The Power - Naomi Alderman

 

This was a good read and a sobering, thoughtful vision of a future where the tables are turned.

Young women begin finding they have the power, the ability to send electric shocks from their fingertips.  They can awaken this power in older women and men don't have it.  We're taken through years of a new world order where women are the dominant gender, the ones dictating, ordering, the ones in control and discover what type of world evolves.

It took me awhile to understand the perspective of the book as it starts in some present moment, a man discussing his historical novel with his editor/friend and then into that book that looks back thousands of years to the beginning of the power.  I liked the premise and the way the author makes you think not just in our own life timeframe.

Quotes:

"Nothing that either of these men says is really of any great significance, because she could kill them in three moves before they stirred in their comfortably padded chairs.  It doesn't matter that she shouldn't, that she never would.  What matters is that she could, if she wanted.  The power to hurt is a kind of wealth."

Published:  2016  Read: July 2022 Genre: Science Fiction

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez

 Sub-title: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

This is an important book to read to understand how the rise in the use of data has perpetuated bias toward women resulting in the loss of their potential contribution in a multitude of fields.  The author points out the well-reported lack of diversity in medical studies and goes on to address bias introduced via data to other areas of life as well.  She points out how the lack of consideration of women's needs and perspectives skews the  development of everything from phones to automated decision-making to healthcare.  

She points out in the Afterword that there are 3 themes that define women's relationship with the world:

1) the invisibility of the female body; forgetting to accommodate it in design in all fields

2) the visibility of the female body leading to male sexual violence against women and how it is measured and accounted for in design, resulting in limiting women's liberty.

3) Unpaid care work; pointing out that women are doing far and away more than our fair share of this work.  It naturalizes sex and gender discrimination to assume this is the female role.

Quotes and Notes

p 30 - Women do 75% of the world's unpaid care work and this affects their travel needs.  ..."trip-chaining', a travel pattern of several small interconnected trips that has been observed in women around the world."

p 118 - [regarding absorption of chemicals studies not taking into account] endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)  harmful even at very low concentrations and they are found in a wide range of plastics, cosmetics and cleaners.

p 157 - There is plenty of data showing that women have, on average, smaller hands than men and yet we continue to design equipment around the average male hand as if one-size-fit-men is the same as one-size-fits-all.

p 167 - [discussion of AI systems] used to screen resumes] Has the algorithm been trained to account for socialized gender differences in tone an facial expression?"

p 175 - [women entrepreneurs in tech world, example of pelvic floor trainer] In a field where women are at a disadvantage specifically because the are women (and therefore can't hope to fit a stereotypically male 'pattern'), data will be particularly crucial for female entrepreneurs.  And yet it's the female entrepreneurs who are less likely to have it, because they are more likely to be trying to make products for women.  For whom we lack data." 

p 180 - Across professional computing as a whole in the US, 26% of jobs are held by women compared to the 57% of jobs women hold across the entire US workforce - "sea of dudes" problem.

p 223 - Understanding Girls with ADHD states that women are underdiagnosed because of early clinical studies being done on hyperactive young white boys.

p 247 - ..."the best job-creation programme could simply be the introduction of universal childcare in every country in the world."

Published: 2019  Read: December 2021  Genre: Science

The End of Men - Christina Sweeney-Baird

Written in 2018 and finalized in 2019 this story imagines a future where a virus only affects males - and is 90% fatal, leaving the world with only 10% of the males due to an X-chromosome mutation.  Told in first-person by a slate of female characters from different walks of life; a doctor, a scientist, politician, teacher, anthropologist. They have different reactions and experiences to the extreme loss of males; their husbands, sons, brothers, co-workers, friends.  The profound grief is explored with each character and then...the adjustments they make as individuals and as a society that changes so drastically.  Feminism and males as a minority is explored.  Re-populating the human race made me wonder what it would be like if only 10% of the males in the world were eventually the ancestors of all the subsequent generations.  The world eventually goes on. 

I thought there were so many other perspectives the author could have detailed and was disappointed there wasn't more depth to the story.  Many of the changes were to me "oh, yes, that would change." Not enough pilots or surgeons or engineers or mechanics.  I suspect the book was pushed to release when the coronavirus became a reality.  Despite those shortcomings, it would a rich source of discussion.  

