I absolutely loved this #audiobook, Thank you #netgalley for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review. #Difficultwomen is a phrase we often hear, #HelenLewis delves into the history behind this phrase and shares stories to enlighten those of us who do not know a lot about #feminism. Definitely a book that will introduce #feminism in a positive and helpful way.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I thought that the way each person was treated with respect and nuance made the stories more interesting. The flaws and achievements of each individual were given an equal emphasis, and often broader contexts were brought in to make the situation more understandable. The variety of women selected, throughout different time periods and waves of feminism gave the book a wider scope than books of a similar nature.

My only major criticism of the book is the slightly dismissive tone the author took towards demisexuality. As an asexual person myself (though not demi) I took this badly, but acknowledge that it was only one sentence in the book that seemed to me to be otherwise fine. The author is only human, and to not acknowledge that people are capable of achieving good whilst still making mistakes would be to show that I have learnt nothing from this book.

I really love when an audiobook is divided into very specific chapters like this one because not every chapter is going to be relevant or new information to everyone and so it was great to be able to chop and change and skip bits I wasn't as interested in over the course of this audiobook.

This book is divided into 11 sections plus and intro and an epilogue so it means that if you're feeling like listening to the section on sex one day but voting the next you can navigate your way through the book as such. Also these 11 fights are not solely based around issues facing women in the UK but around the world and in Ireland as well. I like how Helen Lewis narrates this one and gives her own personal anecdotes alongside the facts and figures that she has curated. There are also personal accounts from other women she had interviewed or profiled and they factor into each section with relatable human experiences.

This book is not a preachy book. Helen discusses how she felt when she had to go through a divorce and din't just land on the side of, well she should never have got married in the first place. She talks about being out spoken when she feels that the feminist agenda is being over shadowed by something simply becoming a media circus or a cause for the news to pick up on.

I'm not saying that I loved every section of this book or that everything was brand new information that hasn't been covered in other books but if you are just beginning to pick up books like this or just branching into nonfiction then this would be a good starting point. The book also details other writers who have written books on the subject in pother different ways and so would be a great stepping stone into picking up more books about feminism and women's studies in general.

I was hooked from the first sentence… having been a ‘difficult woman’ all my life (just ask my Mum…), it was immensely pleasing to read (well, hear, actually, as I listened to the audiobook edition) about other difficult women. I learnt a lot, especially about so many brave women who have been ‘airbrushed’ out of history, and those whose courage changed lives, altered society, reformed laws, in ways that enable today’s women to have the freedom, choices and liberty that we enjoy.
Narrated by the author, Helen Lewis, I found the book easy to listen to, simultaneously funny and serious, insightful and honest, and I love the things I learnt along the way. There are lessons to be learnt by both sexes about the fight against patriarchy. The book is divided in to 11 ‘fights’ – each one a chapter that covers matters that greatly affect peoples’ lives.
I would recommend this book to everyone. Women reading this will learn that their frustrations are common to all women and find reassurance that they are not being ‘unreasonable’. Men reading this will find an accurate insight into how, often without realising it, they are playing a part in the system; those who are, as yet, unenlightened will definitely gain understanding.

A fascinating and comprehensive account of different issues facing women throughout history and today. It is narrated well and easy to listen to. I would recommend.

I received this as an ARC on NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review

Actual rate: 2.75

Good:
- Complex, nuanced discussion of concepts
- Chatty, fun narration which kept me listening
- I found out about people I'd never heard of, and reinvigorated my interest into feminism

Bad:
- un-nuanced and biased discussion of trans rights, which only was brought up to use as a strawman against certain views.
- sometimes the blaze narration could undermine important stories or concepts
- Although it was mentioned several times, there was little discussion of the intersectionality with LGBT rights

This was an in depth and nuanced view of feminism in history, with people who felt true and whole, not flat martyrs. It gave us true and hard hitting stories with context and detail, which kept me listening right to the end. The storylines were mostly followed through, and not too tangent-y or distracted as can sometimes happen with a history book. However, I was upset by the only mentions of trans people being as a strawman about abortion rights (never heard anyone say that men should always be included in abortion campaigns?) and as calling people TERFs of twitter, in inflammatory and derogatory ways (which the author seemed to disapprove of, even if it is true). You can, in fact, be trans and accept that there is a traditionally 'female' body, and most people I've seen denying that are straw manning for their own arguments, or blank trolling twitters. Surely there was a mention to be made of trans female activists, or trans misogyny? Yikes.

