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On the other hand, generalisations can alienate some of your readers. On one hand, generalisations can be a powerful literary device. I dislike all generalisations… except that one. The second is her constant use of generalisations. It is repeated so often throughout the book and if I were to be meticulous and count all the times it appears, I’m sure it would be featured in every essay in the book… twice. The first being her love for the phrase “time and again”.
Roxane gay bad feminist essays skin#
There were only two flaws that found their way under my skin though. Sometimes you need to be disliked, sometimes you can’t be everyone’s friend, sometimes you need to be harsh, and all of this does not impact your gender.Īs mentioned before, Gay is flawed and so is her book. It makes you nice and while being nice is a good trait to have, it’s not the only thing that matters. Saying you have a lot of friends or that people find you friendly doesn’t make you anymore of a woman. I personally believe not one person is entirely likeable or disliked, therefore it shouldn’t matter whether a woman is likeable. I didn’t read or watch Harry Potter because of “the boy who lived”, I read and watched them because characters like Bellatrix Lestrange were so compelling. Characters which are disliked are normally equipped with storylines more interesting than the likeable characters. In “Not Here to Make Friends” Gay talks about the belief that women must be likeable, especially in fiction, and debates against this by discussing how the most intriguing characters are the ones with questionable morals, unpleasant personal traits, or corrupt thinking.
Roxane gay bad feminist essays tv#
However, she also states that it is not the job of a single TV show to solve all the world’s problems and people should not expect it to. She celebrates the show for presenting a more realistic look into its female characters’ lives, but she points out how the show lacks racial diversity. The example she draws upon is the HBO show Girls. In “Girls, Girls, Girls” she focuses on the trend of praising aspects of pop culture, such as television shows, when they present a view which differs from societies expectations, but then places an immense amount of pressure, beyond the pressure given to any other part of pop culture. In each essay, Gay offers valuable insight. In the introduction, before the page numbers shift from roman numerals to the typical 1, 2, 3 etc., Gay explains feminism is flawed but it is only flawed because it was created by humans and all humans are flawed, therefore so is what they create. Gay is flawed, she wants to be a great feminist but loves rap music which occasionally objectifies women, and she continues stereotypes by loving pink. Roxane Gay’s defining feature in this book is her ability to write about a multitude of issue, most which are sensitive, and handle them with great thought but also maintaining a voice which is engaging and relatable. I never thought a book filled with essays discussing feminism would feature an essay about Scrabble. In a way, I read feminist texts for validation. I want to believe the word feminist can one day be used as a compliment and not an insult. I want to acknowledge something before I properly begin with this response, I read feminist texts because I am hoping to find a voice which is like mine.
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I have experienced anger, but I would not define myself as angry, and on the topic of non-bra wearing and non-shaving, let’s just say it depends on the occasion. I hated how this definition was linked to a label I identified with. When I started reading Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, I had this definition in mind. Some think feminist means:įeminist (noun): an angry, man-hating woman, who refrains from wearing bras and does not shave her legs. The truth is that it didn’t change, these definitions had been altered a long time ago. But, I didn’t get to hold onto this amazement as the definition of feminism and feminist seemed to change in the public sphere. The idea that there was a movement devoted to fighting gender inequality was amazing. At first it meant “the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes”, which is what is written in The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (Fourth Edition, to be specific).
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I was in high school when I started to properly understand what it meant. I have considered myself to be a feminist for many years.