I firmly believe the world needs more queer literature, so I’m glad this book exists to help create more visibility. Especially as it tackles queerness for women in history. Depicting one of the many ways that has played out throughout history. I wanted to love this one, but I don’t love it. The overall book feels like it is being pulled in two directions and neither are particularly well portrayed: being a lesbian in a society and time that does not condone or allow it and surviving an abusive marriage in a society and time that condones and allows it. Basically, as a woman, you’re fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. The main character in The Disenchantment is fucked all around except in the most literal way.
As both a lesbian and survivor of domestic violence at the hands of men… I could not connect with this book, and I really should have. Marie Catherine is a Baroness in Paris during the Affair of Poisons. She’s married to a physically and emotionally abusive older man with whom she has two young children. She is having an affair with another noblewoman. There’s storytelling and an artist who gets caught up in the whole thing. There was so much potential in this not-so-little novel, but my attention was not kept. I think I read four books in the time it took me to get through this one.
I had more fun taking these pictures than reading this book.
The plot is muddy, while the narrative is meandering. Bell is tackling too many massive topics in one debut novel. If she would have focused on a singular theme, the book would have benefited and had a larger impact.
I desperately wanted to love this because it is all about the lady-gay, female empowerment, overcoming obstacles, and surviving abuse. Unfortunately, I just could not get on board with it. I expect great things from Celia Bell, but this was not it.
Memorable Quotes “So Marie Catherine had quietly believed for years that she had been made with something lacking, and any spark of inclination that she might feel for a man in company was a short-lived thing that fizzled out after the first imaginary movement of love. Then she had met Victoire de Conti.” … “She didn’t love as some women did.” “”I forgive you.” She said it as if she were a priest who had the power to offer absolution. And, for a moment, she felt that she did, as if the words had lit a candle flame inside her mouth that burned with the light of her love. She did not, would never, believe that flame was the flame of hell. Not if every confessor in France lined up to tell her that she was damned.”
Worth A Read Most Definitely Length 269 Quick Review If you’re looking to be angry at the obstacles women face, this is a great book to read. If you have no idea what obstacles women face, please go read this, right now.
Sometimes I think I’m the only one who likes to subvert serious conversations with an incredibly dark sense of humor, but then I read Kate Manne’s Entitled. I wouldn’t call it funny, but I would call it witty. Let’s be honest, male privilege is sadly funny in usually the most ironic ways; however, male privilege is a plague on society, hurting women and ultimately holding the entirety of the world back from its full potential.
Starting off with Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing and the attack on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Manne only digs deeper into the blatant problems women face due to men’s entitlement. What’s even more impactful are the chapters on the subtle ways women are hurt by male privilege. It is the everyday male privilege affecting the physical and mental well being of women everywhere that is so often overlooked and unaccounted for in daily life and conversation. We can all agree rape, beating, retributative violence against women is bad. What isn’t talked about so often is emotional labor, mansplaining, domestic labor, medical gaslighting, bodily autonomy, parenting, and so much more women are inundated with and by daily, which has an immeasurably negative impact on women’s psyche. Yet Manne never lets up on the importance of every facet, no matter how seemingly benign, the pain caused by male entitlement through anecdotal and academic evidence.
Noting Manne’s definition of misogyny—therefore male privilege—may be one of the most important moments in Entitlement,
“First, some instances of misogyny lack any individual perpetrators whatsoever; misogyny may be a purely structural phenomenon, perpetuated by social institutions, policies, and broader cultural mores. Second, understanding misogyny as more about the hostility girls and women face, as opposed to the hostility men feel deep down in their hearts, helps us avoid a problem of psychological inscrutability.”
Misogyny is pervasive, and men are not the only culprits of it. As much as women are victims, we are also culpable. Manne tackles instances of women perpetuating and bolstering misogyny and male entitlement because this system indoctrinates us from the moment we enter the world to cater to male feelings, privilege, experience, and everything else. Defining an aspect of that, “himpathy, as I construe it, is the disproportionate or inappropriate sympathy extended to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims.” It is not our fault, but once we have the knowledge, we can choose to combat the system keeping us in a place we have never deserved to be in. Manne is not only providing the information, she’s creating a rule book for every woman and man to follow on how to create a better tomorrow for men and women.
