Status
Available
Publication
Melville House (2017), 176 pages
Description
Outspoken critic Jessa Crispin delivers a searing rejection of contemporary feminism . . . and a bracing manifesto for revolution. Are you a feminist? Do you believe women are human beings and that they deserve to be treated as such? That women deserve all the same rights and liberties bestowed upon men? If so, then you are a feminist . . . or so the feminists keep insisting. But somewhere along the way, the movement for female liberation sacrificed meaning for acceptance, and left us with a banal, polite, ineffectual pose that barely challenges the status quo. In this bracing, fiercely intelligent manifesto, Jessa Crispin demands more. Why I Am Not A Feminist is a radical, fearless call for revolution. It accuses the feminist movement of obliviousness, irrelevance, and cowardice--and demands nothing less than the total dismantling of a system of oppression. Praise for Jessa Crispin, and The Dead Ladies Project "I'd follow Jessa Crispin to the ends of the earth." --Kathryn Davis, author of Duplex "Read with caution . . . Crispin is funny, sexy, self-lacerating, and politically attuned, with unique slants on literary criticism, travel writing, and female journeys. No one crosses genres, borders, and proprieties with more panache." --Laura Kipnis, author of Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation "Very, very funny. . . . The whole book is packed with delightfully offbeat prose . . . as raw as it is sophisticated, as quirky as it is intense." --The Chicago Tribune… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ASKelmore
Best for: People interested in feminist critique who have a lot of patience.
In a nutshell: There is something called universal feminism, which is what feminism is now. And it is bad, because it is not doing nearly enough. Also, if you don’t worship Andrea Dworkin, you are the worst.
Line that
Why I chose it: Someone in a Pajiba-adjacent Facebook group posted an interview with the author. It seemed like it might be challenging enough to be enjoyable.
Review: I wrote in the margins of this book more than I have in a while, and nearly every comment was negative. Right up front she makes the claim that today’s feminism is trying to be ‘universal’ but doesn’t provide strong evidence to that claim (at least, I didn’t see it). And I get what she’s going for here, but it really doesn’t work. It feels more like she came up with this idea and decided it would be the focus of the book, and then refused to ‘kill her darlings,’ as it were, when it didn’t end up working out that well.
But let’s say she’s right, and that the problem with feminism today is that it tries to be universal. This does not save her from spending a large portion of this book both railing against women who tell other women how to be feminists, while then telling us how we are doing feminism wrong. It’s like she’s decided that the Alanis Morissette definition of irony is correct, and thus chooses to ignore how so many of the complaints she has about ‘universal feminism’ can also be found in the pages of her own book.
She also really has a problem with ‘identity politics,’ which maybe she doesn’t fully understand? Because later in the book she seems to support the concepts behind recognizing that people have different intersections of marginalization. The writing makes me think that this is what might happen if Bernie Sanders and Susan Sarandon had a child, and that child grew up to write a lot of strong words with not a lot of support.
And the thing is, she does have *some* good things to say. And some interesting things to say. For sure. I didn’t always agree with her, but some of her more challenging ideas were certainly interesting. One section, albeit brief, talks about marriage as problematic. In later interviews I think she said something about how feminists don’t get married, but in the book at least, her point wasn’t entirely ignorant about the current state of marriage; she instead seemed worried about what it means to younger women when marriage is the goal. So not so much that marriage itself is the problem, but what choices we make to guarantee we will get to marriage. Not totally ground-breaking, but definitely interesting.
But she absolutely, unreservedly refuses to show her work. If I were grading any of these chapters for a college course, she’d get maybe a C at best in most of them, because she makes wide sweeping generalizations without supporting evidence. In other interviews she has said this is because she didn’t want her message to get lost in the inevitable claims of cat-fighting that would follow. And I am sympathetic to that … but she still has to support her claims. This isn’t a personal blog or a letter to friends. She’s making very strong claims about an entire political and social movement; I shouldn’t have to write “citation needed” in every margin.
The author clearly has a lot of problems with our current society. And so many of the concerns she raises are, I think, valid. She just, in my reading, does a very poor job of creating any sort of cohesive narrative around how these problems and feminism - the current reality of it, not the straw man she’s invoking - are currently at odds. But I’d love to discuss it with others who have read this.
Last thought - she repeatedly expresses her frustration that feminists aren’t fans of Andrea Dworkin. But, as I understand it, Ms. Dworkin was very supportive of anti-trans author Janice Raymond. I admittedly am not that familiar with either of their works, but considering Ms. Crispin only name-checks maybe three feminist authors in the entire book, this seems an odd choice for sure.
I wavered between giving this book two and three stars. If we had half stars, this would be a solidly 2.5 stars book. I did, however, choose the higher option because there are very interesting ideas in here - I just don’t think she does a good job of communicating them.
