I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Have you ever considered how much energy goes into avoiding sexual violence? The work that goes into feeling safe is largely unnoticed by the women doing it and by the wider world, yet women and girls are the first to be blamed the inevitable times when it fails.

With real-life accounts of women’s experiences - based on the author’s original research - this book challenges the culture of victim-blaming by highlighting women’s everyday resistance to harassment and sexual violence.

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The Verdict:

F Vera-Gray has worked for the Rape Crisis movement and is currently Deputy Director at the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. This very readable and unfortunately highly relatable book looks at the steps that women take to avoid sexual violence in their day-to-day lives, drawing on interviews with 50 women from different age groups and backgrounds and showing how it permeates through the generations.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Behind every great woman …
Is another great woman.

Connected Women is a collection of 84 illustrated portraits that celebrate female collaboration and the extraordinary achievements, relationships and secret histories of pioneering women.

From ground-breaking scientist Marie Curie to political activist Malala Yousafzai; from feminist author Virgina Woolf to the game-changing Billie Jean King; Connected Women creates a gigantic web of womanhood, threading tales from across the globe and throughout history.

Featuring Michelle Obama, Gala Dalí, Emma Watson, Nina Simone, Frida Kayla, Coco Chanel, Greta Garbo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and many more inspired and inspirational women who have shaped the world we live in today.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Kate Hodges is a journalist with over 25 years of experience. First published in 2018 and re-republished in 2023, this book of 84 portraits (illustrated by Sarah Papworth) shows the connections between women from the 19th century to the present day. While it mixes lesser known women with the great and the good, it’s very western focused, some of the connections are tenuous and Papworth’s illustrations somewhat anaemic and lacking in personality.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Welcome to The Barbizon. New York’s premier women-only hotel.

Built in 1927, New York’s Barbizon Hotel was first intended as a home for the ‘Modern Women’ seeking a career in the arts. Over the years its 688 tiny pink ‘highly feminine boudoirs’ housed Sylvia Plath, who fictionalised her time there in The Bell Jar, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly (notorious for sneaking in men), Joan Didion, Candice Bergen, Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith, Cybil Shepherd, Elaine Stritch, Liza Minnelli, Mona Simpson and a whole host of other writers and actors on the cusp of their careers. Mademoiselle boarded its summer interns there - perfectly turned out young women, who would never be spotted hatless - as did Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School its students - in their white-gloves and kitten heels - and the Ford Modelling Agency its young models.

Not everyone who passed through the Barbizon’s doors was destined for greatness - for some it was a story of dashed hopes and expectations - but from the Jazz Age New Women of the 1920s, to the Liberated Women of the 1960s, until 1981 when the first men checked in, The Barbizon was a place where women could stand up and be counted.

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The Verdict:

Paulina Bren is professor of international studies, gender and media at Vassar College who uses The Barbizon (a women-only hotel which opened in 1927 and only welcomed men in 1981) as the background to this gadfly look at the social changes that women went through during this period. However, it’s very white middle class and bounces around between women while ultimately only telling me things I already knew about the hypocrisies of the period.

THE BARBIZON: THE NEW YORK HOTEL THAT SET WOMEN FREE was released in the United Kingdom on 18th March 2021. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Why did the West become so rich? Why is inequality rising? How ‘free’ should markets be? And what does sex have to do with it?

In this passionate and skilfully argued book, leading feminist Victoria Bateman shows how we can only understand the burning economic issues of our time if we put sex and gender - ‘the sex factor’ - at the heart of the picture. Spanning the globe and drawing on thousands of years of history, Bateman tells a bold story about how the status and freedom of women are central to our prosperity. Genuine female empowerment requires us not only to recognise the liberating potential of markets and smart government policies but also to challenge the double-standard of many modern feminists when they celebrate the brain while denigrating the body.

This iconoclastic book is a devastating expose of what we have lost by ignoring ‘the sex factor’ and of how reversing this neglect can drive the smart economic policies we need today.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Victoria Bateman is a fellow and lecturer in economics at Cambridge University and campaigns against the marginalisation of women’s bodies in public life. This book, which makes some interesting points but is too dependent on sweeping assertions and broad generalisations, she argues that economics is gender biased and fails to consider both how women are important for economic growth and how real human behaviour impacts on economic activity.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Make yourself heard - on and off the bench

Whether you spend your days arguing your case at work, fighting gender discrimination, or raising the next generation of dissenters, call an adjournment and ask yourself,

”What would RBG do?”

Grab your collar and get motivated to change the world with words of inspirational wit and wisdom from Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

In this peculiar self-help book based on Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a brand, Marilyn Easton frames aspects of Ginsburg’s life and experience as a motivational tool for the reader. It’s a very US-centric book and I found it both patronising and shallow without ever doing Ginsburg or her career justice but if you’re absolutely desperate for a self-help gift for the feminist or lawyer in your life, then it may be worth a shot.

BE MORE RBG: SPEAK TRUTH AND DISSENT WITH SUPREME STYLE will be released in the United Kingdom on 1st October 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

From Margaret Thatcher and Benazir Bhutto to Hillary Clinton, women have made great strides in the political arena in recent decades. Yet studies have shown that media coverage can have a dramatic effect on the public perception of women in politics. Gender, Politics, News: A Game Of Three Sides explores the origins and evolution of the role of gender in the broader processes of political communication. Focusing primarily on power, patriarchy, and culture, author Karen Ross reveals the incredibly complex relationships that exist between politics, gender, and media in the modern era. She probes deeply into the myriad ways in which these issues play out both in the high-octane context of national elections and during the deadline-driven pressures of everyday political reportage. Topics covered include feminist theories of politics and political communication, gendered journalism, the ways in which women political candidates are framed in news discourse during elections, gender considerations in the role of the political spouse, the differential treatment of women and men politicians by the media and the public in the face of scandal, and many more. Ross offers a global perspective on issues of gender, politics, and news media with a range of case studies from the US, UK, New Zealand, South American, and more. Timely and thought-provoking, Gender, Politics, News: A Game Of Three Sides is an important and unique addition to the growing scholarship on gendered political communication, which argues that despite some encouraging moments, politics and news are still primarily jobs for the boys.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Karen Ross (Professor of Gender and Media at Newcastle University) analyses the relationship between gender, politics and the media but the book is a victim of timing (although published in January 2017, it was written before the result of the 2016 US presidential election was known) and it’s very western focused (although Benazir Bhutto is namechecked on the back cover description, there’s no mention of her in the text and no analysis of the issues facing her while Sri Lanka, India, and Liberia are little more than passing references). Putting those points aside, however, Ross’s work is a detailed examination of the issues that face women seeking to enter the political arena and while there are things here that won’t come as a surprise to any woman who has sought to put herself forward, the comprehensive gathering of supporting studies and the way Ross breaks down the arguments and makes her points is authoritative and convincing

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.