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What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape
In the tradition of Rebecca Solnit, a beautifully written, deeply intelligent, searingly honest—and ultimately hopeful—examination of sexual assault and the global discourse on rape told through the perspective of a survivor, writer, counselor, and activist.
Sohaila Abdulali was gang-raped as a seventeen-year-old in Mumbai. Indignant at the silence on the issue in India, she wrote an article for an Indian women’s magazine questioning how we perceive rape and rape victims. Thirty years later her story went viral in the wake of the 2012 fatal gang rape in Delhi and the global outcry that followed. In 2013, Abdulali published an op-ed in the New York Times called “After Being Raped, I Was Wounded; My Honor Wasn’t” that was widely circulated. Now, as the #metoo and #timesup movements blow open the topic of sexual assault and rape, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a brilliant and entirely original contribution to our understanding.
Drawing on her own experience, her research, her work with hundreds of survivors as the head of a rape crisis center in Boston, and three decades of grappling with the issue as a feminist intellectual and writer, Abdulali examines the contemporary discourse about rape and rape culture, questioning our assumptions and asking how we want to raise the next generation. She interviews survivors whose moving personal stories of hard-won strength, humor, and wisdom collectively tell the larger story of how societies may begin to heal.
Abdulali also explores what we don’t say. Is rape always a life-defining event? Does rape always symbolize something? Is rape worse than death? Is rape related to desire? Who gets raped? Is rape inevitable? Is one rape worse than another? How does one recover a sense of safety and joy? How do we raise sons? Is a world without rape possible? Both deeply personal and meticulously researched, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a rallying cry and required reading for us all.
Sohaila Abdulali was gang-raped as a seventeen-year-old in Mumbai. Indignant at the silence on the issue in India, she wrote an article for an Indian women’s magazine questioning how we perceive rape and rape victims. Thirty years later her story went viral in the wake of the 2012 fatal gang rape in Delhi and the global outcry that followed. In 2013, Abdulali published an op-ed in the New York Times called “After Being Raped, I Was Wounded; My Honor Wasn’t” that was widely circulated. Now, as the #metoo and #timesup movements blow open the topic of sexual assault and rape, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a brilliant and entirely original contribution to our understanding.
Drawing on her own experience, her research, her work with hundreds of survivors as the head of a rape crisis center in Boston, and three decades of grappling with the issue as a feminist intellectual and writer, Abdulali examines the contemporary discourse about rape and rape culture, questioning our assumptions and asking how we want to raise the next generation. She interviews survivors whose moving personal stories of hard-won strength, humor, and wisdom collectively tell the larger story of how societies may begin to heal.
Abdulali also explores what we don’t say. Is rape always a life-defining event? Does rape always symbolize something? Is rape worse than death? Is rape related to desire? Who gets raped? Is rape inevitable? Is one rape worse than another? How does one recover a sense of safety and joy? How do we raise sons? Is a world without rape possible? Both deeply personal and meticulously researched, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a rallying cry and required reading for us all.
265 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2018
180 people are currently reading
8541 people want to read
About the author
Sohaila Abdulali
5 books75 followersSohaila Abdulali was born in Bombay, India. She did her schooling in India, and moved to the United States with her family when she was 15. Since then, she has lived in both countries. She has a BA from Brandeis University in Economics and Sociology, and an MA from Stanford University in Communication. Her undergraduate thesis dealt with the socio-economics of rape in India. When she was 20, she wrote an explosive article on the subject in an Indian magazine that won her notoriety for years. In 2013, she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times.
Sohaila is Senior Editor at Ubuntu Education Fund, an international NGO working to transform the lives of vulnerable children in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She writes and edits grants, annual reports, the Ubuntu website, op-eds and editorial stories, and regular blogs. She helped guide Ubuntu through an update of its communications strategy and is part of a successful team of dedicated, passionate people who are making a real difference in the Eastern Cape.
For two years, Sohaila was the Director of Communications at AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization. In this position, she wrote briefs, reports, press releases, essays, letters and more, which were carried by worldwide media; helped set up the communications strategy of the organization; assisted in the development of a new website; and initiated several large ongoing projects including a comprehensive atlas of AIDS.
In 2010, Penguin India published her novel, Year of the Tiger.
As soon as she graduated from college, Sohaila coordinated the biggest, oldest rape crisis centre in the Northeast for two years.
She worked as a journalist in Philadelphia, Boston and Bombay. She also began her fiction career, and, to support her writing, she did various odd jobs, from working in an independent bookstore, working with mentally ill adults, to doing sleep research in a psychiatric hospital. She moved to Delhi, India, for two years, where she coordinated publicity and publications for Oxfam. She traveled all over India and England, writing, speaking and producing reports, brochures and a film. Back in Bombay, she did freelance writing and research for the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, and the London School of Tropical Hygiene. In 1998, her bestselling novel, The Madwoman of Jogare, was published by HarperCollins India.
In New York, from 1996 on, she worked as a freelance editor for several UN organizations, as well as private companies. She has edited books on computer systems in health care, human rights movements, and hedge funds. She ghostwrote two articles for Wall Street publications. She has produced reports for The Micronutrient Initiative, and worked as a proofreader for a busy advertising agency.
During this time, she has had two Ford Foundation grants. The first was to research, produce and distribute three children's books on women's health in India. The results, the RangBibi and Langra series, were sold all over India in four languages. The second grant was to write a book about aboriginal people in Western India. The book is called Bye Bye Mati: A Memoir in a Monsoon Landscape.
Sohaila has done a lot of public speaking and teaching. In Boston, she spoke at hospitals, schools and many other institutions about sexual assault. When she worked for Oxfam, she spoke in public about issues such as poverty and women's rights. She has appeared on broadcast television in the US, India and on the BBC in England. She was a guest speaker at Clark University in Massachusetts, Northwestern University in Chicago, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.
In 2004 and 2008, she was an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching South Asian Civilization to undergraduates. Her curriculum was based on her latest book, Bye Bye Mati: A Memoir in a Monsoon Landscape.
Sohaila's writing has been published in India, the US, England, and Canada.
Sohaila is Senior Editor at Ubuntu Education Fund, an international NGO working to transform the lives of vulnerable children in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. She writes and edits grants, annual reports, the Ubuntu website, op-eds and editorial stories, and regular blogs. She helped guide Ubuntu through an update of its communications strategy and is part of a successful team of dedicated, passionate people who are making a real difference in the Eastern Cape.
For two years, Sohaila was the Director of Communications at AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization. In this position, she wrote briefs, reports, press releases, essays, letters and more, which were carried by worldwide media; helped set up the communications strategy of the organization; assisted in the development of a new website; and initiated several large ongoing projects including a comprehensive atlas of AIDS.
In 2010, Penguin India published her novel, Year of the Tiger.
As soon as she graduated from college, Sohaila coordinated the biggest, oldest rape crisis centre in the Northeast for two years.
She worked as a journalist in Philadelphia, Boston and Bombay. She also began her fiction career, and, to support her writing, she did various odd jobs, from working in an independent bookstore, working with mentally ill adults, to doing sleep research in a psychiatric hospital. She moved to Delhi, India, for two years, where she coordinated publicity and publications for Oxfam. She traveled all over India and England, writing, speaking and producing reports, brochures and a film. Back in Bombay, she did freelance writing and research for the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, and the London School of Tropical Hygiene. In 1998, her bestselling novel, The Madwoman of Jogare, was published by HarperCollins India.
In New York, from 1996 on, she worked as a freelance editor for several UN organizations, as well as private companies. She has edited books on computer systems in health care, human rights movements, and hedge funds. She ghostwrote two articles for Wall Street publications. She has produced reports for The Micronutrient Initiative, and worked as a proofreader for a busy advertising agency.
During this time, she has had two Ford Foundation grants. The first was to research, produce and distribute three children's books on women's health in India. The results, the RangBibi and Langra series, were sold all over India in four languages. The second grant was to write a book about aboriginal people in Western India. The book is called Bye Bye Mati: A Memoir in a Monsoon Landscape.
Sohaila has done a lot of public speaking and teaching. In Boston, she spoke at hospitals, schools and many other institutions about sexual assault. When she worked for Oxfam, she spoke in public about issues such as poverty and women's rights. She has appeared on broadcast television in the US, India and on the BBC in England. She was a guest speaker at Clark University in Massachusetts, Northwestern University in Chicago, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.
In 2004 and 2008, she was an adjunct professor at New York University, teaching South Asian Civilization to undergraduates. Her curriculum was based on her latest book, Bye Bye Mati: A Memoir in a Monsoon Landscape.
Sohaila's writing has been published in India, the US, England, and Canada.
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April 23, 2019
A book every man should read, written with compassion and power and managing to maintain balance. Abdulali describes herself thus:
“A brown bisexual middle-aged atheist Muslim survivor immigrant writer without a Shame Gene”
She knows of what she writes having survived a gang rape by four men when she was seventeen and living in India. One of the strengths of the book is that it draws on the stories of women throughout the world, not just from Europe and the US. Abdulali talks about the #MeToo movement, which took off while she was writing:
“I’m not qualified to talk about whether it has the capacity to revolutionize society, since I’m a complete social media misfit. But of course it should! Anything, in any medium, that connects women and helps amplify their voices on this issue, is fantastic, as far as I’m concerned. If one lone woman spoke out for the first time about sexual abuse, that’s already a success.”
Abdulali has worked for a rape crisis centre and with rape survivors for many years and draws on her experience with many women and some men. She talks about the complexity of rape and the feelings related to it. This is illustrated by an extended quote:
“In the fall of 2017, the international news was suddenly full of women who were abused and terrorized by men, who stayed in relationships (personal, professional) with their abusers and have said they had conflicting feelings. This may sound confusing, and I’ve had friends express doubts to me about how severely these women were really victimised.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad?
No, no, no. This is a tough one to grasp, I know, so I repeat: no, no, no. How you act with your rapist afterwards, and even how you might feel about your rapist afterwards, doesn’t indicate the seriousness of either the crime or your trauma.
In the midst of my own shock and pain all those years ago, I felt a fugitive pang for the people who raped me. I had no history with them. They were strangers full of hostility and rage and I had nothing in common with them. I looked into their eyes and felt sick with panic. But I also felt a weird compassion.