I’m just going to stare down male entitlement in a power suit.
Short, yet deeply unsettling from start to finish, Manne unveils the horrifying world women are born, live, and die in. She does not fail to point out the imbalance when the minority status is multiplied by race or sexual identity. Chapter after chapter rages on, enumerating the ways male entitlement causes harm, creating a spiral of depression. For me, at least. Ending with a glimmer of hope in the last chapter, an address to her unborn daughter. Manne hopes for an easier future for her daughter; though, she knows the fight will be “long, and interminable.”
The narrative may end in the last chapter, but the Notes section is an amazing trove of research, statistics, quotes, anecdotes, and information. Do not overlook it. It’s powerful and soul crushing, in the best way.
Women fill the role of provider. Providing, providing, providing for the needs emotional, physical, and all the in betweens of men, children, and everyone around us.. Even when completely fulfilling the role of provider or caretaker happily without complaint, women are interrogated, berated, and undermined at every turn. It has been the way of the world for so long, it’s what we women have come to expect as acceptable, and it is not. Kate Manne’s Entitled can be summed up in one succinct sentence: “We expect too much from women.”
Memorable Quotes “As we’ve already begun to see, medical misinformation is a ubiquitous feature of anti-abortion activism.” “If the truth is not our property, then neither is authority.” “If men often feel entitled to certain kinds of paid work, they also feel entitled to far more by way of leisure, as compared with their female partners.” “Do men do so little because they engage in more leisure activities than their female partners? Or do they engage in more leisure activities in order to do so little?” “Another reason men don’t do more is that, under such conditions, asking them to pull their weight is in itself a form of labor.” “Don’t we regard rape as a heinous, monstrous crime? Yes, in the abstract. Very well then, but in practice, why do we refuse to hold certain perpetrators accountable vis-ȧ-vis certain victims?”
bisous un обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: Entitled; How Male Privilege Hurts Women Author: Kate Manne Publisher: Crown Copyright: 2020 ISBN: 9781984826572
Today is a joyous, historic day. Joyous because the people spoke. Hatred was voted out of the Oval Office. Historic because the people chose a woman of color to lead us as Vice President. We chose change and progress, love and acceptance, hope and perseverance. We chose to strive for better, to embrace diversity in this country, to trust a woman with an office we should have been represented in a long fucking time ago.
If I am being incredibly honest, it’s not joy I’m feeling today but relief. The depth of which is overwhelming because tomorrow, I will wake up not having to suffer through the quotidian knowledge that the vitriol spewing Donald Trump is President of the United States.
I am not living under the delusion that when I wake up, the world of tomorrow is brand new. No, it is the same world as today. The fight is not over; it has just begun. Biden and Harris will not miraculously change the hearts of every man and woman who voted for Trump, who has turned a blind eye to systemic racism, who has decided police brutality is acceptable, who thinks the immigration policies of the last four years are humane, who has believed women are inferior, who has perpetually chosen to hate. In a world where information is more readily available than ever before, it is a choice to be ignorant of the devastating reality rooted in history, policy, and the heart of America so many people live in on a daily basis.
This is the world we live in. 74 MILLION Americans voted for Trump. Not just men. Not just white women. People from all backgrounds voted for Trump. 74 million Americans will not disappear or change their hearts and minds by tomorrow morning. Nope. They are still here. They are still our friends, coworkers, neighbors, family, parents. They are all around us, and it is our mission to show them a better world.
I believe in love and kindness and peaceful protest. My activism is fueled by loving those akin to myself as much as those who have different beliefs. In my heart, I believe love and kindness is the only way to change the world, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fight, I don’t call out ignorance, I don’t push boundaries, I don’t stand up for what’s right. It means I do it from a place of love. I also believe in anger.
