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Misogynies
Misogynies is one of the most celebrated feminist texts by a British author. First published in 1989, it created shock waves with its analyses of history, literature and popular culture. Joan Smith drew on her own experience as one of the few women reporting the Yorkshire Ripper murders and looked at novels, slasher movies, Page Three and Princess Diana, teasing out the attitudes that brought them together.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1989
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778 people want to read
About the author
Joan Smith
19 books39 followersJoan Alison Smith is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN. In 2003 she was offered the MBE for her services to PEN, but refused the award. Joan Smith is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
August 24, 2012
Misogyny: A hatred of women.
This book is negative and difficult for a man to read. It rips apart some movies that I have seen and books that I have read. Joan Smith makes me doubt my own awareness and feminism and leaves me knowing I have a lot to learn. I have lived my entire life in a world that not only discriminates against women but actually denigrates them. Angry books like this can jar me out of my complacency.
This book was first published in 1989 in Great Britain. I would like to think that women’s rights have improved quite a bit since then. But this book of short essays on examples of woman-hating through the centuries has a currency about it that makes you wonder how far we have really come. The fact that Missouri has a U.S. Senate candidate (in August 2012) who questions whether a woman can become pregnant from a rape suggests that we still have a ways to go. Women have had to struggle to improve their place in society. This book has an angry and frustrated tone.
Joan Smith goes into familiar territory for feminists: No means no. Women are not at fault in rapes in spite of claims ‘she was asking for it.’ Contrary to what some think, most women do not desire sexual violence.
Several well known films from the 1980s that justify the annihilation of the independent woman are discussed, including Fatal Attraction (1987) and Jagged Edge (1985). The book Presumed Innocent by Scott Terow is analyzed as anti-feminist.
The murdered woman, who exploits “her seductive female sexuality,” is the main culprit.
Since Misogynies Reflections on Myths and Malice originated in Great Britain in the 1980s, you will not be surprised to find some comments about the Princesses Di and Fergie. Diana particularly did not do well in maintaining the image that the press had created of her as she grew from the nineteen year old into adulthood. There is a moral here “about the folly of trying to act out a tinsel fantasy which denies adult status to women.” Margaret Thatcher also gets some attention as a false role model for women.
Religion takes it on the chin. The Virgin Mary is described as a vehicle or receptacle rather than a player. Mary is a woman without control of her own body. The history of the Christian church opposed to women clerics and priests is also examined.
And the topics continue to flow, one short essay at a time. They were more current in the late 1980s when the book was written but still teach lessons for today’s world. Joan Smith comes out swinging. The absence of women in Roman history: Women don’t wear togas. The history of male homosexuals hating women. A feminist analysis of the success of Marilyn Monroe: “Her popularity represents a rejection of mutuality in sex in favour of a pattern of male dominance and female submission.” Comments on The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophies Choice as they deal with the use of violence against women, including rape.
This book is illustrative of the attitude that has earned the assertive feminist the title “bitch” in some circles. Joan Smith does not pull any punches or surrender any of the hard earned advances of women. She is outspoken and powerful in her suggestions that woman-hating is all about us and must be recognized and fought. Misogynists hate women, especially women who talk and act like Joan Smith.
I give Misogynies Reflections on Myths and Malice three stars. It is tough and does not “make nice” or gloss over defects. It does not offer solutions except to the extent that self-awareness can initiate change. It did not tell me what to do with my anger.
This is a book about lies – the lies men tell about women.
This book is negative and difficult for a man to read. It rips apart some movies that I have seen and books that I have read. Joan Smith makes me doubt my own awareness and feminism and leaves me knowing I have a lot to learn. I have lived my entire life in a world that not only discriminates against women but actually denigrates them. Angry books like this can jar me out of my complacency.
This book was first published in 1989 in Great Britain. I would like to think that women’s rights have improved quite a bit since then. But this book of short essays on examples of woman-hating through the centuries has a currency about it that makes you wonder how far we have really come. The fact that Missouri has a U.S. Senate candidate (in August 2012) who questions whether a woman can become pregnant from a rape suggests that we still have a ways to go. Women have had to struggle to improve their place in society. This book has an angry and frustrated tone.