I think calling it Stockholm Syndrome and labelling it a pathology or a dysfunctional response is too simplistic. I didn’t like them, or sympathise, or understand. But I did see that in some odd way they were fellow human beings.
And they were not happy. They were not having a fine old time, out for a jolly gang-bang. Maybe some men have fun committing rape, but these men weren’t. It was all terrifying for me, but they were also tormented, and I couldn’t help noticing that and feeling a tiny chord of empathy.
Oddly enough, this might have been what saved my life that day. Their plan was to kill us, my friend and me. I talked and talked and talked—I’ve never talked that much before or since. I forgot that I was supposed to be a shy kid. I talked about how I knew they were good people, we were all brothers and sisters, blah blah ...
Let me be very clear, I did not think they were good people or that we were brothers and sisters. I thought, and still do, that they were extremely bad people. They were malign, brutal, and vicious. But it was the only way I could think of to get them to see me as someone they couldn’t destroy. Or themselves as people who couldn’t kill. And perhaps the only way I could do that was to believe it a tiny bit myself.
If the world were different and I had seen them in court, would I have felt sorry for them? I have no idea. I’m just pointing out that it makes perfect sense to me when I see photographs of famous women smiling and hugging men whom they later point out as rapists. The fact that you have confused feelings about the person who hurt you doesn’t make you guilty. It makes you human.”
Abdulali asks a lot of relevant questions; Is rape always a life-defining event? Does rape always symbolize something? Is rape worse than death? Is rape related to desire? Who gets raped? Is rape inevitable? Is one rape worse than the other? Who rapes? What is consent? How do you recover a sense of safety and joy? How do you raise sons? Who gets to judge?
This should be required reading, it is well written, very important and analyses the culture and attitudes around rape with anger, cold calm humour and humanity.
“A brown bisexual middle-aged atheist Muslim survivor immigrant writer without a Shame Gene”
She knows of what she writes having survived a gang rape by four men when she was seventeen and living in India. One of the strengths of the book is that it draws on the stories of women throughout the world, not just from Europe and the US. Abdulali talks about the #MeToo movement, which took off while she was writing:
“I’m not qualified to talk about whether it has the capacity to revolutionize society, since I’m a complete social media misfit. But of course it should! Anything, in any medium, that connects women and helps amplify their voices on this issue, is fantastic, as far as I’m concerned. If one lone woman spoke out for the first time about sexual abuse, that’s already a success.”
Abdulali has worked for a rape crisis centre and with rape survivors for many years and draws on her experience with many women and some men. She talks about the complexity of rape and the feelings related to it. This is illustrated by an extended quote:
“In the fall of 2017, the international news was suddenly full of women who were abused and terrorized by men, who stayed in relationships (personal, professional) with their abusers and have said they had conflicting feelings. This may sound confusing, and I’ve had friends express doubts to me about how severely these women were really victimised.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad?
No, no, no. This is a tough one to grasp, I know, so I repeat: no, no, no. How you act with your rapist afterwards, and even how you might feel about your rapist afterwards, doesn’t indicate the seriousness of either the crime or your trauma.
In the midst of my own shock and pain all those years ago, I felt a fugitive pang for the people who raped me. I had no history with them. They were strangers full of hostility and rage and I had nothing in common with them. I looked into their eyes and felt sick with panic. But I also felt a weird compassion.
I think calling it Stockholm Syndrome and labelling it a pathology or a dysfunctional response is too simplistic. I didn’t like them, or sympathise, or understand. But I did see that in some odd way they were fellow human beings.
And they were not happy. They were not having a fine old time, out for a jolly gang-bang. Maybe some men have fun committing rape, but these men weren’t. It was all terrifying for me, but they were also tormented, and I couldn’t help noticing that and feeling a tiny chord of empathy.
Oddly enough, this might have been what saved my life that day. Their plan was to kill us, my friend and me. I talked and talked and talked—I’ve never talked that much before or since. I forgot that I was supposed to be a shy kid. I talked about how I knew they were good people, we were all brothers and sisters, blah blah ...
Let me be very clear, I did not think they were good people or that we were brothers and sisters. I thought, and still do, that they were extremely bad people. They were malign, brutal, and vicious. But it was the only way I could think of to get them to see me as someone they couldn’t destroy. Or themselves as people who couldn’t kill. And perhaps the only way I could do that was to believe it a tiny bit myself.
If the world were different and I had seen them in court, would I have felt sorry for them? I have no idea. I’m just pointing out that it makes perfect sense to me when I see photographs of famous women smiling and hugging men whom they later point out as rapists. The fact that you have confused feelings about the person who hurt you doesn’t make you guilty. It makes you human.”
Abdulali asks a lot of relevant questions; Is rape always a life-defining event? Does rape always symbolize something? Is rape worse than death? Is rape related to desire? Who gets raped? Is rape inevitable? Is one rape worse than the other? Who rapes? What is consent? How do you recover a sense of safety and joy? How do you raise sons? Who gets to judge?
This should be required reading, it is well written, very important and analyses the culture and attitudes around rape with anger, cold calm humour and humanity.
December 2, 2018
Content warning: Naturally a book with ‘rape’ in its title is going to come with a content warning from me. This book is confronting so I would caution you to be aware of the potentially triggering nature of the content, but it was one of the best I’ve ever read on the topic.
The author considers the difficulty of categorising this book and I agree; it’s a blend of personal experience, other peoples’ experiences and insights. What kept popping into my head as I was reading was that it’s a conversation. I loved Sohaila’s down to earth tone and how she makes this multifaceted and too often silenced experience approachable. Her writing is considered and empathetic. She doesn’t shy away from the gravity of the trauma associated with rape, yet at the same time I came away feeling hopeful and validated.
Although I’ve read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction, about sexual assault and experienced more than my fair share, I still came across a lot in this book that made me pause and reevaluate my own preconceived ideas. I also found some lightbulb moments which have helped me make some sense out of nonsense.
The whole notion of institutional consent, which holds to account both men and women, was surprisingly new to me;
There were a few sections that seemed a bit disjointed to me and details of some stories were repeated in a couple of chapters, although the repetition did serve to remind me which person’s experience I was reading about. Absent from this book was any mention of women who rape; while uncommon, it does happen, and I would be interested to hear what this author has to say about it.
This book is sociological, political, personal and contradictory. Now, contradictory may sound like a criticism but it’s not and as Sohaila expresses, rape and the way we talk about it is contradictory, so to highlight these contradictions is vital to an honest discussion. I loved/hated the “Lose-Lose Rape Conundrum”; it is so infuriatingly accurate:
The author considers the difficulty of categorising this book and I agree; it’s a blend of personal experience, other peoples’ experiences and insights. What kept popping into my head as I was reading was that it’s a conversation. I loved Sohaila’s down to earth tone and how she makes this multifaceted and too often silenced experience approachable. Her writing is considered and empathetic. She doesn’t shy away from the gravity of the trauma associated with rape, yet at the same time I came away feeling hopeful and validated.
Discussions about rape are so often irrational, and sometimes outright bizarre. It’s the only crime to which people respond by wanting to lock up the victims. It’s the only crime that is so bad that victims are supposed to be destroyed beyond repair by it, but simultaneously not so bad that the men who do it should be treated like other criminals.Although titled What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape this book is also about what we don’t talk about when we talk about rape, like how
it’s the weirdest things that can get you. Like dentophobia.When I was two thirds of the way through this book I’d already recommended it to a counsellor who works for my state’s rape crisis hotline and would recommend it to anyone who has experienced sexual assault, knows someone who has experienced sexual assault, works with people who have experienced sexual assault or want to read an intelligent, thoughtful book about this truly global issue. While there are stories of people from America in this book there are also those from all of those other places that aren’t America, like India, Australia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. There’s also a wonderful cross section of peoples’ experiences, from the poorest and most marginalised to well known cases and celebrities.
Although I’ve read a lot, both fiction and non-fiction, about sexual assault and experienced more than my fair share, I still came across a lot in this book that made me pause and reevaluate my own preconceived ideas. I also found some lightbulb moments which have helped me make some sense out of nonsense.
The whole notion of institutional consent, which holds to account both men and women, was surprisingly new to me;
you know you can get away with it because the whole system is set up to help you get away with it.My favourite lightbulb moment during my first read of this book (I expect it will be the first of many reads) came when I encountered an acronym that has validated my experience so much. Jennifer Freyd, writing about betrayal trauma theory in the nineties,
proposed that abusers frequently respond to accusations with “DARVO” - Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.This has helped me understand why a rapist overtly threatened me with legal action twice (so far) for reporting him and covertly attacked my credibility. While he had a serious amount of institutional consent behind him and is currently the owner of a Rape Free Card, this new knowledge has helped me in the best possible way … I know I’m not alone and there’s even an acronym to prove it.
There were a few sections that seemed a bit disjointed to me and details of some stories were repeated in a couple of chapters, although the repetition did serve to remind me which person’s experience I was reading about. Absent from this book was any mention of women who rape; while uncommon, it does happen, and I would be interested to hear what this author has to say about it.
This book is sociological, political, personal and contradictory. Now, contradictory may sound like a criticism but it’s not and as Sohaila expresses, rape and the way we talk about it is contradictory, so to highlight these contradictions is vital to an honest discussion. I loved/hated the “Lose-Lose Rape Conundrum”; it is so infuriatingly accurate:
If you talk about it, you’re a helpless victim angling for sympathy. If you’re not a helpless victim, then it wasn’t such a big deal, so why are you talking about it? If you’re surviving and living your life, why are you ruining some poor man’s life? Either it’s a big deal, so you’re ruined, or it’s not a big deal and you should be quiet.Thank you so much to NetGalley and The New Press for the opportunity to read this book. My current activism level is set to: Need to do something positive immediately!
December 18, 2018
What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is one of those books I would never discourage anyone from reading. Certainly, it deals with an important topic, and its virtues are many. The writing is engaging. The author, who recounts several of her own experiences here, is great company. And the wide-ranging perspective, covering many countries and cultures, is exactly what a typical self-centered American like myself needed; I learned a lot and was grateful for it.
Unfortunately, though, this book has some drawbacks I can't ignore. While it definitely supplied many facts I'd never heard before, I can't say it provided any new and original insights. If you're already pretty well-read on this topic, there's nothing here that's going to blow your mind. The book also, sadly, has kind of a thrown-together feel; its short chapters skip around from topic to topic in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way, but never alight on any particular issue for long. Ultimately, despite this book's brevity, I found myself growing impatient and just looking forward to being finished.