I am angry. I am furious that Trump was elected in 2016. It didn’t come as a surprise, but it crushed my soul. I have spoken up in the past four years, and I have marched. Mostly I have read and listened and learned. I educated myself more deeply in areas I have been passionate about but lacked information. On a personal level, I was deeply devastated by Trump’s election. I have not spoken about my life as a rape survivor, a domestic abuse survivor, as a sex worker outside of a brief mention here and there. None of these define me, but they are an integral part of my identity, my career, my activism, my existence. Trump’s election cut to the deepest corners of my pain as a broken woman. This man fueled by hatred was elected to the most powerful role in this country after he proved time and time again that he was unworthy. I am angry because people I love voted for him in 2016 and again in 2020. They’re not bad people; in fact, they’re great people, but they searched within themselves and were still able to support a despicable man.
On Friday, January 20, 2017, I woke up at 3:43 in the morning in tears. I was filled with the need to write a letter to the man I have loved and looked up to my entire life. A man who is kind and loving beyond words. A man who voted for Trump. A man I call Dad. I have no idea who he voted for in 2020, and frankly, I have no desire to. Even if he did vote for Biden, it wouldn’t change my hurt. This is a letter I never sent. Instead it is a letter to my father and every father who voted for Trump. It is a letter to every man and woman I love who voted for Trump. It is a letter for every Trump supporter. It is a letter that is unchanged, and yet I stand by every word exactly four years later. Biden may have won, but 74 million people voted to reelect Trump.
Dear Dad,
I didn’t need to ask who you voted for. I already knew, but I asked anyway. I couldn’t validate my feelings without knowing for sure. Maybe it was hope that kept me from asking for so long, or I was delaying the depression that I knew would set in the moment you answered: Trump.
It’s there now and always will be. In every hug, laugh, kiss, kind word. You love me, I don’t doubt that. But your vote tells me something else. Whether you realize it or not, your vote showed me where I stand. I am not worth the same as you. Your tiny act of filling out one tiny circle with your one tiny voice as one tiny vote in a sea of other tiny votes is not tiny to me.
You are my father. You gave me half of my existence. I see you in the mirror and in my mannerisms. I am yours. I carry your last name and my face is recognizably yours. You were with me every day of my life for nineteen years. You watched my first steps, heard my first words, changed my diapers. You woke me up early to breakfast together before work and put me back to bed. You taught me long division and gave me my first coffee. You showed me what perspective is in art and life. You were at every dance and piano recital with words of encouragement. You watched band concerts and sat through cold football games to watch me in the marching band at half time. You were there at high school graduation and the real reason I walked at my college graduation. You have held my hand and shed tears in a hospital room. You celebrated my successes, but bought me ice cream through my failures and missteps. You chose to support me when you didn’t want to. You have been a part of my entire life. You were not an absentee father. You knew me. You raised me. I am your first born. As birthdays passed, your role turned from caregiver to being the person I wanted to emulate more than anyone in the world. You have been the hero, the guiding light my entire life, and I don’t think I can say that today.
I am your daughter; the only you will ever have. On November 8, 2016, you silently told me I am less than you, less than your son. My future looks different than yours or your sons. Going into the world tomorrow, I will face challenges and obstacles you or my brother have never and will never have to face. Because I am a woman. It shouldn’t matter but it does. My genitals affect my existence in this world, and your vote made that existence even harder.
