was very unique but at the same time were very correlated together which made my reading experience very, very enjoyable.

Additionally, I really loved the inclusion of Indian and Muslim women - being Indian myself - I thought it was great to see what women from my culture (and cultures similar to mine) go through in different parts of the world and how they overcome these challenges.

I wish I took longer to read this and took my time, but I was too excited to finish this novel and post my thoughts about it. Despite that, I will definitely be going back to this novel over and over to re-read some of my favourite essays!

Some of my favourites: Lament: Living With the Consequences of Contraception, Go Home, Choices, Hard Dumplings, and Afterbirth.

I highly, highly recommend reading this novel because it will honestly change your viewpoint on women and the lives of women! Whether you're a girl, a boy, a woman, a man, or anything in between - you will learn from this and you will love it.

This was one of my highly anticipated reads!! I was so excited to start reading this, but once I was 1/3 through the book, I had to DNF it.

Don't get me wrong. The concept of the book, and the writing style of some writers were really amazing, but most of the essays were more tell, less show. And that was a great issue for me.

At first, I was pissed when I saw how some reviewers were saying that they couldn't relate to the authors cause I thought they meant "I have never experienced that, so don't get it." But after reading 1/3 of the book, I understood what they meant. Some essays are all talk, no show.

This has become one of my all-time favorite books! I have been recommending it to people left and right as one of the strongest arguments for feminism we have today. As a brown woman and feminist myself, the common thread of being a minority and the feeling of being forced to be an ambassador for those communities resonated with me.

The concept of microaggressions is also a current hot topic, and all of these stories provided good examples to define the term. The question of how to explain seemingly harmless, innocuous behavior to privileged people is certainly complex and confusing and there are no clear answers, even in these narratives. They do, however, reinforce the idea that discriminated women should not be afraid to call people out on such behavior for fear of being thought too loud or opinionated.

This is a much needed collection of stories with the current political and social climate, and a brilliant example of how intersectional feminism is so important.

This is an interesting collection of feminist essays by a wide variety of authors on a wide range of topics. I found it to be an interesting collection of thoughts and ideas and experiences.

Nasty Women started as a Kickstarter campaign raising the cost of publication in a very short time. While it's undeniable that facing the nasty woman label is important, I wish that the editors had taken a bit more care in compiling this selection of essays covering a broad range of the female experience. Many essays jump around and lack focus. The essays are timely, but could have used more care.

Really varied and interesting selection of personal essays from a cross-section of women-- I particlarly liked the contribution about working class women by Laura Wadell, which felt very relatable

New independent UK publisher 404 Ink brings us Nasty Women, a collection of twenty-one essays on what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. This book was funded in just three days via the crowd funding website Kickstarter, after Donald Trump referred to Hilary Clinton as a 'nasty woman' during the 2016 presidential elections. These essays reclaim the term and cover issues from contraception, to skin colour and sexual orientation.

The last year has been a been one gut wrenching shock after another when it comes to politics and human rights. I am continually dis-heartened and appalled that a man who has openly admitted to sexual assault has become the US president. Are generations of children meant to look up to this? Meant to be inspired by a racist, sexist man who's signing away human rights for anyone who doesn't fit his idea of the ideal American? This collection meets recent events head on.

The book opens with Independence Day by Katie Murial, which is one of my favourite essay in this collection. Her personal account of Trump's affect on her family is painfully honest and a terrifying insight into his impact on her world. Lament: Living with the Consequences of Contraception by Jen McGregor also makes for impactful reading, covering a topic that's barely covered in current media, even though it affects a huge percentage of our population. Her love/hate relationship with the contraceptive injection Depo-Provera (the drug I blame for being diagnosed as pre-cancerous in my early twenties) highlights just one of the choices women have to make and the consequences we often aren't informed of.

Yes, this is a collection of feminist essays but please don't think that means this is just for women. This collection is packed with important, beautifully written and vibrant accounts and opinions that make for great reading no matter who you are or where you come from. These women's stories are often devastating but their voices are inspiring and their passion for change is contagious. Congratulations ladies, you've left me proud to be a Nasty Woman.

When i requested to read this book i had an idea of what it would be like but as it turned out i was very wrong. In the best way though. This was a exactly the kind of book that is needed today. It's real, raw and powerful.

Feminism. Such an important topic. I cannot stress this enough. Nasty Women is everything I wanted it to be and more. Such a raw, real collection of essays focusing on a variety of topics important to the world including but not limited to racism, bigotry, homophobia, ableism, sexism, misogyny, and so so much more. There are essays by many different women of different religions and races. Diversity is present here, which I applaud because all minorities should be represented in a book aimed at being this honest on what it is to be a woman. And today is a time that this has never been more important with the political atmosphere of Trump's America. I highly recommend everyone read Nasty Women. Never a book more important.