I kept trying to convince myself to give this book 4 stars because of its many attributes, but when I finally allowed myself to consider a 3-star rating, I knew that was where this book landed for me. Again, if you're interested in this at all, I would encourage you to give it a try—especially if you haven't done much reading in this area. For me, though, this wasn't quite the experience I'd been hoping for.
Unfortunately, though, this book has some drawbacks I can't ignore. While it definitely supplied many facts I'd never heard before, I can't say it provided any new and original insights. If you're already pretty well-read on this topic, there's nothing here that's going to blow your mind. The book also, sadly, has kind of a thrown-together feel; its short chapters skip around from topic to topic in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way, but never alight on any particular issue for long. Ultimately, despite this book's brevity, I found myself growing impatient and just looking forward to being finished.
I kept trying to convince myself to give this book 4 stars because of its many attributes, but when I finally allowed myself to consider a 3-star rating, I knew that was where this book landed for me. Again, if you're interested in this at all, I would encourage you to give it a try—especially if you haven't done much reading in this area. For me, though, this wasn't quite the experience I'd been hoping for.
August 9, 2021
One of the worst horrors in reality occurs when a person breaches the physical boundaries of another person forcibly. When you are reading a book dealing with a topic as brutal as rape, it is quite hard to keep aside your personal feelings and review it objectively. But when the author herself approaches the topic in a pragmatic way, your endeavour becomes a bit easier.
Let's get two things clear first.
Q: Whom does the "we" in the title refer to? Is it the society in general? Women? Men? The media? Those in charge of law and order? The raped? The rapist?
A: Whatever your answer, you won't be wrong. The book provides the viewpoint of all of these, and you will easily be able to use your head to see whose heads are screwed on wrong.
Q: What genre does the book belong to? Memoir? Manifesto? Essay? Sociology? Psychology?
A: The author herself says that it's going to be challenging for bookstores to pick a suitable shelf for this title because it doesn't fit into any genre. The book transcends many styles and cannot be slotted into a predefined compartment. But one genre that Goodreads tags it as is 'Feminism', and I vehemently disagree. A woman striving for her body and personal space to be respected isn't a feminist demand, it's humanist.
So... What is the book about?
To know this, you need to know more about the author. Sohaila Abdulali was a fiesty 17 year old in 1980 when she was gang-raped in Mumbai. She went on to do her graduate thesis in the US on 'Rape in India' and post-graduate thesis on 'Media coverage of rape'. At the age of 20, she wrote an article entitled "I Fought For My Life... And Won", which was published in Manushi India magazine.(You can find this article on the Manushi India site.) This article got a rebirth online after the Nirbhaya gang-rape and Sohaila Abdulali was publicised as the first Indian woman to speak openly about being raped. This book is her way of revealing her thoughts on rape from a perspective we rarely hear: the point of view of a rape survivor. As she says, the book contains "all what we talk about and also what we don't talk about."
What I loved about the book is how matter of fact it sounds. Most of the survivor stories are shocking, but the approach towards writing them is straightforward, and without emotional exaggeration. The survivor narratives come from all over the world, and makes you realise that when it comes to rape, all countries are unsafe, thought not equally. What's also noteworthy is that the author does not harp on about the gory details of her own rape. She gives a greater voice to others' stories and to the more practical, informative points regarding rape. She doesn't trivialise rape, nor does she place it on a pedestal of outrage.
The book is comprehensive in its scope. Marital rape, incestuous rape, male rape, rape as revenge, marrying off the survivor to the rapist, the "men will be men" attitude, the "women shouldn't show their bodies" mentality, the definition of consent, the scope of what constitutes rape, the reason rapists rape, the way survivors deal with the trauma, the way we ought to behave with rape survivors, how to punish rapists, how to deter rape,... Whatever point you can think of with respect to rape has been covered in these 260+ pages.
If I had to judge the book for its writing quality, my rating might have slid a bit. The chapters are haphazardly structured at times, the chapter headings are merely for decoration in some cases as the content goes elsewhere on its own flow. The writing also is slightly repetitive. However, this isn't a book you read for its literary merit but for its intent and impact. And on these two points, the book scores tremendously well. I do not agree with all of Abdulali's arguments but I love the way she put forth her points based on rational reasoning rather than emotional appeals.
Human beings like to assign labels to others. Sohaila Abdulali is known as a rape survivor no matter how many years pass, and no matter what she achieves. In the book, she fights against this mentality, and emphasises on how we must treat survivors the same as before and not view them differently because of what happened to them. But with this book being published, she is still going to be tagged as the author who wrote about her rape. That's the counterproductive irony of the book.
Recommended? Undoubtedly. Regardless of your age or gender or nationality. If you are a thinking adult who wants more fodder for thought, give this book a shot.
***********************
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Let's get two things clear first.
Q: Whom does the "we" in the title refer to? Is it the society in general? Women? Men? The media? Those in charge of law and order? The raped? The rapist?
A: Whatever your answer, you won't be wrong. The book provides the viewpoint of all of these, and you will easily be able to use your head to see whose heads are screwed on wrong.
Q: What genre does the book belong to? Memoir? Manifesto? Essay? Sociology? Psychology?
A: The author herself says that it's going to be challenging for bookstores to pick a suitable shelf for this title because it doesn't fit into any genre. The book transcends many styles and cannot be slotted into a predefined compartment. But one genre that Goodreads tags it as is 'Feminism', and I vehemently disagree. A woman striving for her body and personal space to be respected isn't a feminist demand, it's humanist.
So... What is the book about?
To know this, you need to know more about the author. Sohaila Abdulali was a fiesty 17 year old in 1980 when she was gang-raped in Mumbai. She went on to do her graduate thesis in the US on 'Rape in India' and post-graduate thesis on 'Media coverage of rape'. At the age of 20, she wrote an article entitled "I Fought For My Life... And Won", which was published in Manushi India magazine.(You can find this article on the Manushi India site.) This article got a rebirth online after the Nirbhaya gang-rape and Sohaila Abdulali was publicised as the first Indian woman to speak openly about being raped. This book is her way of revealing her thoughts on rape from a perspective we rarely hear: the point of view of a rape survivor. As she says, the book contains "all what we talk about and also what we don't talk about."
What I loved about the book is how matter of fact it sounds. Most of the survivor stories are shocking, but the approach towards writing them is straightforward, and without emotional exaggeration. The survivor narratives come from all over the world, and makes you realise that when it comes to rape, all countries are unsafe, thought not equally. What's also noteworthy is that the author does not harp on about the gory details of her own rape. She gives a greater voice to others' stories and to the more practical, informative points regarding rape. She doesn't trivialise rape, nor does she place it on a pedestal of outrage.
The book is comprehensive in its scope. Marital rape, incestuous rape, male rape, rape as revenge, marrying off the survivor to the rapist, the "men will be men" attitude, the "women shouldn't show their bodies" mentality, the definition of consent, the scope of what constitutes rape, the reason rapists rape, the way survivors deal with the trauma, the way we ought to behave with rape survivors, how to punish rapists, how to deter rape,... Whatever point you can think of with respect to rape has been covered in these 260+ pages.
If I had to judge the book for its writing quality, my rating might have slid a bit. The chapters are haphazardly structured at times, the chapter headings are merely for decoration in some cases as the content goes elsewhere on its own flow. The writing also is slightly repetitive. However, this isn't a book you read for its literary merit but for its intent and impact. And on these two points, the book scores tremendously well. I do not agree with all of Abdulali's arguments but I love the way she put forth her points based on rational reasoning rather than emotional appeals.
Human beings like to assign labels to others. Sohaila Abdulali is known as a rape survivor no matter how many years pass, and no matter what she achieves. In the book, she fights against this mentality, and emphasises on how we must treat survivors the same as before and not view them differently because of what happened to them. But with this book being published, she is still going to be tagged as the author who wrote about her rape. That's the counterproductive irony of the book.
Recommended? Undoubtedly. Regardless of your age or gender or nationality. If you are a thinking adult who wants more fodder for thought, give this book a shot.
***********************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever! , for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun.
July 2, 2021
tw: rape, sodomy, rape culture, incest, homophobia, transphobia
this book is part essay, part memoir, part late-night-rambling, part sociological report. i appreciate the global and personal perspectives abdulali presents to her reader. many discussions on rape and rape culture tend to focus on western countries, and the usa in particular. it was also really interesting to hear from many different individuals who have diverse perspectives on what it means to be a survivor and how to go about healing and living.
i feel weird saying i “enjoyed” this book but i’m really glad i read it and, if you feel like you are able to, i suggest you pick it up too.
this book is part essay, part memoir, part late-night-rambling, part sociological report. i appreciate the global and personal perspectives abdulali presents to her reader. many discussions on rape and rape culture tend to focus on western countries, and the usa in particular. it was also really interesting to hear from many different individuals who have diverse perspectives on what it means to be a survivor and how to go about healing and living.
i feel weird saying i “enjoyed” this book but i’m really glad i read it and, if you feel like you are able to, i suggest you pick it up too.
May 27, 2020
"So what is this book? It's about shining a light on what we talk about, but also on what we don't talk about."
This is a fabulous description of the content. The author sits you down and talks to you like an older sister. Sharing stories, facts and opinions while allowing you to form your own. She questions everything and makes you feel safe and welcome to do the same.
"Discussions about rape tend to be irrational, and sometimes outright bizarre."
No one likes talking about rape. It's a horrible occurrence and uncomfortable for everyone. Does that mean we shouldn't talk about it? Of course not. I find the things we are most uncomfortable talking about are usually the most important things to discuss for that very reason. No one talks about it.
"Words are the enemy of impunity."
Opening a dialogue on any topic we are uncomfortable with can only cause it to become easier to discuss the next time. Starting a conversation about rape is always weird and awkward and sometimes scary when you hear other peoples opinions. It's important to make it part of the discussion. It is important to make people feel comfortable coming forward and talking about experiences, emotions and knowing that they are safe to do so.
"If we can expose our children to talk of genocide, racism, bikini waxing and the inevitable melting of the planet, why should we leave out sexual abuse?"