Anger is a part of my soul. I am angry for so many reasons. I am irrationally angry that you couldn’t save me from pain men have put me through. With time, I will forgive you for not saving me in the past. I am familiar with the reality that it isn’t your fault, but you are my father. You were there, and I have the human wish that you could have just known something was wrong, someone was hurting me. You didn’t see. I hoped you would look in my eyes and see the pain, the pleas for help, the need to be saved, the desire to be believed. People talk about a parent’s intuition, but you didn’t have it all those days I was silently dying. You never saw the subtle signs as the little girl you watched dance around the house disappeared every time a boy you shook hands hit and raped me. I wish you could have seen all of those things in my eyes because they are your eyes. I am your daughter. I was hiding inside a body that looks like a female version of yours. I forgive you all of these things because I know it was not your fault; just like it was not my fault. Something I will have to continue telling myself everyday until the day I die hoping to believe it myself. You are not culpable for that boy’s actions or any of the other boys who came after. Men have hurt me in ways, I’m sure, you once prayed would never happen. But I carry their actions with me everyday as a permanent part of my psyche and history.
You didn’t know then. You had no way of knowing. You know now. I have started making a career fighting against the kind of men who hurt me, the kind of man who is being inaugurated today. I speak out against violence against women by using my story to create positive change. You know now; yet, you do not believe me.
You voted for Trump. You invalidated my struggle as a woman and supported every man who has ever hurt me. You normalized violence in an instant. With your one tiny vote you gave power to predators by electing a predator, a rapist to the most powerful office in this country. You helped make him a role model to little boys and young men. They will say, “Well, the President did it.” and “I’m just quoting the President.” Your vote made it even harder for me to get out of bed everyday because I always wonder if today will be the day I’m going to get raped again. Your vote told me it’s fine for men to act like your president. A man who thinks it’s totally fine for men, like my ex-boyfriend, college best friend, childhood friend, friend from church—all men you welcomed into your home—to take me without my consent because they are men, I am a woman, and they wanted me.
By voting for Trump, you showed me I am not equal to my brother in your eyes or my country’s eyes. My brother who has just graduated college, who has a better job than I will have for years to come if ever because not only have I overcome being a woman, I have overcome so many obstacles he will never face because our genders differ. I have to worry about employers seeing this to only question if I am a viable candidate, someone who can be trusted to not make claims about sexual assault or cause problems in the workplace. I am shamed for overcoming and surviving repeated rapes and violence instead of being lauded for my vulnerability, transparency, and fight for equity because I am a woman, and this is my plight. My brother and I are not equals in your eyes; your vote told me that.
Stories of how women prevent rape and assault circulate constantly when men should jut not be raping. I do not walk in fear to my car with keys entwined between my fingers. I do not call friends to chat on the phone so I don’t look vulnerable. I do not ask a friend who is both trusted and male to walk me home. I do not wear pants instead of skirts. I do not back down when men intimidate me. I do not stay in well lit areas. I do none of these things because I am not scared of the worst thing that could happen to a woman. I am not scared because I have already been gang raped. What else could be worse for me? It happening again? It already has happened on repeat for years. I am not scared of men because they cannot bring worse. And being murdered sounds like the most uninterrupted sleep I’ve had in over a decade. You do not know these things because you are a man, and you don’t live them. You could know them, but you don’t believe me when I tell you. Instead you choose to label me a liar, troubled, in need of help. All I need is a world that believes I deserve to be treated like a human.
Your vote says everything to me because of who you voted for. Even if I agreed with all of his policies (which I absolutely do not), I cannot overlook his humanity. Or lack thereof. You voted for a man who treats women worse than the dirt he walks on. He says it is his right to grab me by the pussy. Well, someone did.
Someone did for years, and several men after him did too. Some stopped at just grabbing, but others took it further. I have been harassed and groped by male “friends” in a bar while I was sober wearing a turtleneck. But it was fine because they were friends, and I was inexcusably in a bar. A liberal, Black president was in his second term, at the time. A man who believes women are equal and deserve respect and have the right to autonomy. Yet, you voted someone into office who has done what those men have done to me. What kind of world do you think he will create for me? If I was already living in hell? What will this man lead us to? For women, for minorities, for immigrants. I cannot imagine, and I am not looking forward to seeing what plays out. I just pray that we elect someone better in 2020.