This lack of consideration was what made my rating so low, in a book i otherwise enjoyed immensely.

CWs: force feeding, death, illness, divorce, abuse (child and domestic), rape, NSFW discussion, misogyny, transphobia, others.

I would recommend this book to feminists, and to be honest, to anyone who wants to learn more about the world. (ignoring the transphobic parts)

Overall: 3/5

An excellent audiobook, recorded by the author. Helen Lewis's clear, engaging arguments are extremely easy to consume in audio form: it's like being in the pub with a very clever, well-informed friend with a great sense of humour. Full of fascinating tidbits about feminist history, and with plenty of nuance – there are no uninterrogated icons here, we see these difficult women in full technicolour – I deeply enjoyed this book on a subject I often read about in short form but rarely take on at book length.

Received through NetGalley for an honest review - and thank god I got it!

"Feminism should be less concerned with individual choices than the conditions in which they were made."

I really enjoyed this non-fiction feminism book & manifesto at the end. I actually had tears in my eyes at the end because it made me quite emotional. This is an easy to read, well researched, informative book that covers all waves of feminism and some lesser known "difficult" feminists. A lot of this information is available elsewhere (Invisible Women), but I enjoyed Helen's personal insights into the issues, and her focus on the not-so-perfect feminists that we sometimes ignore or "cancel".

Her ideas about feminism as a whole made the book stand out for me. She questioned the third wave a lot, which I sometimes found quite contradictory, but I enjoyed this a lot. One of her key arguments throughout the whole book is that feminists argue too much between ourselves about being the "perfect" feminist and that the third wave is trying to make feminism quite homogenous. However, she points out that feminism is trying to represent the views of approx 3.5 billion people and therefore, how can there be one feminism?

Feminists are too hard on ourselves and on others. We're all fighting for one cause; equality! So why do we make it so difficult for other women (and men and others of course) to just do this in their own way, instead of focussing on perfection in feminism?

"This is something which often happens to women who challenge the status quo: any whisper of personal privilege is used to paint their concerns as piffling, a sideshow to other, greater oppressions. OK, OK, some women have a rough time, runs the patronising logic, but what do these ones have to complain about?"

On a very personal note, the chapter titled "violence" was the most hard-hitting for me. The night I read this chapter, I had witnessed domestic abuse in my street. I had just spoken to the police and given my statement, tucked myself into bed, and opened this book to find it was the violence chapter - I couldn't believe it. I sat for a few minutes thinking... this book isn't just statistics and data, it is REAL! All of this book describes real women's lives and struggles for the fight against the patriarchy.

This book made me angry that we have to sum up all the issues across the world that women face in 11 chapters to make it digestible. It made me angry for all the times I've fought against people who don't believe that women face discrimination. It made me sad for all the women that can't abort babies that they're rapists gave them, for the women that take abuse at home because they have no option to leave, for the women that get put in freezing huts every time they bleed, for the women that get casual sexual harassment from their boss.

We need to keep fighting, the war against the patriarchy is not over!

"To me, patriarchy is a system where men control most of the power and money, and use that control to their own advantage. It does not mean every individual man is consciously oppressing every individual woman."

Thank you Netgalley for sending me the audio version of this book.

Helen Lewis talks us though so many strong, inspirational, pioneering women who are deemed to be “difficult” for speaking out, challenging opinions and making change over the past two centuries.

I learnt so much from this book about what these so-called difficult women have done not only for getting the vote, but for women’s football, women’s employment rights, access to higher education, rights for LBTQ, abortion, birth control, divorce, the list just goes on and on. Where would we be without these women who were willing to give up so much for other women. The things we don’t hear about are the sometimes illegal lengths they went too and how disgracefully they were treated for that, the force feeding in the prisons sounded absolutely unbearable!

I’m going to buy the paperback version purely to go back and read some of the stats, and also because I want to do more research. There’s “difficult women” we have heard of many times Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parkes but there’s women in here that did so much that I had never heard of; Marie Stopes, Lily Parr, Annie Kenney, Jayaben Desai to name a few.

Lewis also covers more current topics of debate such as the battle between mothers trying to work, look after the children and the home and talks about the “2nd shift” that we start at home once we finish work. She also mentions a stat that was published in the New York Times that says college educated parents now spend double the time interacting with their kids than in the 1980’s because of helicopter parenting - constantly hovering over them rather than letting them run freely in the neighbourhoods. I honestly found it all fascinating.
I really recommend that everyone reads this book to fully appreciate our history.