I really enjoyed her open and honest approach. She doesn't claim to be an expect or that there is a right or wrong way to deal with or discuss sexual abuse. She just opens the door on the conversation and gives you information allowing you to be present for that conversation.
"No matter what the answer is, we certainly won't find it if we don't talk to each other. "
There was some repetition with the stories, but not enough that it ruins the experience.
Thank you NetGalley and The New Press for this ARC.
This is a fabulous description of the content. The author sits you down and talks to you like an older sister. Sharing stories, facts and opinions while allowing you to form your own. She questions everything and makes you feel safe and welcome to do the same.
"Discussions about rape tend to be irrational, and sometimes outright bizarre."
No one likes talking about rape. It's a horrible occurrence and uncomfortable for everyone. Does that mean we shouldn't talk about it? Of course not. I find the things we are most uncomfortable talking about are usually the most important things to discuss for that very reason. No one talks about it.
"Words are the enemy of impunity."
Opening a dialogue on any topic we are uncomfortable with can only cause it to become easier to discuss the next time. Starting a conversation about rape is always weird and awkward and sometimes scary when you hear other peoples opinions. It's important to make it part of the discussion. It is important to make people feel comfortable coming forward and talking about experiences, emotions and knowing that they are safe to do so.
"If we can expose our children to talk of genocide, racism, bikini waxing and the inevitable melting of the planet, why should we leave out sexual abuse?"
I really enjoyed her open and honest approach. She doesn't claim to be an expect or that there is a right or wrong way to deal with or discuss sexual abuse. She just opens the door on the conversation and gives you information allowing you to be present for that conversation.
"No matter what the answer is, we certainly won't find it if we don't talk to each other. "
There was some repetition with the stories, but not enough that it ruins the experience.
Thank you NetGalley and The New Press for this ARC.
October 6, 2022
**3.9 stars**
“Girls and boys get completely different messages about sex. We assume that sex feels good for boys, but girls learn early that losing their virginity is supposed to hurt. We create the idea that sex is uncomfortable for girls, and we raise girls who don’t think they deserve pleasure, and boys who at best don’t care about their partners’ pleasure, and at worst are actively abusive.”
This is essential reading. Now, I don’t want to talk about the subject matter here, for I don’t have a different opinion on any of the matters the author has put up here. And it seems kind of pointless to reiterate all the bullets from the book’s synopsis: that will destroy the sole purpose of urging anyone else to read the book.
What I want to say is why doesn’t this one get a five star, despite dealing with the rape, and in a very bold and straightforward way that’s bound to get you emotionally invested in the pages. It suffers from the same thing many self-help books do: reiteration. Now, I will understand if anyone puts up a contradiction here, of course repeating the same thing over and over increases its chance of gaining validation. Also, it’s sexual violence we’re addressing here, so all these points must gain the peak level of some kind of endorsement. But it’s also one of the few things that stand between a well-written and a poorly-written piece of non-fiction.
“Imagine being a child with a secret for which there are no words, only dark shapes sliding around in your vision, shapes nobody else sees. Imagine what would be unleashed if so many people didn’t have to waste so much time dealing with flashbacks, secret-keeping, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem, crippling fear of … everything, and on down the dreary list. Imagine the fantastic, the amazing, the mind-boggling things so many rape survivors could do, say, create or be if they didn’t have to waste time being traumatized and stymied and made small. Imagine the art that we could create, the songs we could sing, the forests we could plant, the life-changing planet-saving gizmos we could invent, instead of wasting our time trying to stop our hearts from pounding if we hear footsteps behind us on our way to the bus stop. It’s such a wholesale waste of potential.”
Also, call me a pessimist but you can’t convince me that even if the dos and don’ts are drilled into each and every mind around the world, it will decrease the chance of a woman or a man getting raped by any slightest. I used to believe against capital punishment also, probably it will never bring any change, but there must exist some form of punishment right? Can any of them bring any change? Basically, can any of them change the f**ked-up patriarchal upbringing that moulds the mind even before it can start to develop a conscience?
( My first knowledge of rape and the horror and trauma it is capable of striking, dates back to the Nirbhaya case of 2012 itself (discussed in the book). Just like Sohaila Abdulali and 99% of India, I remember the uproar it caused. Now the day the victim gave up fighting for her life, we had a guest over, who gave my parents the news of her death. He was, however, shocked that I even knew about this incident (I was 11, so this type of news shouldn’t even be heard by me) and I also remember him saying the very same thing I have heard many other ‘adults’ saying, “This is why girls shouldn’t be allowed to leave home at night. And that too shamelessly with a boyfriend. Now the parents suffer for their promiscuity.”)
“You do not lose innocence when you learn about terrible acts; you lose your innocence when you commit them. An open culture of tolerance, honesty, and discussion is the best way to safeguard innocence, not destroy it.”
(Delhi Crime, which also was primarily based on that incident, had a very important thing to say about why such incidents will never stop, especially in the third-world countries. People here have had free access to pornography ever since the advent of the internet, (well even before that people had pirated DVDs) but zero knowledge of sex education as even the most reputed institutes are disgustingly conservative when it comes to that. So they never even develop a conscience, and most start normalizing, believing that they have a “birthright” to demand sex from any woman (or man, though 90% of Indian males are homophobic). If they can’t get that politely, they will get that by force. )
On another note, the author has also something very interesting to say about BDSM and its many controversies. I was shaking my head in disbelief at first, but it makes a lot of sense, to be honest.
Either way, the book does have its flaws from a literary perspective. But that doesn’t make it a bad one, rather, it is after a long time that I’m reading a book from this genre where I’m agreeing with every perspective the author upholds.
“Having sex is like a cup of tea. If you wouldn't force someone to drink tea, why would you force them to fuck? If someone said they wanted tea, and then changed their mind when you made it, would you pour it down their throat?”
“Girls and boys get completely different messages about sex. We assume that sex feels good for boys, but girls learn early that losing their virginity is supposed to hurt. We create the idea that sex is uncomfortable for girls, and we raise girls who don’t think they deserve pleasure, and boys who at best don’t care about their partners’ pleasure, and at worst are actively abusive.”
This is essential reading. Now, I don’t want to talk about the subject matter here, for I don’t have a different opinion on any of the matters the author has put up here. And it seems kind of pointless to reiterate all the bullets from the book’s synopsis: that will destroy the sole purpose of urging anyone else to read the book.
What I want to say is why doesn’t this one get a five star, despite dealing with the rape, and in a very bold and straightforward way that’s bound to get you emotionally invested in the pages. It suffers from the same thing many self-help books do: reiteration. Now, I will understand if anyone puts up a contradiction here, of course repeating the same thing over and over increases its chance of gaining validation. Also, it’s sexual violence we’re addressing here, so all these points must gain the peak level of some kind of endorsement. But it’s also one of the few things that stand between a well-written and a poorly-written piece of non-fiction.
“Imagine being a child with a secret for which there are no words, only dark shapes sliding around in your vision, shapes nobody else sees. Imagine what would be unleashed if so many people didn’t have to waste so much time dealing with flashbacks, secret-keeping, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem, crippling fear of … everything, and on down the dreary list. Imagine the fantastic, the amazing, the mind-boggling things so many rape survivors could do, say, create or be if they didn’t have to waste time being traumatized and stymied and made small. Imagine the art that we could create, the songs we could sing, the forests we could plant, the life-changing planet-saving gizmos we could invent, instead of wasting our time trying to stop our hearts from pounding if we hear footsteps behind us on our way to the bus stop. It’s such a wholesale waste of potential.”
Also, call me a pessimist but you can’t convince me that even if the dos and don’ts are drilled into each and every mind around the world, it will decrease the chance of a woman or a man getting raped by any slightest. I used to believe against capital punishment also, probably it will never bring any change, but there must exist some form of punishment right? Can any of them bring any change? Basically, can any of them change the f**ked-up patriarchal upbringing that moulds the mind even before it can start to develop a conscience?
( My first knowledge of rape and the horror and trauma it is capable of striking, dates back to the Nirbhaya case of 2012 itself (discussed in the book). Just like Sohaila Abdulali and 99% of India, I remember the uproar it caused. Now the day the victim gave up fighting for her life, we had a guest over, who gave my parents the news of her death. He was, however, shocked that I even knew about this incident (I was 11, so this type of news shouldn’t even be heard by me) and I also remember him saying the very same thing I have heard many other ‘adults’ saying, “This is why girls shouldn’t be allowed to leave home at night. And that too shamelessly with a boyfriend. Now the parents suffer for their promiscuity.”)
“You do not lose innocence when you learn about terrible acts; you lose your innocence when you commit them. An open culture of tolerance, honesty, and discussion is the best way to safeguard innocence, not destroy it.”
(Delhi Crime, which also was primarily based on that incident, had a very important thing to say about why such incidents will never stop, especially in the third-world countries. People here have had free access to pornography ever since the advent of the internet, (well even before that people had pirated DVDs) but zero knowledge of sex education as even the most reputed institutes are disgustingly conservative when it comes to that. So they never even develop a conscience, and most start normalizing, believing that they have a “birthright” to demand sex from any woman (or man, though 90% of Indian males are homophobic). If they can’t get that politely, they will get that by force. )
On another note, the author has also something very interesting to say about BDSM and its many controversies. I was shaking my head in disbelief at first, but it makes a lot of sense, to be honest.
Either way, the book does have its flaws from a literary perspective. But that doesn’t make it a bad one, rather, it is after a long time that I’m reading a book from this genre where I’m agreeing with every perspective the author upholds.
“Having sex is like a cup of tea. If you wouldn't force someone to drink tea, why would you force them to fuck? If someone said they wanted tea, and then changed their mind when you made it, would you pour it down their throat?”