Joan Smith goes into familiar territory for feminists: No means no. Women are not at fault in rapes in spite of claims ‘she was asking for it.’ Contrary to what some think, most women do not desire sexual violence.
Several well known films from the 1980s that justify the annihilation of the independent woman are discussed, including Fatal Attraction (1987) and Jagged Edge (1985). The book Presumed Innocent by Scott Terow is analyzed as anti-feminist.
The book’s real theme is an increasingly familiar one, that women’s power is always achieved illegitimately and at the expense of men, and sometimes at the expense of other women. That being the case, Terow implies, female intrusion into public life – into male areas of life – inevitably brings with it the risk that violence will ensue.
The murdered woman, who exploits “her seductive female sexuality,” is the main culprit.
Since Misogynies Reflections on Myths and Malice originated in Great Britain in the 1980s, you will not be surprised to find some comments about the Princesses Di and Fergie. Diana particularly did not do well in maintaining the image that the press had created of her as she grew from the nineteen year old into adulthood. There is a moral here “about the folly of trying to act out a tinsel fantasy which denies adult status to women.” Margaret Thatcher also gets some attention as a false role model for women.
Religion takes it on the chin. The Virgin Mary is described as a vehicle or receptacle rather than a player. Mary is a woman without control of her own body. The history of the Christian church opposed to women clerics and priests is also examined.
And the topics continue to flow, one short essay at a time. They were more current in the late 1980s when the book was written but still teach lessons for today’s world. Joan Smith comes out swinging. The absence of women in Roman history: Women don’t wear togas. The history of male homosexuals hating women. A feminist analysis of the success of Marilyn Monroe: “Her popularity represents a rejection of mutuality in sex in favour of a pattern of male dominance and female submission.” Comments on The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophies Choice as they deal with the use of violence against women, including rape.
This book is illustrative of the attitude that has earned the assertive feminist the title “bitch” in some circles. Joan Smith does not pull any punches or surrender any of the hard earned advances of women. She is outspoken and powerful in her suggestions that woman-hating is all about us and must be recognized and fought. Misogynists hate women, especially women who talk and act like Joan Smith.
I give Misogynies Reflections on Myths and Malice three stars. It is tough and does not “make nice” or gloss over defects. It does not offer solutions except to the extent that self-awareness can initiate change. It did not tell me what to do with my anger.
September 30, 2013
Written in 1989, this book was partly inspired, Smith says, by the Yorkshire Ripper case. Her report on and analysis of the story is the final essay in this collection, and draws together some of its general themes. In trying to explain why men hate, blame, assault, rape and murder women, Smith looks for misogyny in many places, including classical Athens, where women were not allowed out of the house, in the writers of classicists (the 'Women in Togas' essay deals amusingly with the invisibility of women in histories & studies of Rome and with their unfavourable accounts of charismatic women such as Clodia) and in The Bible. Women have been constructed as the source of all evil and disharmony in the world, causing men to transgress with their lust. The most characteristic feature of misogyny here is perhaps the tendency to blame women for every unpleasant thing that men do to them.
This classical legacy of woman-hating is excavated in modern texts such as William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, and even more overtly in the published songs of USAF bomber pilots. I was interested to see Smith reference Freikorps, Male Fantasies, an enormous study by Klaus Theweleit on the extremely misogynistic literature of private death squads in inter-war Germany, because it's a massive, daunting book that, like Ulysses, I just want someone else to suffer through and review incisively so I don't have to.