Quotes

"Gynarchy is the word we use for the takeover by women of the world, depriving men from taking their rightful places in society."

"I stand in the hallway breathing heavily for a a few seconds before breaking into a smile.  I have never felt so powerful.  This must be what men used to feel like.  My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running.  No wonder they used to get drunk on it."

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Fiction 

The Women's Room - Marilyn French

I have to give this book the #1 rating of my reads this year.

Over the summer while traveling in Alaska, I'd read a later book by this author, In the Name of Friendship and enjoyed it so much I sought out this more famous earlier work.  Millions of copies were sold in the 70's at the height of the feminist movement.  The acclaim is well deserved.

The story revolves around Mira, a conventional 50's wife and mother who finds herself divorced and returns to college.  She collects a group of friends who share their experiences as women and in doing so, illuminate the issues and revelations of the women's movement.  I found it a powerful read and highly recommend it.  I had many pages marked to share quotes.

In the preface, the author notes that "women's work" was and still may be considered illegitimate as subject matter for serious literature and "..the fact that it is trivialized in literature is directly related to the fact that this work is unpaid.  Women comprise a huge slave labor force throughout the world."

At the time the book was written, "Mira understood - what young woman does not?--that to choose a husband is to choose a life".  The story reflected the times, written with a woman's voice and from a woman's perspective.

Quotes

"Loneliness is not a longing for company, it is a longing for kind.  And kind means people who can see you who you are, and that means they have enough intelligence and sensitivity and patience to do that.  It also means they can accept you, because we don't see what we can't accept, we blot it out, we jam it hastily in one stereotypical box or another."

"No matter what life does to you, if you cry, you're crazy."

[I've got more but I want this to be posted for 2018]

More pages with quotes:

p.220 "The problem is that these women think too much about men.  I mean, their men are everything to them.  If the men, think they're attractive, they are: if they don't, they're not.  They give men the power to determine their identities, their values, to accept or reject them.  They have no selves."

p.239 "Loneliness is ll in the way you look at it.  It's like virginity, a state of mind."  "And sometimes when you are alone, aren't you feeling sad mostly because society tells you you're not supposed to be alone?  And you imagine someone being there and understanding every emotion of your heart and mind.  Where if someone was there he - or even she- wouldn't necessarily be doing that at all?  And what's even worse.  When somebody is here and not there at the same time."

p.260 "The point is that if only what endures is real-then only death is real.  All the rest is image, transient, mutable."

p.272 "..the two mainsprings of behavior are sexuality and aggression..or Fear and the desire for pleasure.  Aggressiveness comes out of fear, predominantly, and sexuality out of the other."

p,282 "a space to be and a witness.  It was enough, or if not enough, it was all, all that we could do, in the end, for each other."

p 360 "They accepted the peculiarities of the people they live with."

p 399 "Is it possible to live with somebody whose values you don't share?"

p 404 "Because wounds do leave scars and scar tissue has no feeling.  That's what people forget when they train their sons to be "men" by injuring them.  There is a price for survival."

p 427 [on rape]

p 448 "Love is a golden rain that comes down when it will, and as it spatters in your open palm you exclaim over its brightness, its wonderful moistening of your dry life, its glitter, its warmth.  But that's all.  You can't hold on to it.  It can't fill all of you."

p 458 "Nothing really changes.  She took his hand.  " it does, it does.  It just takes longer than we do."

Published: 1977  Read: 2018  Genre: Fiction, social commentary

In the Name of Friendship - Marilyn French

Why have I not heard of this author before?  She was a major influence on feminism with her 1977 book, The Woman's Room.  She wrote many, many scholarly articles and books as well as works of fiction.  I am so glad I found this one! 

She tells the story of four women friends, from their late 70's to early 30's.  Their voices are so real, their conversations intimate, kind, meaningful.  It is a book written completely from the female perspective, with no apologies or stereotypes - so refreshing!  I bought another one of her books and will read her first.

She did a dissertation on James Joyce's Ulysses and has written extensively on feminism in Shakespeare. 

I liked this quote :

"What really happened in aging was that every day your got more and more amenable to dying."