June 30, 2020
Rape culture. The totality of all the big and little things we do, say and believe that ultimately lead to the conclusion that it's okay to rape. Perhaps not any one of the little things: serving your son first like a good Indian mother doesn't mean you condone rape; making fun of lady drivers doesn't mean you condone rape; saving for your daughter's dowry doesn't mean you condone rape; saying "boys will be boys" on the playground doesn't mean you condone rape. But each of these chips away at women's and girls' self-respect, and gives boys permission to feel a little more entitled, a little more important, a little more as though they have a free pass to maraud through the world and take without thinking.
god i just want want to drive to an abandoned mountain and scream for hours
September 25, 2018
I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is such an important book. If I had to put into words, I'd say this book is the conversation about rape that I wish someone older and more mature had had with me or I could have with someone .younger. The good thing is, now we can. Through this memoir-slash-self help manual, Sohaila Abdulali, a rape survivor and head of a rape crisis center, shows us just how frankly we can talk about sexual assault without coming across as brash or insensitive. It doesn't seem like an easy conversation. But Abdulali comes from an Indian Muslim family, two of the most 'conservative' dynamics a family could possibly possess and yet she states her parents used to print out her writing regarding her experience and hand it out to stunned guests to read. If that's not your cup of tea, you can just sit at a dinner table with your family or friends and start by saying, "I just read a great book titled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape" & I feel that everyone should read it!" Talk about an ice breaker.
Apart from sharing her own experience, the author uses incidences from around the world as well as the research of many experts to talk about the importance of sexual education, creating awareness regarding consent among both sexes (and especially among children, because let's face it they are exposed to so much in today's technology, teaching them something significant that could protect them or those close to them can hardly be considered too sensitive for their age) and the importance of the #MeToo movement and how it helped spur not only a nationwide but a global conversation about an issue that has been brushed under the rug for far too long.
I would recommend this book to everyone that I possibly can in the hopes that it will encourage them to start talking more openly regarding the taboo of rape. Because once we talk about it, it is real and thus harder to ignore. Which is what we need as a species now more than ever.
Rating: 5/5
This is such an important book. If I had to put into words, I'd say this book is the conversation about rape that I wish someone older and more mature had had with me or I could have with someone .younger. The good thing is, now we can. Through this memoir-slash-self help manual, Sohaila Abdulali, a rape survivor and head of a rape crisis center, shows us just how frankly we can talk about sexual assault without coming across as brash or insensitive. It doesn't seem like an easy conversation. But Abdulali comes from an Indian Muslim family, two of the most 'conservative' dynamics a family could possibly possess and yet she states her parents used to print out her writing regarding her experience and hand it out to stunned guests to read. If that's not your cup of tea, you can just sit at a dinner table with your family or friends and start by saying, "I just read a great book titled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape" & I feel that everyone should read it!" Talk about an ice breaker.
Apart from sharing her own experience, the author uses incidences from around the world as well as the research of many experts to talk about the importance of sexual education, creating awareness regarding consent among both sexes (and especially among children, because let's face it they are exposed to so much in today's technology, teaching them something significant that could protect them or those close to them can hardly be considered too sensitive for their age) and the importance of the #MeToo movement and how it helped spur not only a nationwide but a global conversation about an issue that has been brushed under the rug for far too long.
I would recommend this book to everyone that I possibly can in the hopes that it will encourage them to start talking more openly regarding the taboo of rape. Because once we talk about it, it is real and thus harder to ignore. Which is what we need as a species now more than ever.
Rating: 5/5
December 29, 2018
Earlier this year, I read Gay's Not that Bad, which is supposedly about rape culture, but mostly about response to rape. It wasn't a bad book, it just wasn't what I thought it would be.
This book is more about that. It is truly a look at the culture that surrounds us and thereby determines how we talk and think about rape. There is much about education and how to change education to push back against rape culture.
This book is more about that. It is truly a look at the culture that surrounds us and thereby determines how we talk and think about rape. There is much about education and how to change education to push back against rape culture.
February 1, 2021
The thing about this book is I laughed quite a few times during it. The author is wonderful, like a wise and witty protector and mentor who has seen some serious stuff. She was gang-raped in India as a teen and wrote a magazine article about it when she was still young. When the world expressed outrage after the 2012 gang-rape in India of Jyoti Singh, who later died of her injuries, the article was resurrected and suddenly she became the go-to expert in the media about it. So, in other words, although she never wanted to be defined by her attack and tried to move past it, here she was being defined by it. And she does it with humor, grace, and understanding.
The book is told in very conversational first person as the author talks about rape and her experiences reading about, talking to, and working with rape survivors around the world. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to know more about rape — but, of course, no one does, do they? But I found this book essential to developing an understanding of violence and gender in society, which, to me, is something you should try to do if you think those are important.
Two things among many things that stuck with me from the book:
First, in all the books on sexual violence I've read, none has talked about the fact that many survivors have horrible dental hygiene. Afterward, they often grind their teeth from stress and they don't go to the dentist because they don't want to be helpless in a chair unable to speak while someone inserts things in their mouths.
Second, she talks about the damage caused by sex education in the United States where sex is presented as painful and not pleasurable for girls. She uses the example of the case where Brock Turner sexually assaulted a young woman at a college party in California. Two men from Sweden —where they received comprehensive, pleasure-based sex education — immediately recognized that a semi-conscious person being dragged behind a dumpster was not consenting and interrupted what was happening. The author compares this with Stubenville where a girl who was blackout drunk was raped and one boy testified that he hadn't seen anything wrong with it, but then he didn't really know what rape was. There's a failing of the American education system if young people have not been taught to recognize rape.
Anyway, the book is fabulous — especially nice for having a more expansive than just the United States. A few excerpts to jar and to give a feel for the book:
* In the US, more than ninety percent of people with developmental disabilities are sexually assaulted.
* Sharia law requires the eyewitness evidence of four grown men to prove rape.
* “Rape is not sex. If you hit someone on the head with a rolling pin, it’s not cooking.”
* Marital rape is not considered a crime in thirty-eight countries, including India, where the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics reports that the vast majority of rapists are the victims’ own husbands. In September 2017, the government of India actually spoke out against outlawing marital rape. Government lawyers stated that making it a crime would destabilize the institution of marriage, and that we shouldn’t blindly follow the West in these matters: husband harassment might become a real problem. We should concentrate instead on things like poverty.
The book is told in very conversational first person as the author talks about rape and her experiences reading about, talking to, and working with rape survivors around the world. I would recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to know more about rape — but, of course, no one does, do they? But I found this book essential to developing an understanding of violence and gender in society, which, to me, is something you should try to do if you think those are important.
Two things among many things that stuck with me from the book:
First, in all the books on sexual violence I've read, none has talked about the fact that many survivors have horrible dental hygiene. Afterward, they often grind their teeth from stress and they don't go to the dentist because they don't want to be helpless in a chair unable to speak while someone inserts things in their mouths.
Second, she talks about the damage caused by sex education in the United States where sex is presented as painful and not pleasurable for girls. She uses the example of the case where Brock Turner sexually assaulted a young woman at a college party in California. Two men from Sweden —where they received comprehensive, pleasure-based sex education — immediately recognized that a semi-conscious person being dragged behind a dumpster was not consenting and interrupted what was happening. The author compares this with Stubenville where a girl who was blackout drunk was raped and one boy testified that he hadn't seen anything wrong with it, but then he didn't really know what rape was. There's a failing of the American education system if young people have not been taught to recognize rape.
Anyway, the book is fabulous — especially nice for having a more expansive than just the United States. A few excerpts to jar and to give a feel for the book:
* In the US, more than ninety percent of people with developmental disabilities are sexually assaulted.
* Sharia law requires the eyewitness evidence of four grown men to prove rape.
* “Rape is not sex. If you hit someone on the head with a rolling pin, it’s not cooking.”
* Marital rape is not considered a crime in thirty-eight countries, including India, where the Research Institute of Compassionate Economics reports that the vast majority of rapists are the victims’ own husbands. In September 2017, the government of India actually spoke out against outlawing marital rape. Government lawyers stated that making it a crime would destabilize the institution of marriage, and that we shouldn’t blindly follow the West in these matters: husband harassment might become a real problem. We should concentrate instead on things like poverty.
November 29, 2020
Interesante y duro.
August 9, 2018
Vital.
March 28, 2019
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
My experience of this book is positive, but it is about rape, all kinds of rape, and it’s not skimpy on the details. If you’re going to find the topic of rape viscerally upsetting, please don’t read this review! I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe, although I think the book in itself is potentially really helpful.
The title pretty much encapsulates what the book is about: Sohaila Abdulali thinks that rape has been a taboo and difficult subject for too long, leaving too many struggling in silence, and now is a perfect moment to let in some more light and talk about the issue. This isn’t some academic pronouncement from on high: Abdulali herself was the victim of a violent rape, many years ago — something she is frank about, and an experience that retains its horror in the telling, although it is now an event she has healed from.
Despite that, she’s matter-of-fact, in a way that means my primary feeling about the book was not horror or despair or any such emotion, but the hope that I think she wanted to convey. I found the whole thing oddly comforting: she recognises so many different kinds of rape, so many different reasons and reactions and aftermaths. There’s no one right way to have been raped, here: she accepts all kinds of stories, whether it’s a child being raped by someone they trust or a prostitute who tried to say no after money had already changed hands. There’s no one type of victim she thinks is more justified in being hurt and feeling unsafe, no situation she singles out as being better or worse than another. Honestly, to me, the narrative here says: “What happened to you was bad, whatever it was. It’s awful, but we can look at it and unpick it and it doesn’t have to be this one big monolith dominating your whole life. But whatever it is, it’s okay.”
The book did have a couple of downsides — at times it felt a little scatterbrained, unfocused in its approach. It’s very personal, rather than being just academic or just political or just feminist — it’s Sohaila Abdulali sitting down and taking a look at the world, and making sure some things we keep in the dark are really seen for what they are and what they mean. She has plenty of statistics to quote, but in the end it feels like she’s sitting and working through a mass of trauma — not all her own — conversationally, opening up a space for it, and making us see it. Perhaps it makes sense, in that way, that it’s a little disjointed at times.
I’m very glad I read it. It sounds like a heavy topic, but somehow in Abdulali’s hands, it’s not. Or rather, it is, but it’s one we can handle, and must handle, and stop trying to look away from (either from fear or from respect for victims).
My experience of this book is positive, but it is about rape, all kinds of rape, and it’s not skimpy on the details. If you’re going to find the topic of rape viscerally upsetting, please don’t read this review! I don’t want anyone to feel unsafe, although I think the book in itself is potentially really helpful.
The title pretty much encapsulates what the book is about: Sohaila Abdulali thinks that rape has been a taboo and difficult subject for too long, leaving too many struggling in silence, and now is a perfect moment to let in some more light and talk about the issue. This isn’t some academic pronouncement from on high: Abdulali herself was the victim of a violent rape, many years ago — something she is frank about, and an experience that retains its horror in the telling, although it is now an event she has healed from.