Smith's main tactic is psychological, even psychoanalytical explanation, focussing on men's feelings of inadequacy in a culture of hypermasculinity, and on understanding women as archetypes 'madonna' 'whore' etc. Her analysis often seems quite acute, as in the case of the Yorkshire Ripper essay, and she writes about it with a sense of drama that makes me think of crime fiction. The shortcoming of this approach is that the subject is NOT fictional. The misogynistic men and women Smith attacks are not characters whose minds she can construct and selectively reveal, and even the best psychological analysis is speculation, and tends to leave structural power relationships relatively unexamined. From my point of view, psychoanalysis is extremely patriarchal, and while turning the torch on men might reveal some uncomfortable feelings, I can't help but think of Audre Lorde's remark that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house". The whorephobia of the police investigating the Ripper murders gets off lightly, while essays on Marilyn Monroe and glamour model Samantha Fox treat them harshly for exploiting men's lust. For all this book's worthy intentions and righteous demands for equality, I felt it leaves a conventional patriarchal construction of sexuality and gender relatively intact.
This classical legacy of woman-hating is excavated in modern texts such as William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, and even more overtly in the published songs of USAF bomber pilots. I was interested to see Smith reference Freikorps, Male Fantasies, an enormous study by Klaus Theweleit on the extremely misogynistic literature of private death squads in inter-war Germany, because it's a massive, daunting book that, like Ulysses, I just want someone else to suffer through and review incisively so I don't have to.
Smith's main tactic is psychological, even psychoanalytical explanation, focussing on men's feelings of inadequacy in a culture of hypermasculinity, and on understanding women as archetypes 'madonna' 'whore' etc. Her analysis often seems quite acute, as in the case of the Yorkshire Ripper essay, and she writes about it with a sense of drama that makes me think of crime fiction. The shortcoming of this approach is that the subject is NOT fictional. The misogynistic men and women Smith attacks are not characters whose minds she can construct and selectively reveal, and even the best psychological analysis is speculation, and tends to leave structural power relationships relatively unexamined. From my point of view, psychoanalysis is extremely patriarchal, and while turning the torch on men might reveal some uncomfortable feelings, I can't help but think of Audre Lorde's remark that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house". The whorephobia of the police investigating the Ripper murders gets off lightly, while essays on Marilyn Monroe and glamour model Samantha Fox treat them harshly for exploiting men's lust. For all this book's worthy intentions and righteous demands for equality, I felt it leaves a conventional patriarchal construction of sexuality and gender relatively intact.
March 25, 2016
I read this book when it was first published in the late 1980s, and it completely changed my way of thinking as a feminist. What a relief! It wasn't all my fault: the creepy men in the streets, underground, verbal / physical abuse before there was such a things as discussions about sexual harassment. Excellent book: I have read, re-read, translated, given away copies, bought new ones... Certainly one of the most important reads of my life.
March 30, 2025
Very insightful, and extremely horrifying in some chapters
April 22, 2008
I read both feminist books by Joan Smith in college (Mysogynies and Different for Girls). While not the best feminist books out there - they're easily accessible to the reader, and have important concepts in an easy-to-grasp format.
November 30, 2021
Smith’s influential, near-legendary collection of essays can be piercing. Being a Classicist, her polemic systematically demolishing the slut-shaming of women in Roman history is invigorating. And her howl of despair about police failures in the Yorkshire Ripper case – caused by the fact that investigating officers held many of the same prejudices as the murderer – is clear-sighted and utterly chilling, while crammed with remarkable insights gained while covering the case for the Sunday Times.
I became increasingly alarmed while reading the book, though, by Smith’s own prejudices. It’s slightly absurd that a book about the danger of hate is itself so full of the stuff. There’s some casual ableism and some ingrained homophobia, but it’s nothing compared to the anti-Catholic hysteria that begins to bleed through the prose.
When Smith blamed Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘nastiness’ on his ‘solitary Catholic upbringing’, I thought it was a quirkily intriguing if somewhat incomplete idea. But when she went on to largely attribute Peter Sutcliffe’s attacks on women to the fact that he was raised as a Catholic, she did rather lose me. She seems to fundamentally misunderstand how most Christians engage with their church, and the fact that she appears least impressive when discussing a subject I know something about – old movies, Catholicism – made me wonder a little about the value of the rest.