I breezed through this book. It was gritty, it was biting and it was chock full of important and engaging accounts from women of all body types, colour and sexual orientations.

The most important question discussed in this collection is 'what does it mean to be a woman in the 21st Century?'

Believe me, the subject is not black and white and the essays collected here are superbly succinct in their discussions, ideas, and opinions.

I received an advanced reader's copy from the publishers and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

First, I want to thank the publishers for providing me with an arc, I'm very grateful for this opportunity. This is one of the first non-fiction books I have ever read in my spare time. I'm not familiar with the genre and therefore I can't compare it to other feminist works.

Nasty Women is a collection of essays on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century. These essays were written after the Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Some essays deal with how this influenced their lives (in a negative way) but there are many other topics as well.

I wanted to read Nasty Women because I want to read more feminist texts. For me, this collection of essays was the perfect introduction to the genre. The texts are very diverse, some talk about racial and sexual issues, others talk about weight problems, etc. I found Nasty Women illuminating. The accounts of these women hit me hard sometimes. It offers very different perspectives and every single one is pertinent.

I thought the collection started out strong with an essay about how Trump's election influences people around you, even your own family, to feel it's okay to be racist and sexist. And that's simply heart-breaking.

One thing I really want to point out, is that potential trigger warnings are given at the beginning of these essays. This means you can easily skip an essay if you prefer not to read about rape or abuse, for instance.

All in all, as one of my first non-fiction and feminist reads, I really liked it. After reading each essay, I felt the need to discuss it immediately which probably annoyed my family to death. Nasty Women offers personal stories written by women who don't "fit in" with society's norms in various ways. These different perspective can at times be difficult to read. I am a privileged white female living in Belgium and I have learned a lot by reading Nasty Women. These passionate accounts often made me angry and sad at the same time.

I gave this collection 5 out of 5 stars! I would highly recommend this book if you want to read some hard-hitting, feminist essays. This was a perfect introduction to feminist literature and I will definitely read more of these books in the future! Really, everyone should read Nasty Women, I was truly impressed by this collection.

A must-read! I really really enjoyed these essays. Every single essay focused on something important and what was really impressive was that all of the essays were all different. I thought that the essays were very inclusive and they covered a wide range of topics. What I liked most about these essays was how personal they were. I could really relate and empathise with all of the writers because I could feel they were writing from the heart. I thought most of the essays were extremely well-written and I would definitely read more by the numerous writers from this collection. I think this book is 100% a must-read.

My favourite essays were:
These Shadows, These Ghosts by Laura Lam (5 Stars).
Love in a Time of Melancholia by Becca Inglis (4.5/5 Stars).
Fat in Every Language by Jonatha Kottler (4.5 Stars).

* I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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"I lack understanding on how so many of them can think he is fit to be anything more than dirt on the ground, let alone the President of the United States of America."

"Like many kids growing up in a small town, I spent an introspective childhood dreaming that the excitement of real life would begin when I left."

"I knew I didn’t want children, and I reasoned that if I was old enough to become a parent then I was old enough to choose not to become one."

"Women who make themselves heard have insults flung at them by those threatened by a change in the status quo."

"The only thing you have to do to be a survivor is to be raped and then to survive."

"I’m trying to keep positive about humanity in general, even though it feels like every new week is battering away at that optimism."

"However, his whole campaign was based on hatred, on setting up an Other to blame for the problems of the working class, on stirring up violence and anger. Us versus Them. To vote for him, to have treated him as a legitimate candidate in the first place, to act as if his inflammatory comments are debatable, is to be complicit in his exclusive version of America."

"They want our things –our food, our labour, our money –but they don’t want us."

"I’m tired of knowing that when people mean ‘immigrants’ in the West, they don’t mean white migrants from North America or Australia."

"Vincent Van Gogh, wrote to his brother of his torment and helplessness:‘One feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless’."

"Depression is a black hole out of which you are too tired to climb."

"The first time, when you have no prior experience of the feeling, depression sinks into your life without detection. The second time, depression is accompanied by a sense of dread as its cold fingers tendril around the corners of your brain. You know this feeling. It is a familiar ghost that you thought you had managed to exorcise. When you remember what the wraith put you through last time, how it impacted your family or friends, you chastise yourself for allowing yourself to slip. You know that you are vulnerable, and you are meant to know what triggers it. You should have kept a tighter grip on things, been more vigilant. Clearly, thoughts like this will not help you leave the well, and are more likely to push you further under the water."

"Growing up in my family was like living every day in ill-fitting clothes. I spent my time feeling uncomfortable and struggling to breathe."