Despite that, she’s matter-of-fact, in a way that means my primary feeling about the book was not horror or despair or any such emotion, but the hope that I think she wanted to convey. I found the whole thing oddly comforting: she recognises so many different kinds of rape, so many different reasons and reactions and aftermaths. There’s no one right way to have been raped, here: she accepts all kinds of stories, whether it’s a child being raped by someone they trust or a prostitute who tried to say no after money had already changed hands. There’s no one type of victim she thinks is more justified in being hurt and feeling unsafe, no situation she singles out as being better or worse than another. Honestly, to me, the narrative here says: “What happened to you was bad, whatever it was. It’s awful, but we can look at it and unpick it and it doesn’t have to be this one big monolith dominating your whole life. But whatever it is, it’s okay.”
The book did have a couple of downsides — at times it felt a little scatterbrained, unfocused in its approach. It’s very personal, rather than being just academic or just political or just feminist — it’s Sohaila Abdulali sitting down and taking a look at the world, and making sure some things we keep in the dark are really seen for what they are and what they mean. She has plenty of statistics to quote, but in the end it feels like she’s sitting and working through a mass of trauma — not all her own — conversationally, opening up a space for it, and making us see it. Perhaps it makes sense, in that way, that it’s a little disjointed at times.
I’m very glad I read it. It sounds like a heavy topic, but somehow in Abdulali’s hands, it’s not. Or rather, it is, but it’s one we can handle, and must handle, and stop trying to look away from (either from fear or from respect for victims).
June 14, 2020
I'm sorry to give a harsh rating to a book on rape written by a survivor. I do so because I didn't learn much, and the book was truly all-over-the-place, flitting between anecdotes, opinions, current events, and off-the-cuff cultural critiques in a cursory way. Reading this book felt like scrolling through Twitter. Lots of clever, pithy lines with little analysis or synthesis.
Chapter 12 is called "A brief pause for horror." In it, the author calls for a "time out" to remind us that "rape is staggeringly horrible." I suppose she feels the need to remind us of this because, in the preceding 11 chapters (as well as the following 18), she writes about rape in a mostly matter-of-fact, casual-conversational, sometimes witty tone. I found it somewhat odd and hard to relate to.
At the end of chapter 27, the author writes: "Why [men rape women] is interesting, but after a point I'm more interested in moving along from this unevolved state of human interaction. I don't want to care about rapists' motivations. They should just stop. Whether it's wired in or because their daddy didn't play with them or they're just jerks or they're sexually frustrated or they do it because they can or they do it because they can't not do it or they're normal or they're abnormal, who cares? They should just stop... Unfortunately we do have to spend time trying to understand, if we're going to stop it. So yeah, we can't talk about rape without talking about why men rape."
And the chapter ends there. No further discussion about this essential "why."
This paragraph encapsulates what I find unhelpful about this book. I believe it's profoundly important to look at why men rape. I get why many survivors, including the author, would have no interest in exploring these reasons. But why write a whole book about rape, in which you profess to care about ending rape culture, if you only begrudgingly acknowledge the existence of this question of "why" and refuse to explore it? If you don't care to look meaningfully into the traumas, cultural influences, and psychological factors that contribute to this form of violence?
Chapter 12 is called "A brief pause for horror." In it, the author calls for a "time out" to remind us that "rape is staggeringly horrible." I suppose she feels the need to remind us of this because, in the preceding 11 chapters (as well as the following 18), she writes about rape in a mostly matter-of-fact, casual-conversational, sometimes witty tone. I found it somewhat odd and hard to relate to.
At the end of chapter 27, the author writes: "Why [men rape women] is interesting, but after a point I'm more interested in moving along from this unevolved state of human interaction. I don't want to care about rapists' motivations. They should just stop. Whether it's wired in or because their daddy didn't play with them or they're just jerks or they're sexually frustrated or they do it because they can or they do it because they can't not do it or they're normal or they're abnormal, who cares? They should just stop... Unfortunately we do have to spend time trying to understand, if we're going to stop it. So yeah, we can't talk about rape without talking about why men rape."
And the chapter ends there. No further discussion about this essential "why."
This paragraph encapsulates what I find unhelpful about this book. I believe it's profoundly important to look at why men rape. I get why many survivors, including the author, would have no interest in exploring these reasons. But why write a whole book about rape, in which you profess to care about ending rape culture, if you only begrudgingly acknowledge the existence of this question of "why" and refuse to explore it? If you don't care to look meaningfully into the traumas, cultural influences, and psychological factors that contribute to this form of violence?
August 3, 2018
--- trigger warning: rape, sexual violence ---
Sohaila Abdulali was raped as a 17 year-old woman by five men while out with her male friend in Mumbai. Speaking about her own experience as a survivor as well as educator, academic, and head of the rape crisis centre in Boston, this book is a great overview on the current discussion on rape, and rape culture. She adequately asks the question how to classify this book: is it a memoir, a social sciences text book, classic non-fiction? Probably all of the above.
Abdulali tackles the big questions surrounding rape with one topic per chapter. Many of these issues are currently widely discussed, and Abdulali summarizes the debates very well, with the Yes means Yes and No means No and #metoo debates front and centre. The real strengths of this book become aparent when Abdulali becomes personal, talking as a survivor about how to talk to other survivors, and how to talk about rape. Her voice on the issues in even but strong. A true spark of genius, in my opinion, are the five small chapters throughout the book in which she allows herself to become emotional and angry talking about the horror, fury, and confusion after being raped. It is this combination of storytelling, righteous anger, and level-headed analysis that makes this book a success.
My thanks to The New Press and netgalley for offering me this ARC in return for an honest review.
Sohaila Abdulali was raped as a 17 year-old woman by five men while out with her male friend in Mumbai. Speaking about her own experience as a survivor as well as educator, academic, and head of the rape crisis centre in Boston, this book is a great overview on the current discussion on rape, and rape culture. She adequately asks the question how to classify this book: is it a memoir, a social sciences text book, classic non-fiction? Probably all of the above.
Abdulali tackles the big questions surrounding rape with one topic per chapter. Many of these issues are currently widely discussed, and Abdulali summarizes the debates very well, with the Yes means Yes and No means No and #metoo debates front and centre. The real strengths of this book become aparent when Abdulali becomes personal, talking as a survivor about how to talk to other survivors, and how to talk about rape. Her voice on the issues in even but strong. A true spark of genius, in my opinion, are the five small chapters throughout the book in which she allows herself to become emotional and angry talking about the horror, fury, and confusion after being raped. It is this combination of storytelling, righteous anger, and level-headed analysis that makes this book a success.
My thanks to The New Press and netgalley for offering me this ARC in return for an honest review.
July 12, 2019
Dit is een belangrijk boek. Waar we over praten als we over verkrachting praten probeert het onderwerp verkrachting uit de taboesfeer te halen. Het is een onderwerp dat niet alleen besproken mág worden, maar eigen gewoon op de (politieke) agenda moet staan. Zoveel vrouwen (en mannen) krijgen hier mee te maken en worden een slachtofferrol aangepraat, zoveel onder hen hebben schuldgevoel. Terwijl verkrachting ALTIJD de schuld van de dader is.
Toegegeven, het is niet altijd even prettig om dit boek te lezen. De verhalen gaan van confronterend tot afschuwelijk - maar het is wel nodig om elkaar en de wereld om ons heen beter te leren begrijpen. Dergelijke ervaringen moeten niet weggemoffeld worden, maar verdienen het om serieus genomen te worden.
Mijn complete recensie lees je op Boekvinder.be.
Toegegeven, het is niet altijd even prettig om dit boek te lezen. De verhalen gaan van confronterend tot afschuwelijk - maar het is wel nodig om elkaar en de wereld om ons heen beter te leren begrijpen. Dergelijke ervaringen moeten niet weggemoffeld worden, maar verdienen het om serieus genomen te worden.
Mijn complete recensie lees je op Boekvinder.be.
December 6, 2018
Powerfully written testimonial of the attitudes and experiences of women (mostly) of rape across cultures and time. The author provides her own experience with rape -- and with writing about rape -- as a backdrop for first-person accounts of the impacts of rape, getting on with life after and the changes in attitude around the world toward rape (though mostly in India, Europe and the US). This book is incredibly well written and personal - highly recommended for everyone.
November 3, 2022
"Justifiable homicide exists (for instance, if you’re killing someone to stop a rape), but justifiable rape? Do you ever need to rape someone to stop any other crime? The only people who openly justify rape are those who run blatantly woman-hating societies, where women are objects."
June 2, 2024
Ik was niet de grootste fan van de schrijfstijl, het voelde namelijk nogal oppervlakkig. Abdulali gebruikt zo bijvoorbeeld ook andere verhalen van anderen om haar boek te schrijven, maar van de meeste verhalen had ik al eerder de uitgebreide zelfgeschreven versie gelezen. Het voelde hierdoor nogal rommelig en heb hierdoor ook niet het idee dat ik nog meer nieuwe meningen heb kunnen vormen over het onderwerp.
Desalniettemin raad ik het boek wel aan als je nog niks/weinig over SA hebt gelezen.
Desalniettemin raad ik het boek wel aan als je nog niks/weinig over SA hebt gelezen.
October 2, 2020
4.5 out of 5 stars
A difficult book to read at times because of the subject matter but honestly an incredible read. Nice to read a book about sexual assault that was less focused on the US. She writes clearly about her own experiences and the work she has done with victims and as an advocate. Really great book.
A difficult book to read at times because of the subject matter but honestly an incredible read. Nice to read a book about sexual assault that was less focused on the US. She writes clearly about her own experiences and the work she has done with victims and as an advocate. Really great book.
November 3, 2018
What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a must read. It’s a no-holds-barred, direct light on rape, on survivors, on rapists, and on our society in general. And it’s brilliantly written. Sohaila Abdulali writes a story that reads like a conversation, peppered with facts and true life stories, as well as references to her own personal experiences. For me it was such a refreshing read, because Sohaila Abdulali talks about rape and sexual assault in the way it should be talked about: without holding back.