Her insights are consistently scattershot: she can be blindingly obvious, arrestingly incisive and patently disingenuous, often on the same page – at one point she selectively quotes the Bible, before immediately accusing someone else of selectively quoting the Bible. And that rather aimless approach extends to her choice of topics: sometimes she’s drawing fascinating parallels between past and present, sometimes using Ancient Athens to have a go at gay people in the ‘20s, and sometimes just throwing in a short satirical play, a passable portrait of Marilyn Monroe, or a piece of extended literary criticism, both exhaustive and exhausting. I was notably troubled by her inability to differentiate between two different types of writing: one in which the author is oblivious to their character’s misogyny, and one in which that is a purposeful artistic choice. A curious omission, too, to neglect the fact that the deeply sexist denouement of Fatal Attraction was actually a rewrite responding to the demands of test audiences, surely the most concerning aspect of that whole saga.
This is ultimately a hard book to judge: unquestionably important, upon publication, in shaping the national conversation, and sadly not as dated now as it might be, but – despite some vivid insights and powerful polemicising – also frustrating and shot through with some rather unsightly prejudices of its own.
I would say that, though. I'm Catholic.
I became increasingly alarmed while reading the book, though, by Smith’s own prejudices. It’s slightly absurd that a book about the danger of hate is itself so full of the stuff. There’s some casual ableism and some ingrained homophobia, but it’s nothing compared to the anti-Catholic hysteria that begins to bleed through the prose.
When Smith blamed Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘nastiness’ on his ‘solitary Catholic upbringing’, I thought it was a quirkily intriguing if somewhat incomplete idea. But when she went on to largely attribute Peter Sutcliffe’s attacks on women to the fact that he was raised as a Catholic, she did rather lose me. She seems to fundamentally misunderstand how most Christians engage with their church, and the fact that she appears least impressive when discussing a subject I know something about – old movies, Catholicism – made me wonder a little about the value of the rest.
Her insights are consistently scattershot: she can be blindingly obvious, arrestingly incisive and patently disingenuous, often on the same page – at one point she selectively quotes the Bible, before immediately accusing someone else of selectively quoting the Bible. And that rather aimless approach extends to her choice of topics: sometimes she’s drawing fascinating parallels between past and present, sometimes using Ancient Athens to have a go at gay people in the ‘20s, and sometimes just throwing in a short satirical play, a passable portrait of Marilyn Monroe, or a piece of extended literary criticism, both exhaustive and exhausting. I was notably troubled by her inability to differentiate between two different types of writing: one in which the author is oblivious to their character’s misogyny, and one in which that is a purposeful artistic choice. A curious omission, too, to neglect the fact that the deeply sexist denouement of Fatal Attraction was actually a rewrite responding to the demands of test audiences, surely the most concerning aspect of that whole saga.
This is ultimately a hard book to judge: unquestionably important, upon publication, in shaping the national conversation, and sadly not as dated now as it might be, but – despite some vivid insights and powerful polemicising – also frustrating and shot through with some rather unsightly prejudices of its own.
I would say that, though. I'm Catholic.
October 12, 2021
I was surprised when I started reading it and I still am now after finishing it, at how clear her voice is while writing about non fiction facts. Joan Smith weaves together a cohesive story of the world we live in through threads of pervasive violence against women. There’s a lot I learned, and a lot more to think about now after finishing. Such an amazing non fiction look at the stories we listen to and surround ourselves with.
January 8, 2023
got this in a book shop in London in Southgate
November 5, 2018
There's a quote at the beginning of this landmark collection of essays that is as shocking to me today as it was when I first read it years ago. It's from Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970). "Women," Germaine Greer says "have very little idea of how much men hate them." I appreciate that the monolithic statement serves best the purpose of driving home an essential truth but I would change it around a bit to go something like this- It must be shocking for any woman to see, and most will, how fast a man's sympathy can turn to hate. Obviously, misogyny, like all deep-rooted problems, is complex, and extremely adaptable, otherwise we would be done with it, most of it, long ago.