Published:  2005  Read: July 2018  Genre: Fiction

 

Sisters in Law - Linda Hirshman

Subtitle: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World

Reading the story of the first two women supreme court justices reawakened the feminist history I lived and embraced for life in the 1970s.  These two very different women finally brought a female perspective to the court.  The stories of their treatment and experiences is fascinating.  I was surprised at O'Connor's pragmatic conservatism and cheered Ginsburg's consistent push for change.  I discovered a lot about the operation of the Supreme Court and how its members function in getting their job done and relating to their colleagues.  Great read.

Published:  2015 (hardback)  Read: October 2017  Genre: History, biography

Loving Frank - Nancy Horan

Frank Lloyd Wright is an icon here in Arizona and I was interested in reading some historical fiction about his life.  This is the story of his love affair with one of his clients, Mamah Borthwick Cheney (that's a real name).  She was a feminist in the early 20th century and they admired each other's intellect which sent sparks flying.  It's quite a story.

The tale had an added bonus for me because it describes the life of women (albeit the upper class) during the 1900-1920 time period and I'm researching that era for a story about my great grandmother.  The women advocating for women's rights are referenced throughout: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Jane Addams, Emma Goldman, Grace Trout, Else Lasker-Schuler, as well as detractors like the Reverend Billy Sunday.

Mamah was a translator for Ellen Key (author of Beauty for Everyone and The Morality of Woman). Elsie explains the name-calling she's received, saying "It's a very effective method: Attack the personal character of the thinker, and you will kill her ideas.  I have been forced to live a careful life as a result".

I learned the source of the name of FLW's Taliesin - it was the name of the main character in a play by Richard Hovey about a Welsh bard who was part of King Arthur's court, a truth-seeker and a prophet, who's name meant 'shining brow'.

I noted this quote while reading:

"It is not sufficient to be a mother; an oyster can be a mother.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman."

A great read with lots to offer.


Published:  2007   Read: September 2016  Genre: Historical fiction

Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

I finally found a used copy of this book in Anchorage.  I havea copy of The Hours at home, its a recent book and movie that's based on this one and wanted to read Woolf’s book first.  

Written in 1925 after the first World War, the book was groundbreaking in its style, a ever-flowing internal conversation of the characters as they go about one day in June in London. 

Mrs. Dalloway is a fiftyish matron who is hosting a party for her social class in the evening.  She and her guests' musings are woven throughout the day, punctuated by the chiming of Big Ben and other city clocks.  Their intertwined pasts unfold from different perspectives revealing how they came to be the persons they are in the present. It is a commentary on the upper class at that time, internal relfection, and the loneliness created by societal expectations that still resonates with truth for today as well. 

Published: 1925  Read: June 2016  Genre: Fiction, classic

ISBN: 978-0-15-662870-9

Savage Beauty - Nancy Milford

subtitle: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay

"My candle burns at both ends;
     It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends--
     It gives a lovely light."


Do you remember this rhyme?  It was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, who went mostly by her middle name, Vincent, and was a torch bearer for the young women of the 1920's.  She was the most famous poet of the Jazz Age and flaunted convention - she smoked in public, had many lovers and was a prolific poet, receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1923.  Millay was known for her sonnets and also wrote plays.

Her poem "Renascence" [deliberate spelling] won her attention at 20 years old and the controversy over it not being awarded the top prize in the Literary Year magazine brought her to the attention of a patron who paid for her education at Vassar.  She moved to Paris in 1921 and married a man 11 years her senior who took care of her and their domestic needs the rest of their lives.

The author of this biography previously wrote the biography of Zelda Fitzgerald.  She had access to the letters and drafts of Millay's and worked extensively with her sister, Norma, in the writing of the biography.  The author uses the letters and documents to show the effort Millay expended in writing her poetry and to illuminate her experiences that led to the poems.

I think it was a thorough, accurate, and detailed record of Millay's life that got bogged down at the end in presenting her letters instead of interpreting or commenting on them.  

Published:  2001  Read: December 2015  Genre: Biography

Almost There - Nuala O'Faolain

Another used bookstore find.  I'd read the wildly popular first book by this journalist turned author, titled "Are You Somebody?" back in 2003 and I recognized the author's name.  Nuala wrote her first book as a memoir of her life up until about age 50.  She'd grown up in Ireland with an alcoholic mother and detached father, one of nine children.  This book was the continuation of her story, written when she was in her early 60's.