That said, there are areas in the book that may be triggering to some, and there is no way most people will be able to read this in one go. With the status (collapse) of this country right now and all of the mayhem flying around on the news, the nomination and subsequent confirmation of a perpetrator of sexual assault to the Supreme Court, even after the survivor testified and subsequently vilified, as well as just trying to get through life in general, I had to read this book in small doses. I’m glad I did because I feel like I got a lot more out of it than if I had sped through it.
There are certain areas that stood out to me so much while reading that I jotted down some notes, but in general each chapter contains very important information, even the interludes. (Interlude on a moment of terror specifically hit me hard). Here are my notes:
Sohaila Abdulali does such a fantastic job of giving the survivor a platform, and not just from a standpoint of they have a voice too, but by showing how widespread victim blaming is, how we look at everything in black and white, and how each time we mention choice we base that choice on our own perceptions without ever putting ourselves in the place of the victims. This is something that always irks me terribly, when I hear the “but she could have...”, the “but why didn’t she walk away...” etc etc. The onus needs to be on the perpetrator, NOT the victim. We need to stop scrutinizing the victim and start scrutinizing the perpetrator. Sohaila Abdulali is so right about this. So right. I know personally that until we do this I won’t be able to speak either, because what stops so many women from speaking, even years later, is the fact that they know they will be judged, even by those who don’t think they are judging.
There are so many areas that I related to, and also areas that were very revealing. It was only recently that I equated the fear I feel on the dentist chair to another fear I felt as a child, and Sohaila Abdulali explains the correlation so well. It’s the same feeling I have had with doctors and why I avoid male doctors, especially after some experiences in pregnancy and childbirth that left me feeling even more violated than I felt before.
Sohaila Abdulali was born in India and survived a brutal rape as a young woman. She went on to work as a rape counselor and public speaker, amongst other things, and also spent a lot of her academic life studying and writing about rape and rape culture. When the #MeToo movement moved to the forefront in 2017, an old magazine article she had written 30 years before where she talks about her rape resurfaced. Sohaila Abdulali then went on to write this book even though she wondered whether it was a safe thing for her to do seeing as she mainly has been able to move on in her life. I am personally so happy that she did write this book as it has been very, very helpful to me, and in general I think it should be assigned literature for all to read.
If we don’t talk about rape we will never see a change.
Thank you Sohaila Abdulali!
And thank you Netgalley and The New Press for the advance copy (and the physical galley I won in a competiton on Instagram).
That said, there are areas in the book that may be triggering to some, and there is no way most people will be able to read this in one go. With the status (collapse) of this country right now and all of the mayhem flying around on the news, the nomination and subsequent confirmation of a perpetrator of sexual assault to the Supreme Court, even after the survivor testified and subsequently vilified, as well as just trying to get through life in general, I had to read this book in small doses. I’m glad I did because I feel like I got a lot more out of it than if I had sped through it.
There are certain areas that stood out to me so much while reading that I jotted down some notes, but in general each chapter contains very important information, even the interludes. (Interlude on a moment of terror specifically hit me hard). Here are my notes:
Sohaila Abdulali does such a fantastic job of giving the survivor a platform, and not just from a standpoint of they have a voice too, but by showing how widespread victim blaming is, how we look at everything in black and white, and how each time we mention choice we base that choice on our own perceptions without ever putting ourselves in the place of the victims. This is something that always irks me terribly, when I hear the “but she could have...”, the “but why didn’t she walk away...” etc etc. The onus needs to be on the perpetrator, NOT the victim. We need to stop scrutinizing the victim and start scrutinizing the perpetrator. Sohaila Abdulali is so right about this. So right. I know personally that until we do this I won’t be able to speak either, because what stops so many women from speaking, even years later, is the fact that they know they will be judged, even by those who don’t think they are judging.
There are so many areas that I related to, and also areas that were very revealing. It was only recently that I equated the fear I feel on the dentist chair to another fear I felt as a child, and Sohaila Abdulali explains the correlation so well. It’s the same feeling I have had with doctors and why I avoid male doctors, especially after some experiences in pregnancy and childbirth that left me feeling even more violated than I felt before.
Sohaila Abdulali was born in India and survived a brutal rape as a young woman. She went on to work as a rape counselor and public speaker, amongst other things, and also spent a lot of her academic life studying and writing about rape and rape culture. When the #MeToo movement moved to the forefront in 2017, an old magazine article she had written 30 years before where she talks about her rape resurfaced. Sohaila Abdulali then went on to write this book even though she wondered whether it was a safe thing for her to do seeing as she mainly has been able to move on in her life. I am personally so happy that she did write this book as it has been very, very helpful to me, and in general I think it should be assigned literature for all to read.
If we don’t talk about rape we will never see a change.
Thank you Sohaila Abdulali!
And thank you Netgalley and The New Press for the advance copy (and the physical galley I won in a competiton on Instagram).
July 18, 2019
I do not know how to review something of this magnitude. Something that has gave me so many emotions but taught me so many lessons. A book that is starting to give me understanding. A book that has truly made me want to continue to understand parts of me that I have hidden away.
This book is powerful and not only tells a woman’s survival but many others and explains so much while giving other people’s story voice. The volume of this story is loud and I heard every last bit of it.
“Teaching affirmative consent does something profound: it shifts the acceptable moral standard for sex, making it much clearer to everyone when someone is violating that standard ... Affirmative consent, when taught well, also removed heteronormative assumptions from sex ed. If we’re each equally responsible to make sure our partner is enthusiastic about what’s happening, gender stereotypes — such as that women are passive and men are aggressive — about sexuality begin to breakdown”.
This book is powerful and not only tells a woman’s survival but many others and explains so much while giving other people’s story voice. The volume of this story is loud and I heard every last bit of it.
“Teaching affirmative consent does something profound: it shifts the acceptable moral standard for sex, making it much clearer to everyone when someone is violating that standard ... Affirmative consent, when taught well, also removed heteronormative assumptions from sex ed. If we’re each equally responsible to make sure our partner is enthusiastic about what’s happening, gender stereotypes — such as that women are passive and men are aggressive — about sexuality begin to breakdown”.
November 16, 2018
More reviews up on my blog Inside My Library Mind
This was brilliant. Intersectional and incredibly nuanced, not to mention really smart. As I've mentioned on numerous ocassions, the more of feminist fiction I read, the more it feels like preaching to the choir. I feel like most of the readership of feminist literature is feminists, so I've been craving something more nuanced. And this was it. There's a fantastic chapter on consent which tackles the question so eloquently and insightfully.
This was incredibly difficult to read at times because it focuses heavily on rape, so it comes with all the trigger warnings. But I think the author manages to touch on so many different topics and bring so many aspects of rape culture.
I highly, highly recommend you pick this up as soon as it's out.
This was brilliant. Intersectional and incredibly nuanced, not to mention really smart. As I've mentioned on numerous ocassions, the more of feminist fiction I read, the more it feels like preaching to the choir. I feel like most of the readership of feminist literature is feminists, so I've been craving something more nuanced. And this was it. There's a fantastic chapter on consent which tackles the question so eloquently and insightfully.
This was incredibly difficult to read at times because it focuses heavily on rape, so it comes with all the trigger warnings. But I think the author manages to touch on so many different topics and bring so many aspects of rape culture.
I highly, highly recommend you pick this up as soon as it's out.
November 23, 2018
** A copy of What We Talk about When We Talk about Rape was provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review **
As someone who studies gender and sexual violence, I know that most of the writing around it isn't always the most accessible. Abdulali's book breaks the barrier: this is a highly engaging and easily accessible book on rape culture. The short essays are easy to follow but still pack a punch. This is a powerful collection of essays on stigma, victim-blaming, anger, humanity and smashing the patriarchy. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to make the world a better place.
As someone who studies gender and sexual violence, I know that most of the writing around it isn't always the most accessible. Abdulali's book breaks the barrier: this is a highly engaging and easily accessible book on rape culture. The short essays are easy to follow but still pack a punch. This is a powerful collection of essays on stigma, victim-blaming, anger, humanity and smashing the patriarchy. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to make the world a better place.
August 22, 2018
God. Damn. This one is certainly a tough read for anyone. I’d caution anyone who is triggered by talk of abuse of any kind.
That being said. God. Damn. Get ready to throw out all previous opinions about rape, rape culture, and anything else to do with it. Set them aside and just listen.
I’ve never read a more comprehensive examination of the psychology and culture of rape. There are plenty of great books coming out but this one examines it from every angle and discusses every aspect or life before, during, and after rape in a way that demands to be examined and considered.
That being said. God. Damn. Get ready to throw out all previous opinions about rape, rape culture, and anything else to do with it. Set them aside and just listen.
I’ve never read a more comprehensive examination of the psychology and culture of rape. There are plenty of great books coming out but this one examines it from every angle and discusses every aspect or life before, during, and after rape in a way that demands to be examined and considered.
August 22, 2018
This is a brilliant book that opens discourse on the topic of rape, through the lens of women, men and different cultures. It follows the journey of a survivor from the rape itself, to the reporting of the rape, to the years that have gone that she received no justice. She follows the current #metoo campaigns detailing not much has changed. Sohaila touches on gender role attitudes and their impact on women in the 21st century. this book opens a narrative that has not been explored before.
For more reviews please check www.manvireats.com/home
For more reviews please check www.manvireats.com/home
January 26, 2019
Vital reading. It's hard to say you 'like' a book like this, as it's a brutal and difficult read. It's a great mix of personal and anecdotal stories with larger issues of rape, particularly the difficulty in balancing the life-shattering seriousness of rape with the fact that people can (and do) go on to live rich and joyful lives after rape. This book is worthy of close reading and discussion, and should be assigned reading for older teenagers in schools.
April 4, 2025
This book was the biggest disappointment since 'Into the magic shop'. At times I found it deeply offensive, and I honestly think it can be dangerous.
It's impossible to write a comprehensive book about rape if you believe in gender, if you have deluded yourself into thinking there's such a thing as morally acceptable 'sex work', if you dare to state that not all minors in sex trade are victims of horrific abuse... This list continues, because despite being a victim herself and having gone through a lot of pain, Sohalia Abdulali doesn't sound like a person who can write a book about rape that would make sense. She means well, but the messages she translates through this book are at their best callow and immature, but mostly disturbing and harmful.