Back to the book. This set of misogynistic examples drawn from public life, the courtroom and popular culture, was published in 1989 and so is free of hysterics, though, understandably not free from anger. The author is angry. She has every right to be. Plus, and she wouldn't like me to say this, assuming she was aware of me saying it, anger suits her. It does because she is very articulated and her quick mind can detect the absurdity and the humour even in the misery of injustice. So I would recommend this to most but it's not without its flaws and there are many. This is not gaslighting. Body shaming Samantha Fox (again, this book was published in 1989) or any woman benefiting the attention her figure attracts as more or less un-sisterhood is simply pathetic. She complains of too many assumptions and before the page is over she dishes out a few of her own. Same with selective passages which is particularly annoying when it comes from such a well-read person. There's obvious political bias which serves absolutely no one. The chapter on the Yorkshire Ripper is ill informed and goes nowhere at all. Still, there's a lot to contemplate here and one should not pass it by.
Back to the book. This set of misogynistic examples drawn from public life, the courtroom and popular culture, was published in 1989 and so is free of hysterics, though, understandably not free from anger. The author is angry. She has every right to be. Plus, and she wouldn't like me to say this, assuming she was aware of me saying it, anger suits her. It does because she is very articulated and her quick mind can detect the absurdity and the humour even in the misery of injustice. So I would recommend this to most but it's not without its flaws and there are many. This is not gaslighting. Body shaming Samantha Fox (again, this book was published in 1989) or any woman benefiting the attention her figure attracts as more or less un-sisterhood is simply pathetic. She complains of too many assumptions and before the page is over she dishes out a few of her own. Same with selective passages which is particularly annoying when it comes from such a well-read person. There's obvious political bias which serves absolutely no one. The chapter on the Yorkshire Ripper is ill informed and goes nowhere at all. Still, there's a lot to contemplate here and one should not pass it by.
March 9, 2016
Chilling collection of essays on the societal hatred of women, inspired by the author's journalistic experience on the Yorkshire Ripper case. Some of the examples in here are truly appalling, and while I like to think there's been improvement in some areas - surely judges could not get away with some of those rulings today! - in others it's the same old, same old.
Necessary reading, I think, but it does tend to chip away at one's faith in humanity. Not that I had so much of that to begin with, but still.
Necessary reading, I think, but it does tend to chip away at one's faith in humanity. Not that I had so much of that to begin with, but still.
February 8, 2021
I bought this after being told it was a book about the Yorkshire Ripper, so suffice to say it wasn't quite what I was expecting. It's very well-written and informative. I enjoyed almost every essay. The feminism and attitudes were outdated in some places in ways that made me feel uncomfortable or left me disagreeing with the conclusions, but they were argued well and never presented as indisputable fact - a problem I have with many non-fiction books at the moment.
October 19, 2023
Important book
I especially enjoyed the no-punches-pulled feminist critique of the misogynistic (and, at times, unwittingly homoerotic) plotlines of literary classics as well as of popular thriller films of the 1980s.
The in-depth analysis of the Yorkshire ripper case, and of its shameful mishandling by male-dominated authorities, is remarkably insightful.
I especially enjoyed the no-punches-pulled feminist critique of the misogynistic (and, at times, unwittingly homoerotic) plotlines of literary classics as well as of popular thriller films of the 1980s.
The in-depth analysis of the Yorkshire ripper case, and of its shameful mishandling by male-dominated authorities, is remarkably insightful.
Read
March 1, 2019I found this a difficult read, maybe because some of the literary criticism stuff went over my head. Nonetheless the presence of an underweaving misogyny in our society is clear. I would like to think that things have improved in the 30 years since the book was fist written, but I'm not so sure
Want to read
December 16, 2020I found this book in an article by Derek Owusu in the Guardian in December 2020 particularly with reference to Milan Kundera.
September 7, 2021
An excellent and eye opening book, a must read for all, men and women.
Through various chapters which read as essays in themselves, some cover the media through the dreadful treatment of Princess Diana, Page 3 topless girls, Marilyn Monroe, models and how they are click bate and sexulaised.