“Together difficult women can change the world”

Listen to the audiobook which was both enlightening, interesting and thought-provoking. Why do we not like difficult women and why do we have to somehow remove or hide their imperfections? This book was brilliant. I am thrilled I got to listen to it and have now ordered multiple copies to give as gifts. I learnt so much about women in history and it has really made me think about how we portray women in the future.

This was an interesting listen. I learned a lot about women I have heard of before, and some I have never heard of. I enjoyed how the book is organised, with each chapter covering a topic or fight (including Time, Sex, and Work). Working in employment advice, the section on Work was particularly interesting, as was the discussion around Time and how motherhood and household work are a massive drain on time resources, yet unpaid.

I also appreciated Lewis approaching the subject of women feeling it difficult to express their feminist ideals when the people they love are those they are pointing out as benefiting from their oppression. This is a difficulty I have often thought about but never heard spoken about before. Lewis interweaves viewpoints of women and men she has spoken to in order to provide a variety of insights and arguments throughout.

The narration was well done and easy to listen to. Would recommend.

Title: Difficult Women
A History of Feminism in 11 Fights
by :Helen Lewis
Narrated by: Helen Lewis
Publishers:Penguin Random House UK Audio
Genre: Vintage
Review on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3754853814
In this book Lewis looks at women who are considered feminists. However, Lewis wants people, especially feminists to see these woman as whole. She wants people to stop making saints of these woman.

For example Lewis tells us about coco Chanel and how she was connected to the Nazi's but in modern times this is over looked and instead feminists focus on how she was a savvy business woman.

Lewis speaks about all types of feminists. This includes the suffragettes who turned to violence to get there point across and she quoted Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who is a known TERF. (Feminists who don;t support transwomen)

The book shared a wealth of information, woman's rights from other countries and what women in those countries still face.

I found out a lot more not only about myself but about each of the feminist waves. Lewis states at the end of her book that while she may not agree with all of the actions that have happened during the feminist waves and my not agree with each and every feminist and their views that it is important to see these women and feminists.

Unfortunately I disagree. Yes there are many types of feminist but some cause damage to the movement. Personally I am an international feminist (are we not here to rep all woman after all) who includes Transwoman in that statement. I do not associate myself for TERF's. Here Lewis and I disagree.

I don't often listen to audio books so there are somethings I must let slide. It annoyed my when I thought Lewis was speaking for her self and it would turn out to be a quote. As for Lewis being the narrator I thought she did a good job, sometimes funny or sarcastic tone broke up the stream of information.

"Difficult" was the right word to pick. Of course women had to be difficult to get their rights. However, I personally do not consider those who fought/fight for the rights of a few women, or women like them to be true feminists. I also feel that true feminist's support men when it is needed. Support them when they are the victims. I was glad to see Lewis had not over looked this form of feminism.

As an Irish, disabled female feminist I was proud to see the Irish vote to amend the 8th was also included in this book.

After reading/listening to the whole book I have added a star. Who knew how much I would like Lewis's work. This is the kind of book I would give a fellow feminist or a person who calmed "But men and women are equal now" So probably everyone.

This was a fantastic audiobook! I love it when authors narrate their work, because you can hear the emotion and passion that the author has for the subject. Helen Lewis was very engaging and captivating whilst performing, and the humour really come out well too! Highly highly recommend!

I wish I'd researched the author before picking this one up. I'd never heard of her before. The book was rubbing me the wrong way and there was some transphobic content in here so I checked. I suppose I'm not really her target demographic.

I found the book to be quite scattered and unfocused, despite the framing device of '11 fights'. Some of the content is interesting e.g. the anatomy stuff in an earlier chapter. However, I have come across most of the content before in a better presented context. Not one I'd recommend.

Difficult Women is a well researched
introduction to feminism and some of the interesting women who have been involved in the fight for equality.

The book is divided into 11 chapters, each one exploring an issue in feminism and focusing on a handful of the key women involved. Some of the women are generally well known whilst others were certainly new to me. Lewis does well to walk the line between celebrating them while also mentioning their flaws and critically discussing their approaches. It was particularly insightful to hear from the women themselves, on several occasions Lewis has made contact with those surviving and reports on their own reflections. As most people are, these women are complex and this book reflects that.

