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Sociology. Women's Studies. Nonfiction. HTML:â??Smart ... compelling ... persuasive .â?ť â??New York Times Book Review Sheâ??s everywhere once you start looking: the trainwreck. Sheâ??s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying â??crack is whack,â?ť and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. From Mary Wollstonecraftâ??who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Womanâ??to Charlotte BrontĂ«, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyleâ??s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to â??behave.â?ť Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Doyleâ??s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionateâ??an essential, timely… (more)
User reviews
We all know the "trainwreck" - the actress who can't keep her shit together, who has sex when she wants to (the horror!!!), who delves into alcohol or drugs or some combination of both, whose life falls apart as the paparazzi circle her head like so many vultures waiting on their next meal. But WHY are these "trainwrecks" almost exclusively female?
Because even as a teenager, I realized that male and female celebrities were treated differently by the media. Britney Spears admits to having lost her virginity to her long-term boyfriend? What a slut and hypocrite! Meanwhile, an actor can be sleeping his way through half of Hollywood and it's all "oh, what a rake and a charmer! ;)" Paparazzi wait, crouched down to waist level, in the hopes of snapping an "up-skirt" picture for a rising teenaged starlet, and once that picture is splashed everywhere, it is somehow the actress who comes across as "bad" - not the photographers who are trying, literally, to look up a teenager's skirt. (And if she had been wearing underwear, I am sure someone would have blogged about her panty lines.)
Doyle tries to explain why this happens so routinely, and she does a pretty damned good job, too. She traces it all back to feminism - trying to keep the "errant" females quiet, the shaming that is so often involved to keep women "in line," often performed by women as a group - and links modern cases to historical "trainwrecks," such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Bronte, and even Monica Lewinsky.
I found this book to be fascinating, and I had a hard time putting it down. I'd definitely recommend it.
The book held my interest while I read it, but I confess it’s already fading. I think it would be a great choice for young women who are just discovering feminism, but perhaps less vital for crones like me who feel like we’ve lived this book. Part of my problem was that I am so removed from contemporary pop culture that I literally could not pick Lindsay Lohan out of a lineup, so the pop culture stuff did not grab me. I would have enjoyed a whole book about Nasty Charlotte Bronte.
In a nutshell: Author Sady Doyle examines all the ways we push women and judge them for their imperfections.
Line that sticks with me: “We spend so much time
Why I chose it: I’m on a bit of a roll, reading about women who fight the system, who get taken down and fight back. This seemed to fit in nicely.
Review: I’ve laughed at Lindsay Lohan (and not just when she’s being weirdly supportive of Harvey Weinstein - when she’s getting pulled over and drugs are found on her). I’ve scoffed at Britney Spears before her very public meltdown, then did a 180 and for some reason only really saw her humanity when she was being put into conservatorship. I’ve prefaced statements of support for Hillary Clinton with “I know she isn’t perfect, but,” as though there is some politician who is.
I’m also a feminist, and I get real angry when women are dismissed as overly emotional, or irrational, or crazy. And while I sort of know how these two seemingly diametrically opposed philosophies can coexist in my mind, this book brought it to light.
Ms. Doyle provides a look not just at how we seemingly root for women to fail (but then laud them after they’ve died), but the history of how this has been going on for literally centuries. This isn’t an examination of Britney Spears (although her story features prominently in some chapters); it’s an examination of western society and how we treat women. Mostly, how we treat famous women, but Ms. Doyle uses that to point out that this translates to how we treat women in general. How we silence them, how we judge them, how we don’t allow them to be whole, complex people.
Parts are rough to read (although the writing itself is great), but nothing made me madder than the afterward that Ms. Doyle chose to include, discussing in about 20 pages the 2016 election outcome. She has a chapter where she discusses both Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinski, but this afterward looks specifically at Secretary Clinton in light of what we gave up, how we as a country decided we’d rather have an admitted sexual assaulting liar with no government experience than an extraordinarily qualified person who also is a woman. It hurts (and it’s why “What Happened” has been on my nightstand since it was released but I haven’t been able to open it), and it’s hard to find a lot of hope in it. But we’ll see, right?
Many of the stories here were unfamiliar, nearly all will make you
Not a new idea, but an important reminder.