Other chapters cover the Jack the Ripper case and how women were more demonised than the man himself (any woman that goes out late at night or without a man must be a prostitute, still relevant in 2021 London), and women in Christianity as the origin of original sin. Lets face it, once you are blamed for that, there's no mitigation or going back, things could only get worse.
Hollywood is discussed too and this is all pre #metoo. Glen Close films like Jagged Edge and Presumed Innocent and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct are used to illustrate how women are shown to be emotional psychos, the killing of whom especially in horror films is gratifying for men, even a celebration.
The Pendle Witch trials and Greek mythology, like the depiction of women being raped by immortals and the women themselves being cast out of society (Medusa, Io, Danae) could have been discussed comfortably in this work but were not, the subject matter covers the entire history of humanity as it is, where to start?
What especially frightened me as a reader was the depiction of women in literature/fiction, with Milan Kundera and Yukio Mishima being named and made an example of. Why did I not notice this before? You take it for granted that this could of course be a woman doing these things, but you never notice men are not shown with the these attributed nailed to a woman. I am ashamed of my unconscious bias and I'm not afraid to admit it, my own stupidity in not seeing these things.
I have no doubt this is the most important book I have read this year or in a long time. It was enough to have me affiliate myself to the Women's Equality Party.
Essential reading for everyone.
Through various chapters which read as essays in themselves, some cover the media through the dreadful treatment of Princess Diana, Page 3 topless girls, Marilyn Monroe, models and how they are click bate and sexulaised.
Other chapters cover the Jack the Ripper case and how women were more demonised than the man himself (any woman that goes out late at night or without a man must be a prostitute, still relevant in 2021 London), and women in Christianity as the origin of original sin. Lets face it, once you are blamed for that, there's no mitigation or going back, things could only get worse.
Hollywood is discussed too and this is all pre #metoo. Glen Close films like Jagged Edge and Presumed Innocent and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct are used to illustrate how women are shown to be emotional psychos, the killing of whom especially in horror films is gratifying for men, even a celebration.
The Pendle Witch trials and Greek mythology, like the depiction of women being raped by immortals and the women themselves being cast out of society (Medusa, Io, Danae) could have been discussed comfortably in this work but were not, the subject matter covers the entire history of humanity as it is, where to start?
What especially frightened me as a reader was the depiction of women in literature/fiction, with Milan Kundera and Yukio Mishima being named and made an example of. Why did I not notice this before? You take it for granted that this could of course be a woman doing these things, but you never notice men are not shown with the these attributed nailed to a woman. I am ashamed of my unconscious bias and I'm not afraid to admit it, my own stupidity in not seeing these things.
I have no doubt this is the most important book I have read this year or in a long time. It was enough to have me affiliate myself to the Women's Equality Party.
Essential reading for everyone.
March 23, 2017
Although many of the essays in this book are powerful and demonstrate how ingrained hatred and fear of the feminine are in all areas of culture, I do believe Smith's approaches to feminism to be outdated and often present an ignorance present in a great deal of other third wave feminist writings. Smith's discussion of gender is incredibly binary and the experiences of non-binary and trans women are completely ignored. As well as this, despite protesting against misogyny, Smith exercises what I believe to be a different kind of misogynistic rhetoric throughout several of her essays; Smith often seems to suggest that women who embrace their sexuality or use their sexuality within their careers are 'betraying' the rest of women kind and encouraging men to see all women in a sexualised manner, a misogynistic suggestion in itself which shames women for having choice over their own bodies and how they wish to use them. Towards the end of the book, a comparison is also made between abortion and murder, again a statement which through demonising the act of abortion, dismisses women's choices regarding their own bodies over the fetus they are carrying.