There are limitations to this book but feminism is so wide reaching and complex that it’s difficult to condense it into one book. ‘Difficult Women’ is very UK-centric and while they’re mentioned, race and gender identity don’t play a large part. Lewis at least recognises these shortfalls at the start of the book. These issues are also mentioned throughout the book and not just forgotten and Lewis may not be best placed to discuss them anyway. Overall, the book is structured well with the 11 chosen issues covering plenty of ground. It also remains very accessible and engaging throughout which is essential for ensuring it reaches as many people as possible.

I listened to the audiobook which was read by the author herself. This worked well as the Lewis includes plenty of her own thoughts and experiences.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fab audiobook. It was fascinating to hear about the difficult women who have challenged the world to shape the experiences of us women in certain areas. The audiobook being read by the author sounds like a longer more in depth podcast. Would definitely recommend!

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<p> Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights by Helen Lewis in exchange for my honest review.</p>
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<p><em>Well-behaved women don't make history: difficult women do. Helen Lewis argues that feminism's success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women, who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. It's time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women. In this book, you'll meet the working-class suffragettes who advocated bombings and arson; the princess who discovered why so many women were having bad sex; the pioneer of the refuge movement who became a men's rights activist; the 'striker in a sari' who terrified Margaret Thatcher; the wronged Victorian wife who definitely wasn't sleeping with the prime minister; and the lesbian politician who outraged the country. Taking the story up to the present with the twenty-first-century campaign for abortion services, Helen Lewis reveals the unvarnished - and unfinished - history of women's rights. Drawing on archival research and interviews,&nbsp;Difficult Women&nbsp;is a funny, fearless and sometimes shocking narrative history, which shows why the feminist movement has succeeded - and what it should do next. The battle is difficult, and we must be difficult too.</em></p>
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<p>This is the first feminism book I have read, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I have always been interested in this topic and wanted to educate myself more but I never knew where to start. This was such an interesting book and I have learnt so much from it.</p>
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<p>One of my favourite things about this book, is how it was split up into eleven different parts e.g. ‘Sex’ and ‘Abortion’ and how they influence equality between the sexes. I found each section very well researched and it included information that you wouldn’t necessarily find in other feminism books.</p>
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<p>Just as the title suggests, women are often seen as difficult. This can be due to many different reasons, but throughout this book we learn that we are not difficult, we actually speak the truth, becoming more confident within ourselves and so much more. I have always hated it when men say we are difficult and this book made me feel less alone with the feeling.</p>
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<p>As I mentioned earlier, this was my first feminism book I have read. If you are like me and what to start to educate yourself about feminism then this is a great start. If you are more knowledgeable about the topic, I’m sure you will be able to learn something new.</p>
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<p>You can buy <em>'Difficult Women'</em> <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/difficult-women/helen-lewis/9781787331280">here</a></p>
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I absolutely loved this audiobook, it was really thought provoking highlighted how patriarchy is still embedded in our society and social structures.

There were some women mentioned in this book that I hadn't even heard of before.

Genre: Non-Fiction

Release Date: 27th February 2020



When you hear the word 'fight' what do you see? Men, probably. Well this book is here to change your outlook. The fight for feminism was paved with women who weren't afraid to be everything they've been told not to be - vulgar, loud, outspoken, difficult and completely inspiring.

But what does difficult mean? The dictionary would say "A person not easy to please or satisfy; awkward." But here, difficult means proud, it means independent, it means a woman who is willing to fight for her rights and won't be defined by the roles given to her by men.

In this book you'll meet eleven such women, from lesbian politicians, riot starters, the women who finally started to demand good sex, and one who was obviously not sleeping with the prime minister... depending on who you ask.

Helen Lewis gives a fresh and unconventional history of feminism in it's raw, uncensored and unequivocally unfinished glory. Drawing back to the sparks that started the fire in all of us right up to the battles we are still fighting in today - this book gives an amazing and in depth overview of the untold history of women that won't fail to inspire and empower.



RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐



Thank you to Helen Lewis and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I got this as an audiobook from Netgalley. I found it interesting to listen to and it highlighted some women I didn’t know about which was interesting. There were some women I knew of or have heard about before. There is a range of topics addressed which I found good. Some chapters were more interesting to me than others.

It isn’t my usual kind of book but I did enjoy it and the author also narrates the books which I liked. I found the narrator easy to listen to and I liked her voice. I didn’t lose focus anywhere. I listened to this on a higher speed and it sounded okay too.