Tags
fat jokes aren't funny either, Lindy West I love you will you be my friend?, rape culture, rape is never ever funny, words are not meaningless
I liked Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West so much I told a co-worker about it today. She said she has had a couple people mention to her she would like it and when I added my recommendation she went and bought the audiobook so she could start listening to it at lunch when she likes to walk. It’s a little nervewracking to have someone immediately buy a book like that. I mean, what if she doesn’t like it? At least I am not the only one who told her about it so she can’t blame me entirely if it all goes wrong.
Lindy West is a writer who has written for Gawker, Jezebel, The Guardian and other places. And she is funny. Make you snort funny. But her book is far from frivolous. She takes on fat-phobia, misogyny, rape culture, internet trolls and more. Her humor, “punches up,” meaning, she never makes jokes at the expense of the opressed or victims of violence. Instead her barbs are directed at the perpetrators and clearly those barbs have gotten under the skin of a good many people (mostly men).
At first I thought the book was all essays and it is, kind of. They are connected essays, for lack of something better to call them. Each one is complete in itself but they also rub against each other and sometimes the essay that follows continues the previous one but takes a different tack.
I knew I was going to like West right from the first paragraph, but a few pages later she clenched it when she wrote:
In a certain light, feminism is just the long, slow realization that the stuff you love hates you.
Oh Lindy, have you been reading my thoughts?
West dared to poke the bear when she published a piece called “How to Make a Rape Joke” that called out male comedians for making rape jokes. Then she appeared on a weekly cable show called Totally Biased to face off against a male comedian who thought rape jokes were legit and harmless fun. She was told it was an issue of free speech, that she was too thin-skinned, that she was a downer — I bet most women know this sort of thing by heart. But West writes,
There is nothing novel or comic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control noncompliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoor, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay out of the world. If you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like.
West received death threats, rape threats, and other threats of violence. She also got messages from men telling her she was too fat to be raped and no man would want to rape her as though being raped were a compliment. She, under the assault that came mostly on the internet, collected the tweets and emails and comments and wrote a piece that featured them because she realized here was the very proof she needed to drive home her point. And it worked. She says she has seen a distinct shift in stand-up comedy and while there are still rape jokes, they are not the easy go-to that they used to be.
Throughout the book West stresses over and over again that words matter. Words matter whether they are on the internet or in real life. They matter if you are joking or not. They matter to the one who uses them to silence others and the ones who have been silenced:
what we say affects the world we live in, … words are both a reflection of and a catalyst for the way our society operates.
I love how West concludes the book:
My little victories — trolls, rape jokes, fat people’s humanity — are world-building. Fighting for diverse voices is world-building. Proclaiming the inherent value of fat people is world-building. Believing rape victims is world-building. Refusing to cave to abortion stigma is world-building. Voting is world-building. So is kindness, compassion, listening, making space, saying yes, saying no.
We’re all building our world, right now, in real time. Let’s build it better.
Read Shrill. Tell your co-workers to read it too. And your friends. It’s a fast read. It’s funny and sad and all kinds of awesome. It’s empowering. It encourages loudness. It makes you want to be a better person.
I’ve seen this book around quite a bit! I haven’t read a funny book in a while, especially not one that makes me snort. lol But I also appreciate that it uses humor in a constructive and meanignful way.
This is going on my nonfiction TBR. Thanks for the great review. 😀
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Diverse Books, I too appreciate humor when it is used like West uses it. I think it helps break down barriers to messages that we might otherwise manage to deflect. Hope you enjoy it if you read it!
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That line…I have never come across a more perfect definition….went through me! I will get this one. West seems to speak of our soul!
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I will go on to look up Lindy West. Sometimes it seems that we are going backwards with misogyny and racism all on the upgrade. I suppose all that bile directed against a person like Lindy West who speaks up represents feelings that always existed but was never quite so blatant (on the net you don’t need to be shy in your trolling). What she is saying is so important because I don’t think that those diverse voices are going to be beaten down.
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Ian, unfortunately it does seem lately like we are going backwards. I blame Donald Trump and his kind who have the media power and validate such thinking and behavior as being ok. And you are right, the internet also makes it easier because a troll can be mostly anonymous and the barrage can be unrelenting.
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cirtnecce, isn’t it great? I feel like most of my life is encapsulated in that one sentence.
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I absolutely adore her journalism, and I’m pretty sure Shrill is a continuation of how great her columns are.
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Elle, I have never read any of her columns but I suspect her book is very similar.
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I haven’t heard about this book, but will take your advice and find a copy!
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Jeanne, I hope you like it!
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I loved it so much! My post about it will appear later today or tomorrow.
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yay!
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I love the excerpts you included! Adding this one to my list.
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jenclair, it’s a refreshing and empowering kind of book. I hope you like it!
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I think I am going to be like your coworker and get my hands on a copy now, too! This sounds good. I had a mental ‘ugh’ in mind when she talked about the rape joke thing–as if that is something to joke about. As far as women have come in this last century or so, I feel like the antics from this election has put us back again–or made me realize that it is all still out there just under the surface and people like one of our election candidates brings it all out into the open–all the ugliness is still there and he has helped make it okay to be vocally hateful, which is more UGH on my part. Anyway, this sounds like it would be most illuminating–thanks for writing about it!
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Danielle, I hope you like the book! Yeah, I think the ugliness has been there but it just hasn’t been acceptable (mostly) to say it out loud. With the election there are a lot of people who suddenly feel emboldened to be their worst selves.
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This definitely sounds like a must-read for all women!
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Michelle, yes and for men too!
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Yay, I’m so glad you liked it. It was really powerful. I really loved her honesty. She’s a cool lady!
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Laila, very cool and very brave.
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I’ve never heard of Lindy West but she sounds fantastic. I love the idea of “world-building”.
As for going backwards, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and here’s what I’ve come to (so far). In terms of laws – affirming women’s rights – and providing better social structures for women (expecting girls to be educated, work in satisfying careers etc) we have made progress. Not all over the world, but increasingly in more parts of the world, women can vote, be educated, own property, earn equal pay, inherit, have equal rights to their children etc etc. BUT in terms of human nature it sometimes feels that little has changed. And the law is still struggling here particularly in the area of violence against women – rape, domestic violence. This is the hard one to shift because it seems boys learn from their fathers. Breaking into that cycle, that role-modelling is the really tough one to resolve. There have always been decent humane men, and they have understood the laws as they’ve changed (sometimes needing a bit of encouragement I must admit) but it’s the rest who are the problem, those who just don’t get what being “human” really means.
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whisperinggums, isn’t world-building a neat perspective? Because that is what we are doing and it makes you pause and think about what kind of world we want to make.
I agree, laws are getting better to some degree, though there have been a couple of recent rape cases in the US where the rapist was convicted but the judge’s sentencing was so light it was hardly a punishment at all. women have done and do so much to raise the issues, to cry foul, advocate for ourselves, but there is only so much we can do. Men have to step up and change to make a complete transformation happen.
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That’s it… Women can only go so far. It’s scary really how much misogyny us still out there.
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Yeah, it’s like a hydra. Just when you think it is getting better and has fewer heads, some of the grow back!
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I’d heard about this book, but didn’t really know much about it or the author. Sounds like I need to read it. I loved your review it 🙂 Makes me excited to dive into these essays – thanks!!
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Nadia, thanks! It’s a good book and not really long. If you read it I hope you enjoy it!
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