"I didn’t realise until years later that what I felt, being treated differently to the boys around me, was inequality, pure and simple. Girls should work hard, be humble and shut their mouths. Girls should be girly but not too sexy. There are so many rules that come with being a girl that you forget sometimes that these rules are fictitious patriarchal bullshit. You’re so intent on being the good girl everyone wants you to be that you forget to be yourself."

"Real life isn’t like fiction; there are no neat and tidy endings."

"To live in a culture which will grow your tongue so that some names will roll from it, but others will not, reveals much about who and what said culture values. That children are taught to pronounce the name of a composer whose work they may not even know, but do not say the name of the girl who sits across from them every day in class, is a tool of cultural imperialism. It is a clear line, a line heavy with empire and white supremacy, which says: these are the people who are of worth, whose names you need to remember, who you need to respect, and these are the people who can remain nameless, who you don’t need to respect, who are alien to you."

"Even now as I write at my computer, a red line zigzags under Uzoamaka, whilst Tchaikovsky goes unchecked. A subtle reminder, programmed in, of who the system works for and who is out of place."

"...we’re seen as the radical feminists who want women to leave their husbands, become lesbians, dye their hair green. If wanting a woman to be able to own her own sexuality, to be able to live life with freedom and dignity and find and make her own choices are these things, then yes, we are nasty women –the nastiest around."

"As a black woman in the Dirty South, can someone please explain to me how America was great, when it was great, and when it stopped being great?"

"Take a moment and ask yourself who are the real Nasty Women? Those of us who struggle to empower all women or those of us who empower men that ensure we remain second class citizens?"

"I grew up thinking I was fat, and knowing it was a failure of character."

"Fat is who I am: to people who haven’t met me, (‘the bathroom is over there, next to that fat lady’) to people who know me, (‘you looked so good when you lost that weight’); even to myself."

"There was something inside me that was open and desperate, and I filled it up with some potato chips."

"Here’s a fact: fat people know they are fat. We live it every single moment of every day. Whether it has a physical cause like a prescription drug that saves your life, but makes you gain weight; or an emotional or psychological one; or is even simply a deliberate choice, we know we are fat. And if we ever forget it for a moment, there is a whole world to remind us. And you can say it aside, or in your own language ‘dikke vrouw’ (big fat lady), or just think it while looking at us in disgust, but we always know that you know it, too."

"I cannot define my own value by the amount of space I take up at a given moment. I cannot speak to myself in that language anymore."

"A permanent change is a strange thing. It’s difficult to wrap my head around the fact that, for the rest of my life, they will be gone."

"I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me a long time to realise that being good is not equal to being subservient."

"I was judged and hated for simply existing –for taking up space which apparently I did not deserve."

"‘Not everything is about race.’ ‘Not everything is sexist.’ Perhaps not. But enough of it is for it to be an on-going problem that we simply cannot sweep under the carpet anymore."

This was an uneven work for me. Some stories were well written, while others seemed quite juvenile in their structure. I felt the opening story was quite weak and thus a surprising choice to start the book with.

This is what feminism is about: all women! I particularly enjoyed Joelle Owusu's 'The Dark Girl's Enlightenment' but it was good to read about other stories and experiences different from mine. Nasty Women also highlights the power of storytelling; the women in the book claim their space by unapologetically sharing their own stories. Very empowering read, indeed.

Wow.
What a powerful anthology.
It’s about time that women can read a selection of essays written by Nasty Women: women who speak openly about the abuse/criticism they’ve received, just for being them.
A lot of feminist writing is generic, focusing on gender inequality. But here we have essays written by women of various races, religions, gender identities, and “different” interests. And for once these women, in one volume, are celebrating these differences and owning the fact that they are Nasty. As one of the authors said, who actually is Nasty? A woman who thinks freely and acts as herself, or a woman who does what others thinks she should and isn’t happy? Or a woman who votes for a misogynist and somehow still calls herself a feminist?
Speaking of Trump… I thought the first essay, “Independence Day”, was the perfect beginning. The anxiety and anger surrounding the American presidency is all too common these days; reading a personal account of the recent increase of racial abuse was an enlightening way to introduce the concept of the Nasty Woman.
The essays started out strong and in my opinion weakened a bit in the middle. Some were a little too factual to keep me interested, and a few were too academic, with a lot of quotes from other sources that broke up the flow of the narrative. However, I really enjoyed the last essay, “The Dark Girl’s Enlightenment”. I realize that I liked the more emotional, emphatic, essays. I personally couldn’t relate to most of the essays, which is even more reason to read Nasty Women: all women need to understand and be empathetic to other women’s situations in order to call ourselves feminists, and this anthology provides ample material.

I really loved it! Extremely well written and not the cookie cutter voice of feminism. Very real and refreshing. Would definitely recommend reading it!