Her books talk of her loneliness, her "sour" disposition, her struggles with love and life.  Some quotes:

"The lonely life pays off...And because it is lonely you think you deserve it - you never really confront the fact that solitary pleasures erode your ties to the human race".

She has an ongoing struggle with the memories of her mother:

"The fact that it was our mother who wouldn't allow us to mean anything to her, that it was our mother who gave us daily proof of as much dissatisfaction with her lot as if she'd been a queen sold into slavery, opened my feeling in the memoir to all comers...What there is to say about fathers is specific, but what there is to say about mothers is easily generalized." 

She reflects on the impact of her mother's rejection on her own inability to accept the daughter of her partner, John:

"I didn't even know she [her mother] was inducting me into her own resentment of children.  And if I had known, I would have thought it doesn't matter - that I could re-educate myself anytime.  What if I can't?  What if I can't lift this weight off my heart?"

 I liked this observation when she's talking about money worries:

"Middle-aged people do eventually catch up with as much money as they need." 

She goes on a family vacation with her siblings and reflects on the family relationships:

"My days had purpose because I had the others to report to in the evening, even if I made my reports fairly short - only someone who loves you personally tolerates a full account of your experiences.  My sisters have been listening to me all my life and vice versa, and there's a limit to how interesting we find each other." 

There's irony and humor hiding vasts amounts of pain in her stories.  Through it all, she struggles to enjoy her life.  I was sadden to learn that she died in 2008 of lung cancer.  She spoke with a voice that many could relate to.

Published:  2003  Read: November 2015  Genre: memoir

A Room of One's Own/Three Guineas - Virginia Woolf

I recently had someone inventory all my books which made it easier to see which ones I need to get rid of and which ones I haven't read in so long I can't remember them.

I'd read a fictionalized biography of Woolf earlier this year and though it would be a good idea to read (or re-read, like I said, I can't remember) the author herself, so I pulled this one from the shelf at home.

A Room of One's Own makes the case for a woman of the early 20th century being able to become a writer and be independent if she were to have a fixed income and a room of her own away from the demands of household life in which to write.  Woolf was writing about the educated, upper class women of her time who she saw as shackled by the definitions of a woman's place and restricted from earning an income.  It was originally written as a speech given at a woman's college.

Three Guinea's was written later in 1938 and responds to requests for donations from three separate entities.  In her response, Woolf gives explanation as to why the causes being appealed were related and why her help as a woman would be different from that of the patriarchal expectations of the writer.  It is written almost as a dialogue between herself and the requester and we are invited to eavesdrop.

It was easy to see why this book has endured and its appeal to feminist and pacifist.  Both stories contrast the nature of militaristic (male) society with that of the (peaceful) female one.  Woolf's missteps in only viewing the issue from the point of view of the upper class society to which she belongs but it doesn't entirely distract from her message.

It took some time to read as I found myself pondering if things are that much different these days and if so, is it for the better?


Published:1929 (A Room of One's Own) 1938 (Three Guineas)  Read: November 2015 Genre: Essay

Unspeakable - Meghan Daum

I enjoy browsing the "best pics" that the library puts out right inside the entrance.  This one popped out at me and I'm glad I picked it up.  The author is a Generation Xer, known for her first book "My Misspent Youth".  This is a group of short stories or essays reflecting on her life many years later.

She's unconventional and speaks out on things that aren't normally said out loud (her chapter entitled "Matricide" about her mother's dying is a good example).  She chooses not to have children and reflects at one point on her and her husband feeling sad after she has a miscarriage:

"Were we sad because we lacked some essential element of lifetime partnership, such as a child or agreement about wanting or not wanting one?  Or were we sad because life is just sad sometimes -- maybe even a lot of the time?  Or perhaps it wasn't even sadness we were feeling but, simply, the dull ache of aging?  Maybe children don't save their parents from this ache as much as distract from it.  And maybe creating a diversion from aging turns out to be the whole point of parenting."

It was an interesting read and I'll think I'll look for more of her writing.