In a nutshell: There is something called universal feminism, which is what feminism is now. And it is bad, because it is not doing nearly enough. Also, if you don’t worship Andrea Dworkin, you are the worst.
Line that
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sticks with me: “It’s easier to complain about the power you don’t have than to think about how you are wielding the power you do have.” (p 83)Why I chose it: Someone in a Pajiba-adjacent Facebook group posted an interview with the author. It seemed like it might be challenging enough to be enjoyable.
Review: I wrote in the margins of this book more than I have in a while, and nearly every comment was negative. Right up front she makes the claim that today’s feminism is trying to be ‘universal’ but doesn’t provide strong evidence to that claim (at least, I didn’t see it). And I get what she’s going for here, but it really doesn’t work. It feels more like she came up with this idea and decided it would be the focus of the book, and then refused to ‘kill her darlings,’ as it were, when it didn’t end up working out that well.
But let’s say she’s right, and that the problem with feminism today is that it tries to be universal. This does not save her from spending a large portion of this book both railing against women who tell other women how to be feminists, while then telling us how we are doing feminism wrong. It’s like she’s decided that the Alanis Morissette definition of irony is correct, and thus chooses to ignore how so many of the complaints she has about ‘universal feminism’ can also be found in the pages of her own book.
She also really has a problem with ‘identity politics,’ which maybe she doesn’t fully understand? Because later in the book she seems to support the concepts behind recognizing that people have different intersections of marginalization. The writing makes me think that this is what might happen if Bernie Sanders and Susan Sarandon had a child, and that child grew up to write a lot of strong words with not a lot of support.
And the thing is, she does have *some* good things to say. And some interesting things to say. For sure. I didn’t always agree with her, but some of her more challenging ideas were certainly interesting. One section, albeit brief, talks about marriage as problematic. In later interviews I think she said something about how feminists don’t get married, but in the book at least, her point wasn’t entirely ignorant about the current state of marriage; she instead seemed worried about what it means to younger women when marriage is the goal. So not so much that marriage itself is the problem, but what choices we make to guarantee we will get to marriage. Not totally ground-breaking, but definitely interesting.
But she absolutely, unreservedly refuses to show her work. If I were grading any of these chapters for a college course, she’d get maybe a C at best in most of them, because she makes wide sweeping generalizations without supporting evidence. In other interviews she has said this is because she didn’t want her message to get lost in the inevitable claims of cat-fighting that would follow. And I am sympathetic to that … but she still has to support her claims. This isn’t a personal blog or a letter to friends. She’s making very strong claims about an entire political and social movement; I shouldn’t have to write “citation needed” in every margin.
The author clearly has a lot of problems with our current society. And so many of the concerns she raises are, I think, valid. She just, in my reading, does a very poor job of creating any sort of cohesive narrative around how these problems and feminism - the current reality of it, not the straw man she’s invoking - are currently at odds. But I’d love to discuss it with others who have read this.
Last thought - she repeatedly expresses her frustration that feminists aren’t fans of Andrea Dworkin. But, as I understand it, Ms. Dworkin was very supportive of anti-trans author Janice Raymond. I admittedly am not that familiar with either of their works, but considering Ms. Crispin only name-checks maybe three feminist authors in the entire book, this seems an odd choice for sure.
I wavered between giving this book two and three stars. If we had half stars, this would be a solidly 2.5 stars book. I did, however, choose the higher option because there are very interesting ideas in here - I just don’t think she does a good job of communicating them.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
I have been deeply curious about this book since I first heard that Jessa was writing it. I've usually enjoyed Jessa's cultural commentary, especially in her tarot writings, and her digs at feminism here and there have often made me wonder about her stance. Well, here, at last, it is.
This book
Anyway, the reason I say this is mostly a critique of white feminism is that is spends a good chunk of its time skewering a feminism built on "choice" and "empowerment" and capitalism. You know the one. The one that insists that because someone is "choosing" to wear high heels, or lipstick, or stay at home and homeschool, or to watch the Bachelor, that makes it a feminist act. See also "lean in" feminism, that is all about accruing money and status and power. That says I am a feminist because I am a female CEO, never examining the way that money and power is used -- whether their workers are paid fairly, have family leave, or they depend (personally or corporately) on exploiting undocumented workers, etc.
Jessa calls bullshit on all of this weak sauce and makes an impassioned plea for the return of radicalism to feminist thought. She wants feminism to be a threat, to make people uncomfortable, to overthrow our patriarchal capitalist structures instead of just making room for a few more women in them.
That said, this book is short on suggestions. She lauds a few second wave feminists who get swept under the rug these days, but while she mentions a list of writers in her author's note at the end, I wish she'd spent just a bit of time in the text acknowledging that there are anti-capitalist feminists out there right now, and given them a tiny bit of her platform.
