Sady Doyle: Trainwreck (2016)
297 pages
English language
Published Dec. 3, 2016
"From Mary Wollstonecraft--who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman--to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, [this book] 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 'behave'"--Amazon.com.
I had so many "aha!" moments when I read this. It's full of fascinating insights. I actually started reading in November 2016, just before the election. I put it aside, and retreated into fiction for awhile once the election results came in. I finally returned to it, and really enjoyed it. It's very accessible and interesting.
An enjoyable read! While I don't care for pop culture, this feminist account of how the public enjoys to destroy public women, and has always done so, is one of the most important messages I have ever read, and one I have longed for: That women are set up to be destroyed no matter what they do, and that to change this we have to get rid of narratives of perfection women should advance too and instead accept that people are complex and will make mistakes - and that equality can not happen without getting to a state where women can fuck up as much as men.