You helped make a man President, and he will be the “role model” for every man, son, brother, father, and everything male in between in this culture that surrounds me, your daughter, who has to live next to these men. I have survived in a world where this has not been the male “role model,” but yet all of these struggles have still been my reality. If this has been my world, what will it look like with this President leading us? Your President believes it’s fair to take me because I am pretty and female. Well, at least, I’m pretty because that means I’m worth being seen. Being a woman is not an asset with this President, who you helped elect.
How do I move forward? I have always been proud to be your daughter. I have always worked to earn your approval. As your daughter, since the beginning of my time on this earth, I have never wanted to distance myself from you because I had always been proud to be your daughter. I don’t know how to feel now. I’m not proud of you.
I will never again hug you the way I once did because this stands firmly between us. How do I pretend things are fine when you have helped institutionalize discrimination based on the one thing I will never be able to change: my sex?
I love you less because of this. Just admitting that causes me more pain than you or anyone else will ever know because I have loved you intensely, loyally, blindly, and to a fault my entire life. You have been who I have idolized most. In my heart, I have always defined myself as your daughter. Not because you are my genetic benefactor or because we share the same name or because society and culture tell me I have to for patriarchal reasons, but because you are a good, kind, intelligent human.
I can forgive everyone else their vote. Friends, family, acquaintances, etc. because it is their right in this country to vote for whomever they believe most fit. I can forgive them, though I will never agree. I can’t forgive you this.
At 25, I now know where you believe I belong as a woman. This will not cripple my future. Your vote showed me I am less than. I cannot forgive you. Even though it is your right to cast your ballot as you see fit, it is still your obligation to protect me as a father. You took on this role willingly not at conception but when you decided to parent me. Parenting never ends. Not when I left for college or when you stopped financially supporting me or when I began a career or moved cross country. You are and always will be a father, and it is and always will be your obligation to protect me. You did not protect me when you voted for Donald Trump. What happens during his presidency lays squarely on your shoulders. It is your fault and every other person’s who voted him into office.
Alan Cummings is a celebrated actor with exceptional range. Acting wasn’t just a calling, it was a means to an end, the way to survive being at home with his father. He revisits the childhood trauma that led to an acting career with painful sincerity in his memoir Not My Father’s Son.
Growing up in rural Scotland, Alan Cummings was different. He was not the son his father wanted. He was not like his older brother, but his brother did not inspire warmth or fatherly love either. He recalls the moments and memories that made him full of abuse, joy, fear, and affairs. With each heartstopping recollection, a vivid picture of the resilient man Cummings became solidifies in the reader’s mind. Adulthood meant escaping the house that held so many terrifying years and life to be proud of, but even in the face of freedom, Cummings’ past is a part of his present.
I have a love for memoires. Memory is fascinating, and what stays in one person’s mind as a defining moment in their lives tells a great deal about who they are and how they see themselves. Not every writer can delve into their emotional past with the same raw integrity Cummings does. He has an intense ability to capture his childhood fears and memories and desires for better within the page. There is bravery in the way he writes and tells the world, ‘This is who I am and who I came from, but I am more than this.’ As a grown woman dealing with the psychological violence of childhood, I could wholly identify with Cummings as I read, “It is a startling thing, the need to feel utterly believed.” Violence does not happen in a vacuum, but it is often recovered from in one. Having just one person who believes in the truth of your story is a powerful thing and the greatest gift you can give a survivor.
Trauma and violence is a fickle thing. Cummings is able to bring words to the effects of living in a home where violence is as much a family member as his mother, brother, and father, “I actually think the prolonged period of tension before landing his blows, as we were systematically inspected, chided, and humiliated, had a far worse effect than the actual hits.” The relationship between parent and child is so emotionally complex. Even in the face of violence and being the target of hatred, Cummings doesn’t shy away from the complexity of this relationship with his father and the need to be a good son in Not My Father’s Son, “My father continued to have affairs throughout my childhood, and they were not subtle or discreet.” “I understood that I had to collude, to protect my father, even though he didn’t deserve it.”