Published: 2014   Read: September 2015  Genre: Memoir/Essay

In Defense of Women - H.L. Mencken

This is a very old book I got from the collection of my friend, Teddi, who passed away and left me her books.  H. L. Mencken was a critic and writer who commented on society.  This book is satirical at first, with a tongue in cheek take on women as the superior gender and men being bamboozled by their actions.

His thoughts on women and marriage:

"She seeks a husband, not sentimentally, but realistically; she always give thought to the economic situation; she seldom takes a chance if it is possible to avoid it."

After several chapters he seems to applaud instead of criticize the evolution of the female gender and changes to praise.

In describing the "New Age" [the coming 1920's] he points out that:

"There already appears in the world, a class of women who, while still not genuinely averse to marriage, are yet free from any theory that it is necessary...who, with their economic Independence assured, either by inheritance or by their own efforts...do exactly as they please, and make no pother about it."

I wish I'd known Teddi had this book when we could have talked about it.  It would have been a lively discussion.


Published:  1922  Read: August 2015  Genre: Essay

The Seven Daughters of Eve - Bryan Sykes

Sub-title: The Science that reveals our genetic ancestry

I ordered this via Amazon because it was a layman's description of how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from mother's to their children.  Daughters pass it on to their daughters and the author contends that it remains relatively unaltered for thousands of years.  The record of his research and findings was fascinating and I hope to do a mtDNA test someday.  He goes into detail of how mitochondrial genetics, classified all modern Europeans into seven haplogroups.

Like other reviewers, I thought he departed from scientific findings to fanciful interpretation in "describing" each of the seven lines of mtDNA he traced in modern populations.  It's still a compelling read for those interested in DNA research and application.

Quotes:

p. 28 - Like more familiar instruction  systems such as language, number or computer binary code what matters is not so much the symbols themselves bu the order in which they appear."

Question: what other simple instructions systems are there?

p. 71 - using mtDNA to disprove descendants of Russian czar

p. 126 - Neanderthals are not our ancestors

p. 128 - explanation of mules and why Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal may have split



Published: 2001  Read: June 2015  Genre: Science

Adeline - Norah Vincent

Sub-title: A Novel of Virginia Woolf

This is the story of the last years of writer Viriginia Woolf's life before her suicide at 41 by drowning. The author, Nora Vincent, was unknown to me though when I researched after finishing the book, I remember hearing of her early work, "Self Made Man" where she had posed as  a man for 18 months in an immersion journalism style of research.

Her research for this book appears extensive as she weaves the lives of Virginia, who's given first name was Adeline, and her Bloomsbury group of intellectuals of the late 1800's into an interpretation of how and why Woolf ended her own life.

I had read and applauded Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of Her Own years ago but had never delved into her other books.  This story makes me want to read more of her writing to see what she produced from a tortured mind.  

Vincent's prose is lyrical, written I'm sure with a thesaurus by her side.  It can be distracting admiring the writing without remembering the flow of the story but not to where I quit reading.  I knew what happened in the end but how the characters got there and what they thought and felt kept me engaged. 

The relationship between Virginia and her former child self, who she refers to by her given first name, Adeline, is a technique that gets a little awkward at points, over-stressing the impact of childhood abuse on the future mood swings of the adult Virginia.  

I enjoyed the book for the beautiful use of words, the portrayal of this famous group of people through believable dialogue and descriptions, and the admiration of the genius of Virginia Woolf.

A couple quotes: 

[Virginia explaining to her husband her thoughts on writing]

"She [Virginia] said that perhaps every writer is meant to express only one idea, one mood, one version of what this strange human experience is about, and that he spends his life and work repeating it over and over.  If he is fortunate, once or twice he gets it absolutely right."

[Virginia contemplating suicide and bemoaning the difficulty of death]

"When a fetus comes alive in the womb," she'd asked, "what tells its heart to start beating?"..."and when it does begin," she'd added..."why then?  Why exactly then and not a moment before or after?" ... "And why cannot death be a painless as that?  Or as timely?  The music simply ending, as it began, without struggle, without knowledge, without thought.  Why must the life be shaken out of us when it has been so softly, so smoothly put in?"

Published: 2015  Read: May 2015  Genre: Biographical fiction

ISBN:  9 780 544 470200