There was a passage where she says how happy it makes her to see a boy in a dress, and then a woman wearing hijab who’s reading Sylvia Plath, and even if I wanted to react to it saying 'oh honey' (I did), I can kind of relate to the sentiment. However, then we have praises towards a man who says that all we need to do is channel mens’ machismo energy towards being ‘respectful’ and ‘protective’ of women… And I mean wow, what a fresh idea. Along with the author's constant msings about how we should just educate men AND women about what is rape and how to not confuse it with sex, this is just perfect. Women don't need to be taught that and neither do men, because we all know. Even if we don't have the language to describe it with, it's always clear when the sex is consentual and when it's not.
Being a feminist is hard. I was suffering through this book... Okay continue.
By far the most disgusting part was of course the part where she talked about 'sex workers'.
“I met some sex workers in rural Sangli, Maharashtra, hub of turmeric, sugarcane, and formerly of HIV. Almost every one—male, female, trans, gender-fluid, gay, straight, bi—had multiple stories of rape.”
Now, everything is wrong with these sentenses. Firstly, what kind of gender fluid trans bi ‘sex workers’ could there be in fucking Maharashtra? And the word ‘almost’ is factually incorrect because all prostitutes are rape victims by definition, a staggering 100% of them.
Then in another passage she’s quoting someone who’s confused as to why nobody cared for some report about prostitutes experiencing sexual assault, and can’t wrap her head around the fact that only a small privileged group of people with similar neo liberal mush in their heads is blind to the fact that being prostituted is being sexually assaulted by default, it’s clear to most people who don’t spend any time thinking and researching these topics.
“…many people trafficked into prostitution return to sex work when they have escaped trafficking situations, because sex work may earn more than other options open to them.” And the thought is abandoned there, and we're continuing to talk about 'sex work' as a normal thing and similar to other jobs that people do. Literally how is it not obvious that it's a disaster? These women have not actually escaped anything then, they are bound to see themselves as objects for the rest of their life and fake feminist literature like this book supports them in that.
Finally, we have a sentense that talks about some girl who ‘became a sex worker at twelve’. I don't have a comment but it must be clear why I find it abhorrent.
At the end of that disturbing chapter about ‘sex workers’ ('Good girls something' it's called) the author tries to divert our attention from the problem that is prostitution itself and pretends that the problem is actually that some people don’t believe ‘sex workers’ can get raped whereas they can because they are human too. It's nothing more than the typical strawman tactic used by wokists all the time - invent an enemy, in the majority of cases it will be some collective far-right ideologist, and fight against them while completely missing the point. The point being, that all prostituted women are raped every single day when they ‘do their job’, getting raped is their 'job'. Ugh.
This book is full of lies. The saddest part is that I think the author believes the things she says here to be true. Saying that rapists are dehumanizing themselves and not their victims by commiting rape. Saying that men get raped too and 'pay an equally high price' but not pairing it with the fact that only men rape other men. Genuinely wondering why nobody cared for some report about prostitutes experiencing sexual assault (it's because most people, no matter the political views, know or at least feel that prostitution is not a regular job at all and that all sex for money is non-consentual). It was hard to read because it's a book with such an ambitious title that completely betrays it by distorting its subject beying recognition.
It's sad. I don't want to reread my review.
It's impossible to write a comprehensive book about rape if you believe in gender, if you have deluded yourself into thinking there's such a thing as morally acceptable 'sex work', if you dare to state that not all minors in sex trade are victims of horrific abuse... This list continues, because despite being a victim herself and having gone through a lot of pain, Sohalia Abdulali doesn't sound like a person who can write a book about rape that would make sense. She means well, but the messages she translates through this book are at their best callow and immature, but mostly disturbing and harmful.
There was a passage where she says how happy it makes her to see a boy in a dress, and then a woman wearing hijab who’s reading Sylvia Plath, and even if I wanted to react to it saying 'oh honey' (I did), I can kind of relate to the sentiment. However, then we have praises towards a man who says that all we need to do is channel mens’ machismo energy towards being ‘respectful’ and ‘protective’ of women… And I mean wow, what a fresh idea. Along with the author's constant msings about how we should just educate men AND women about what is rape and how to not confuse it with sex, this is just perfect. Women don't need to be taught that and neither do men, because we all know. Even if we don't have the language to describe it with, it's always clear when the sex is consentual and when it's not.
Being a feminist is hard. I was suffering through this book... Okay continue.
By far the most disgusting part was of course the part where she talked about 'sex workers'.
“I met some sex workers in rural Sangli, Maharashtra, hub of turmeric, sugarcane, and formerly of HIV. Almost every one—male, female, trans, gender-fluid, gay, straight, bi—had multiple stories of rape.”
Now, everything is wrong with these sentenses. Firstly, what kind of gender fluid trans bi ‘sex workers’ could there be in fucking Maharashtra? And the word ‘almost’ is factually incorrect because all prostitutes are rape victims by definition, a staggering 100% of them.
Then in another passage she’s quoting someone who’s confused as to why nobody cared for some report about prostitutes experiencing sexual assault, and can’t wrap her head around the fact that only a small privileged group of people with similar neo liberal mush in their heads is blind to the fact that being prostituted is being sexually assaulted by default, it’s clear to most people who don’t spend any time thinking and researching these topics.
“…many people trafficked into prostitution return to sex work when they have escaped trafficking situations, because sex work may earn more than other options open to them.” And the thought is abandoned there, and we're continuing to talk about 'sex work' as a normal thing and similar to other jobs that people do. Literally how is it not obvious that it's a disaster? These women have not actually escaped anything then, they are bound to see themselves as objects for the rest of their life and fake feminist literature like this book supports them in that.
Finally, we have a sentense that talks about some girl who ‘became a sex worker at twelve’. I don't have a comment but it must be clear why I find it abhorrent.
At the end of that disturbing chapter about ‘sex workers’ ('Good girls something' it's called) the author tries to divert our attention from the problem that is prostitution itself and pretends that the problem is actually that some people don’t believe ‘sex workers’ can get raped whereas they can because they are human too. It's nothing more than the typical strawman tactic used by wokists all the time - invent an enemy, in the majority of cases it will be some collective far-right ideologist, and fight against them while completely missing the point. The point being, that all prostituted women are raped every single day when they ‘do their job’, getting raped is their 'job'. Ugh.
This book is full of lies. The saddest part is that I think the author believes the things she says here to be true. Saying that rapists are dehumanizing themselves and not their victims by commiting rape. Saying that men get raped too and 'pay an equally high price' but not pairing it with the fact that only men rape other men. Genuinely wondering why nobody cared for some report about prostitutes experiencing sexual assault (it's because most people, no matter the political views, know or at least feel that prostitution is not a regular job at all and that all sex for money is non-consentual). It was hard to read because it's a book with such an ambitious title that completely betrays it by distorting its subject beying recognition.
It's sad. I don't want to reread my review.
December 5, 2018
Despite the immensity of its title and subject, Sohaila Abdulali's short, brilliant manifesto reads like a conversation with a wiser, smarter, kinder friend.
Having survived a gang-rape in Bombay, India as a teenager, and later deemed "the last living rape victim in India" after penning an article on her ordeal, Abdulali has made it her life's work to assist other victims of sexual assault. She's worked in crisis centers, manned hotlines, researched theses and written books on the subject. She is lively, funny, present and intelligent--all qualities that show through and allow you to engage with this text in a way that never felt heavy to me. I've had others tell me this was a heavy read for them, and rightfully so, but Abdulali's conversational tone really helped me make it through this.
For those of us working every day to understand sexual assault crimes and the survivors of these crimes, this information might not be "new" per se, but thinking about how to quite literally TALK about this information will be. How do we quantify all that we have learned? How do we express it to others? How can we be supportive to survivors in intimate and professional settings? What is it like to live as a woman around the world? Where does sex work factor in this dialogue? All of it is explored and tied together, even though Abdulali is frank when there aren't always clear answers. This felt like a patient, measured response to #MeToo. Sometimes I read articles or interviews on the movement and I feel this frenetic rush behind the words, and for me, that is overwhelming, making it hard to engage with that text. Which was why I so responded to this book, I think, since it was the exact opposite of that.
This should without a doubt be required reading in high schools around the world. Anyone who considers themselves an advocate, certainly anyone who is a perpetrator (wishful thinking?) should get their hands on a copy of this. It's newly out in paperback.
And also, can I say, the descriptions of Abdulali's mother and father are heartbreakingly beautiful. Her parents were (to me) shockingly modern and compassionate following her rape and later her writing life and career, especially in a culture that doesn't always lend itself to that. The vivid images of her parent's support around her life and choices are so, so great. Their love leaps off the page at every instance. Yay for moms and dads!
Having survived a gang-rape in Bombay, India as a teenager, and later deemed "the last living rape victim in India" after penning an article on her ordeal, Abdulali has made it her life's work to assist other victims of sexual assault. She's worked in crisis centers, manned hotlines, researched theses and written books on the subject. She is lively, funny, present and intelligent--all qualities that show through and allow you to engage with this text in a way that never felt heavy to me. I've had others tell me this was a heavy read for them, and rightfully so, but Abdulali's conversational tone really helped me make it through this.
For those of us working every day to understand sexual assault crimes and the survivors of these crimes, this information might not be "new" per se, but thinking about how to quite literally TALK about this information will be. How do we quantify all that we have learned? How do we express it to others? How can we be supportive to survivors in intimate and professional settings? What is it like to live as a woman around the world? Where does sex work factor in this dialogue? All of it is explored and tied together, even though Abdulali is frank when there aren't always clear answers. This felt like a patient, measured response to #MeToo. Sometimes I read articles or interviews on the movement and I feel this frenetic rush behind the words, and for me, that is overwhelming, making it hard to engage with that text. Which was why I so responded to this book, I think, since it was the exact opposite of that.
This should without a doubt be required reading in high schools around the world. Anyone who considers themselves an advocate, certainly anyone who is a perpetrator (wishful thinking?) should get their hands on a copy of this. It's newly out in paperback.
And also, can I say, the descriptions of Abdulali's mother and father are heartbreakingly beautiful. Her parents were (to me) shockingly modern and compassionate following her rape and later her writing life and career, especially in a culture that doesn't always lend itself to that. The vivid images of her parent's support around her life and choices are so, so great. Their love leaps off the page at every instance. Yay for moms and dads!
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