It's a small criticism. I need to start plugging some of these names into Google now.
(full disclosure: I am the author's sister.)
This book
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offers a stinging rebuke to white feminism. She doesn't call it that here, and in interviews she has sad that she deliberately did not label it such. She is either aiming her blows at feminism in general, or sometimes at the specific stance of universal feminism - the idea that all people should believe that men and women should be equal and thus call themselves feminist. This, of course, does to feminism what it's done to every movement that has focused on universal approval - it dilutes it to the point that it is no longer a threat to anyone. Defanged, it is co-opted by the mainstream and its history is simplified. Like how MLK day has become a holiday for white people to use King quotes about peace out of context to beat modern black activists with.Anyway, the reason I say this is mostly a critique of white feminism is that is spends a good chunk of its time skewering a feminism built on "choice" and "empowerment" and capitalism. You know the one. The one that insists that because someone is "choosing" to wear high heels, or lipstick, or stay at home and homeschool, or to watch the Bachelor, that makes it a feminist act. See also "lean in" feminism, that is all about accruing money and status and power. That says I am a feminist because I am a female CEO, never examining the way that money and power is used -- whether their workers are paid fairly, have family leave, or they depend (personally or corporately) on exploiting undocumented workers, etc.
Jessa calls bullshit on all of this weak sauce and makes an impassioned plea for the return of radicalism to feminist thought. She wants feminism to be a threat, to make people uncomfortable, to overthrow our patriarchal capitalist structures instead of just making room for a few more women in them.
That said, this book is short on suggestions. She lauds a few second wave feminists who get swept under the rug these days, but while she mentions a list of writers in her author's note at the end, I wish she'd spent just a bit of time in the text acknowledging that there are anti-capitalist feminists out there right now, and given them a tiny bit of her platform.
It's a small criticism. I need to start plugging some of these names into Google now.
(full disclosure: I am the author's sister.)
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LibraryThing member AstonishingChristina
Jessa Crispin has written a clever and incisive critique of the state of contemporary feminism as practiced in the United States and the UK. She writes from a hard left standpoint, which determines her premises and vocabulary. Within those limitations, however, she does a good job of slicing into
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contemporary feminism as an identity which caters to white western middle and upper class women. Like most polemicists, she does a good job of describing the problem, but doesn't attempt to describe in any detail what a more comprehensive form of feminism would look like. Show Less
LibraryThing member adzebill
Like going from a comfortable if slightly oppressive sauna to jumping into an ice-cold lake. I particularly appreciated the direct address to men who might be reading this book, who are invited to NOT email the author with their thoughts and feelings and to bugger off and sort themselves out. (In
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subsequent interviews the author reveals this plea was unsuccessful.) Show Less
LibraryThing member jess_reads
If I was to summarize this book's message, it's that we've given up radical ideals for comfort and convenience. Act on your conscience. Demand the change in society by actually forcing it to change. It's hard to ignore that point. The problem I see is that by keeping a movement on the fringe, we
So yeah, support local businesses, get involved with grassroots activism and put yourself out where it's uncomfortable. I'm on board with that, and it's something that people should hear. It's a quick read, but packed with opinion. Add this to discussions of capitalism, feminism, racism, and how Western society works.
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delegitimize its mission and it's harder to encourage much-needed change in the greater population. People burn out, and other people don't pay attention. Crispin is of the opinion that watering down the message won't get us anywhere either.So yeah, support local businesses, get involved with grassroots activism and put yourself out where it's uncomfortable. I'm on board with that, and it's something that people should hear. It's a quick read, but packed with opinion. Add this to discussions of capitalism, feminism, racism, and how Western society works.
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LibraryThing member BeccaNaylor
This is one of the few books that I can truthfully say has changed any aspect of my life. Every time I read this, Crispin lights a fire in me.
LibraryThing member untraveller
To begin with.....short, big print, lots and lots of blank pages and half pages so the book reads quickly. The author’s points are a spaghetti mixture of seemingly contradictory stands. And, the book seems to have been written in just a few late night sessions.... I am a man, though, and she
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rather emphatically states that she does not give a —— about what I think, which I find interesting. She appears to be a humanist; I am a humanist, but more than that I am positively not homo (sapien) centric. I find my joy in activities mostly unrelated to people. Sociological books like this are the occasional good read. I just wish she could have more clearly defined her thinking....my problem, I suppose. Finished 30.01.20. Show Less
LibraryThing member amandanan
Solid 3. Skimmed the last third of it. This would be a great book to analyze with a class or book club.
LibraryThing member meela
A very good review of why many women have turned away from feminism. More accurately it is about how feminism has deserted many women by ceasing to be focused on women's liberation.
Awards
The A.V. Club best books (2017)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
176 p.
ISBN
1612196012 / 9781612196015
Local notes
feminisms
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