Not My Father’s Son is not just the story of Cummings’ relationship with his father, though it is devoted heavily to it. His mother was an integral part of the family and who he would become. For as much belittling as he experienced at the hands and words of his father, he also experienced true love and compassion from his mother, “She [mother] told me I was special and loved. And actually, having two such opposing messages, although confusing, was ultimately pretty healthy. My father told me I was worthless, my mother that I was precious. They couldn’t both be right, but they evened each other out and I began to make my own mind up, not just about myself but about everything that was going on around me.”
Cummings is sensational at creating an emotionally grounded and tangled picture of growing up. For every person who has experienced violence or trauma, it is a revelation. I did not live his life in any way, but I could find my own story within his truths. Not My Father’s Son is the story of one man overcoming and living with a childhood that could have ruined him. Through the pain and the violence, Cummings shows grace. One of the most touching and human moments can be found in the acknowledgments when he thanks his father, “Thank you, Alex Cumming, for siring me and ensuring I will have lots of source material. I forgive you.” It is a beautiful memoir.
Memorable Quotes “It has not been pleasant as an adult to realize that dealing with my father’s violence was the beginning of my studies of acting.” “Memory is so subjective. We all remember in a visceral, emotional way, and so even if we agree on the facts—what was said, what happened where and when—what we take away and store from a moment, what we feel about it, can vary radically.” “For yes, being a woman, even one with a penis and for the purposes of drama, really made me feel that women have been coerced into a way of presenting themselves that is basically a form of bondage. Their shoes, their skirts, even their nails seem designed to stop them from being able to escape whilst at the same time drawing attention to their sexual and secondary sexual characteristics. And I think that has happened so that men feel they can ogle them and protect them in equal measure.”
bisous und обьятий, RaeAnna
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Title: Not My Father’s Son Author: Alan Cumming Publisher: Dey St. (William Morrow – HarperCollins) Copyright: 2014 ISBN: 9780062225061
I took this picture on Camp LeJeune because the Tank Xing signs are hilarious. To me. They may not be to you, therefore, I think you have no sense of humor. At first, the picture was taken as a joke because what else could it be. I immediately sent it to my best friend:
TANK XING on Camp LeJeune in North Carolina.
KelseySo you’re a tank now. MeYes I am. KelseyWell alright then.
The more I got to thinking about it, the more the analogy seemed appropriate.
I might not look like much, but I feel like a tank. Battered, bruised, scraped up, seen a battle or two, but still kicking. Indestructible but not always for the best.
There’s a saying “We’re called survivors because not all of us survived.” It’s true. So many people die at the hands of their abusers. There was a time when I wondered Is this the day I die? Surprise, it wasn’t, but I genuinely questioned it for many years.
I look at my body and see pain. A man dug his fingernails so deep between two of my left ribs I can still feel the divot every day when I put lotion on. There are still scars on my arms from where I scratched until I bled after bed bugs ate away at me for months. Stretch marks line my thighs and hips because maybe he wouldn’t rape me if I wasn’t a size zero anymore. Worry lines spread across my forehead every morning after I wake up from being haunted by memories every night. My body paid for college. This body has been seen and used as a vessel with the sole purpose to serve and service men.
This body is mine. I had to sell it to learn I had dominion over it. A right to it. I am allowed to say who can touch it and who cannot. My body is a reminder of the men who believed they could take me because they wanted me whenever, wherever, and with as much force as they wanted.
This body is a tank. It has been through war and survived. In so many ways, I feel indestructible. I have been through so many things and come out alive. Maybe not victorious, but I’m sure as hell not the victim. I am the culmination of all my experiences. In a lot of respects, I have had a very good life. I have found love, belonging, worth, happiness, and adventure. There are a lot of good days, but for all the good days there have been bad years… I have been raped, beaten, manipulated, controlled, and abused. I am haunted by my past, but I’m still fucking here. I have not given up, though I have tried.
I’m sturdy.
I’m strong.
I am a tank. So get out of my way. I’m crossing here.
bisous und обьятий, RaeAnna
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