December 9, 2024
olha... difícil de ler, porém necessário.
cada capítulo trata de uma mídia diferente e a maneira em que (geralmente homens) descrevem mulheres. ou como eles se sentem com relação a elas. e Joan Smith é muito perspicaz nas observações dela. e ela também é engraçada demais.
o capítulo final sobre o Yorkshire Ripper é excelente. e ela traz filmes, livros, músicas, até Maria tem (e esse pra mim foi o melhor capítulo, pra quem conhece a bíblia é delícia de ler).
bom demais, super vale.
cada capítulo trata de uma mídia diferente e a maneira em que (geralmente homens) descrevem mulheres. ou como eles se sentem com relação a elas. e Joan Smith é muito perspicaz nas observações dela. e ela também é engraçada demais.
o capítulo final sobre o Yorkshire Ripper é excelente. e ela traz filmes, livros, músicas, até Maria tem (e esse pra mim foi o melhor capítulo, pra quem conhece a bíblia é delícia de ler).
bom demais, super vale.
August 5, 2019
Go figure, the Yorkshire Ripper essay was the one just before the postscript.
Extremely dated. Some modern classics convincingly exposed as sexist. Extremely focused on the gender binary. I'd advise avoiding this unless you want to see her eviscerate Kundera, Styron, etc. or are interested in the Yorkshire Ripper.
CW: sexism, whorephobia, homophobia, slut shaming, etc., etc.
Extremely dated. Some modern classics convincingly exposed as sexist. Extremely focused on the gender binary. I'd advise avoiding this unless you want to see her eviscerate Kundera, Styron, etc. or are interested in the Yorkshire Ripper.
CW: sexism, whorephobia, homophobia, slut shaming, etc., etc.
August 24, 2021
As relevant today as when it was first written
The author leads us clearly through the chapters, gently but firmly pointing out where, when and why misogyny happens. The inevitable conclusion being that it is not just that some men hate women, but that misogyny is ingrained in our lives, our society and our culture and until that changes women will always be in danger.
The author leads us clearly through the chapters, gently but firmly pointing out where, when and why misogyny happens. The inevitable conclusion being that it is not just that some men hate women, but that misogyny is ingrained in our lives, our society and our culture and until that changes women will always be in danger.
March 23, 2018
very good, and very terrifying, i wish i could copy and paste the entire postscript (:Boys Will Be Boys) as a summary of the book, but I can't, but you can look it up, it's on google books.
Immaculate Misconceptions was my absolute favourite.
Immaculate Misconceptions was my absolute favourite.
August 19, 2018
I read this book in my early 20s and it was my first proper 'feminist' book. It's excellent in its analysis of the situations described. The chapter about the 'Yorkshire Ripper' in particular has stayed with me ever since. Brilliant writing.
April 22, 2020
Other than the essay on the air force pilots, I thought the analysis in this collection very perceptive and relevant. The last essay, on the topic of the Yorkshire Ripper, was fascinating and insightful especially.
September 17, 2021
"This is a book about lies - the lies men tell about women." Short essays about misogyny, "one of the concealed mainsprings of our culture", dissecting how it shapes our art, lives and attitudes. The essays on the judicial system and Peter Sutcliffe were particularly eye-opening.
June 17, 2022
I first read Joan Smith at uni, There's Only One Yorkshire Ripper, which is the last essay in this collection.
Published originally in 1989, some of the topics are "old" but the themes, sadly, are not.
Very interesting post script.
Definitely worth a read.
Published originally in 1989, some of the topics are "old" but the themes, sadly, are not.
Very interesting post script.
Definitely worth a read.
January 16, 2023
i would like to give this more stars because it really does highlight some incredibly important issues that are still so persistent today, but due to its history it does have a lot of outdated notions and opinions i couldnt quite justify awarding it 4 stars for
August 19, 2025
I found this book greatly insightful in exposing misogyny and it made me very angry. It was hard to read and upsetting. But I would agree with the cover of my copy that it is “essential reading”, particularly for men.
July 1, 2017
It's definitely interesting. Some essays more so than others. Worth a look.
July 17, 2018
Lot of food for thought here. Really enjoyed the in depth analysis of how misogyny is prevalent in literature.
Read
September 15, 2019DNF some parts interesting and enlightening but definitely felt dated...may go back and read later
August 29, 2020
Absolutely a must-read. Read it when it came out, read it again.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews