Think Like a Feminist: The Philosophy Behind the Revolution

by Carol Hay

An audacious and accessible guide to feminist philosophy―its origins, its key ideas, and its latest directions. Think Like a Feminist is an irreverent yet rigorous primer that unpacks over two hundred years of feminist thought. In a time when the word feminism triggers all sorts of responses, many of them conflicting and misinformed, Professor Carol Hay provides this balanced, clarifying, and inspiring examination of what it truly means to be a feminist today. She takes the reader from conceptual questions of sex, gender, intersectionality, and oppression to the practicalities of talking to children, navigating consent, and fighting for adequate space on public transit, without deviating from her clear, accessible, conversational tone. Think Like a Feminist is equally a feminist starter kit and an advanced refresher course, connecting longstanding controversies to today’s headlines. Think Like a Feminist takes on many of the essential questions that feminism has risen up to Is it nature or nurture that’s responsible for our gender roles and identities? How is sexism connected to racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression? Who counts as a woman, and who gets to decide? Why have men gotten away with rape and other forms of sexual violence for so long? What responsibility do women themselves bear for maintaining sexism? What, if anything, can we do to make society respond to women’s needs and desires? Ferocious, insightful, practical, and unapologetically opinionated, Think Like a Feminist is the perfect book for anyone who wants to understand the continuing effects of misogyny in society. By exploring the philosophy underlying the feminist movement, Carol Hay brings today’s feminism into focus, so we can deliberately shape the feminist future.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Social Justice, Activism, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

Carol Hay is a professor of philosophy at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is the author of Think Like a Feminist: The Philosophy Behind the Revolution and the award-winning Kantianism, Liberalism, and Feminism: Resisting Oppression. Her work has appeared in venues such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and Aeon magazine. She divides her time between Boston and San Francisco.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any major idea or movement, feminism is a term that has broad reaching definitions that often vary based on person to person. ‘Feminism has a PR problem,’ writes Carol Hay in her book Think Like a Feminist, and much of that surrounds the nature of feminism that has been intentionally obfuscated by detractors and well-meaning misconceptions alike in a world where the malleable term is most often assessed in terms of its marketability and co-opted in order to protect the status quo. Drawing on the long history of feminist theory in order to synthesize it into productive arguments, Hay’s book aims to provide an academic grounding in an accessible manner while looking at its applications in the world around us. ‘The feminist movement is messy, rife with internal disputes and contradictions, and as carried as the women it represents,’ Hay states, and Think Like a Feminist does an excellent job at harmonizing the various strands of ideology for a well-rounded depiction of feminism. Hay’s early chapters which focus on the various metaphors for oppression and the popularized stereotypes employed to undermine feminism are particularly engaging and enlightening, with the later portions on sexual violence, allyship towards trans people and progressive steps forward being well argued and instilled with a wealth of insight from a wide range of thinkers across history. While it may be a bit repetitive for those who have a previous background into the philosophy, Think Like a Feminist helps harmonize various theories and present a larger, systemic portrait an general primer text that we should all internalize and strive to bring to fruition in order to mold a more humane and productive society for all.

As with any book that hopes to encompass the varieties of a broad-sweeping movement, there will inevitably be a lot of generalizations and, regrettably, aspects that are left out. Disability, for instance, is briefly addressed though never really touched upon. There can be a lot to nit-pick here, though the act has never had much appeal to me and I’ll leave that for others better versed in criticisms because a large part of what Hay’s gets at is how in-fighting and overall nit-picking tends to detract from the aims of the movement as a whole and reduce arguments to individual levels of ad hominem critiques that inevitably distract away from the larger social ills. She aims for a more general synthesis and, on that level, this book does make an excellent primer while, admittedly, one would still of course have better grounding were they to read all the texts she analyzes or quotes. But on the whole, the aim is to attempt to unify various ideas and look for commonalities:

‘Honestly, if you were to ask ten feminists to define feminism you'd probably get eleven different answers. There are a few core things that we do agree about, though. First, feminists agree that women have been, and continue to be, disadvantaged relative to men...Second, feminists agree that these disadvantages are bad things that can and should be changed. And third, we agree that these disadvantages are interrelated, that they're the result of mutually supporting systems of privilege and deprivation that are structurally embedded in virtually every aspect of society and that systematically function to screw women over.’

Which isn’t to say Hay avoids critiques and one thing I found this does well is show how various waves of feminism have updated and critiqued previous thinkers. In discussing Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, for instance, she cites author and activist bell hooks’s criticisms that Friedan ‘was pretending that white women’s experiences of oppression are even close to as bad as it can get.’ This is along with plenty of insight into the works of other Black feminists such as Audre Lorde, and intersectionality with queer theory, to help show how feminist thought has shaped itself across the years. There is a great wealth of philosophical insight in Think Like a Feminist, drawing on the works of cornerstones of feminist theory like Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir or more modern writers like Susan Bordo or Kate Manne in conversation with other social theories from people as varied as Ludwig Wittenstein, Kimberlé Crenshaw W.E.B. Du Bois, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and more. It isn’t a perfect book, though it is a good step forward especially for those looking for a primer and I would of course recommend continuing to read the works of those mentioned as well as books like Angela Y. Davis's Abolition. Feminism. Now. among the many others.

‘It’s no coincidence that the Angry Feminist and the Girl Power Feminist get so much cultural uptake…each caricature manages to defang feminism of its radical potential.’

An aspect I really enjoyed in Think Like a Feminist were the ways Hay shows how feminism is often co-opted or intentionally misdirected in order to subvert it. She touches on ideas of internalized objectification and oppression as well as, what Andrea Dworkin states as a barrier to feminist action that ‘many women resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.’ This is an idea addressed by Simone de Beauvoir as well in The Second Sex ‘explaining why women had not collectively resisted their oppression…because to do otherwise would be to renounce the few advantages they do get from their oppressive relationships with men’ which is why she discusses why social changes, particularly financial reform, must occur (women couldn’t own property or bank accounts previously, for instance). But in order to ensure the status quo is not harmed by feminist progress, feminists have been negatively stereotyped with negative socal images to dissuade people from listening. The first of these stereotypes about feminism that May discusses: the “Angry Feminist.”

Angry Feminists, Hay explains, are viewed as ‘a bunch of irrationally angry bra-burning’ feminists who ‘elevate man-hating to an art form.’ It is a stereotype imposed on feminists by in order to present them as ‘a caricature we don’t need to take seriously’ by making feminists seem ‘aggressively unpleasant.’ It’s the sort of idea of feminism that men with an aim at blatant misogyny love to highlight, such as televangelist Pat Robertson claiming feminism as a movement that ‘encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.’ The issue with this stereotype is it attacks a rather useful tool: legitimate anger. Audre Lorde recalls a woman at a conference telling here ‘tell me how you feel but don’t say it too harshly or I cannot hear you,’ which is a sort of tone policing often employed to avoid the actual conversation, dismissing ideas by dismissing the person. ‘We live in a world where women are trained to make nice,’ Hay says, and nothing upsets the status quo more than a woman who is angry but anger can be a useful tool (for more on this read Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by Soraya Chemaly) but it is also used against women. As Audre Lorde writes ‘for women raised to fear, too often anger threatens annihilation.’ And so the stereotype is pushed to discredit in a way that:

‘spins women’s well-founded anger over legitimate grievances into the age-old spector of the irrational hag whose wailings needn’t be taken seriously.’

For a good book on how aging and and being childless or angry is used against women I recommend Mona Chollet’s In Defense of Witches. However, by reducing feminists to this stereotype, it turns it into a false aim of passing judgment on what women and men do on an individual level instead of the real focus ‘on the social structures that constrain women’s options in the first place.’ and to pose it as feminists trying to ‘threatens to rob women of what little power we have in a status quo that exists by and for the benefit of men.’ Which was Beauvoir’s concern all along. She looks at feminists like Catharine A. MacKinnon who have been dismissed in this way and ‘used as whipping girls by too many feminist critics who don’t appreciate just how influential and sophisticated their analysis has been.’ While, yes, critiquing thinkers is valid, we can’t allow ourselves to become so overly concerned with the imperfections of an individual to the extent that it overrides the ideas of a whole movement. But also, perhaps more importantly, the ridicule of women for being “angry” underlines the fact that men are scared and should be and that’s why there is such a rally to discredit women. Such as the faux outrage criticizing the #MeToo movement of “going too far” despite scant meaningful consequences befalling men due to the movement and even moments such as the sentencing of Weinstein, which was hopefully validating for his many victims, did little to deconstruct the social and economic systems that enabled his behavior.

But there is another stereotype she examines, that of the Girl Power Feminist. Note that it is “girl” and not “women,” a clear indication of its infantilization. Girl Power Feminists, as Hay explains, are ‘sexy, feisty without being off-putting, and fundamentally unthreating. She’s confident without being pushy. She proclaims her independence but promises not to do anything too radical with it.’ It is mostly surface with ‘unflective sex positivity’ that ‘makes inroads by reassuring straight men’ that their ‘unrestricted sexual access to women and right to get laid [...] isn’t on the chopping block.’ But biggest of all it is ‘marketing gold’ that ‘claims a victory every time a woman makes it in a man’s world’ without the awareness of how this still centers the world as belonging to men and does nothing to confront the predatory capitalist drives that are inherently damaging but instead embraces capitalism ‘hocking self-help platitudes’ that do nothing beyond ‘reassuring everyone that the status quo won’t be interrupted in any significant way.’ What Hay is concerned about with this stereotype is essentially Beauvoir’s own fears because ‘if feminism is just Girl Power, then we don’t need to look at the larger social structures that undergird individual women’s choices.’ What we get instead is a product readymade for t-shirts and pay-per-click blogs that becomes branding instead of a movement, not unlike the way Eat the Rich IPAs or viral tweets about guillotines only serve the financial gain of a company or to be an edgy but empty aesthetic and little to disrupt the system it postures as opposing.

‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.’
—Audre Lorde

From here Hay lays out various metaphors on oppression to look at why there are stereotypes to distract from the social ills and transform it into vague individual aesthetics instead of social movements. There is the “birdcage” metaphor, that, like a cage, each small aspect of society is a single bar that isn’t individually threatening but all combine to form a cage restricting women. There is also the “invisible knapsack” which includes the burdens each group of women are asked to carry which cis, men do not. Or the “intersection” metaphor on how there are various intersections of identity that can compound oppression, such as the concept of misogynoir that Black women face both sexism and racism. There is also the idea of the “panopticon” metaphor, which is rooted in Foucault’s idea of the prison that women will police one another and themselves in order to hope for a place within patriarchy. As Sandra Bartky writes:

‘In contemporary patriarchal culture, a panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women: They stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgement. Woman lives her body as seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other.’

These all work well to further understand the various ways women face oppression in society, though later she expands into the necessity to organize with trans women and criticizes anti-trans feminists, or TERFs. ‘There’s a common enemy we need to unite against,’ she writes.

‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.’
—Margaret Atwood

While some of Hay’s history on misogyny is a bit light and streamlined (Kate Manne's Down Girl is an excellent read for this), there is a rather effective section on sexual violence and how that is an aspect of patriarchy that objectifies women. Pornography and the laws around it get a rather incisive treatment here as a reminder as the role they play in objectifying and dehumanizing women. The idea that men use the immoral actions of specific men to grant them a better character is an idea expressed by Susan Brownmiller as the “Male Protection Racket” and Hay points out how legitimate fear of sexual violence is often used against women in the form of the ‘innocuous Nice Guy.’ This is a person who is able to ‘enjoy the warm and fuzzy psychological and social rewards bestowed on those deemed to be of upstanding character’ and use it as a position of power, hence how they often ‘bemoan the injustice of being “friend-zoned”’ as if access to sex and a woman’s body in the standard. Hay addresses men specifically:

‘What we do need is men who are willing to fight patriarchy; men who are willing to consider giving up privileges they’ve received strictly because of their gender; men who don’t think that relinquishing this unearned privilege is an injustice.’

There are many ways where men, she points out, do not have aspects of the self counted against them. She encourages men to be more aware of patriarchal privileges and to consider women’s perspectives in interactions. In this way she shows how feminism is something for everyone, not just women. She does, however, point out that the argument made that it should be called “humanism” is disingenuous because it assumes an equality that is currently missing in society.

It’s all good teachings we should take forward, and she discusses how passing along productive ideas around feminism to the next generations is key. ‘This isn’t just an issue that concerns our daughters,’ she writes, ‘we need to change the ways we talk to boys too.’ She discusses the idea of gender roles as a socially coached construct pointing out, ‘in many ways, we police gender-nonconformity in boys far more rigidly than we do in girls.’ There is some excellent discussion on gender here, using Judith Butler’s theories on gender as something that combines performance and cultural implications but is not necessarily synonymous. It also nudges concepts of trans identity here as well.

Think Like a Feminist is by no means perfect, but it is an excellent primer that synthesizes a wide range of thought and sets it towards productive action. While the section on future actions is a bit light, its all still well grounded in historical theory and presented in an accessible manner. It is a good source for further reading and ideas and is a valuable little book in the scope of the feminist movement.

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a feminist since I first heard of feminism – I was ready and waiting for it. The ideas in Thinking Like a Feminist aren't novel for anyone who has been reading along, but they are systematically organized in a way that is accessible for people first learning about feminism, as well as those who have read and thought as feminists for decades.

Thinking Like a Feminist carefully describes the different flavors of feminism, using clear metaphors and examples. Oppression of women – all women, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, class, sexual orientation, sexual identity, ability – occurs through a web of economic, political, social, and psychological injustices. Hay argues that oppressive forces thread throughout our lives, informing our decisions about how to dress, how to speak, how to carry ourselves, how much eye contact we can afford to make, and how friendly we can be while remaining safe from sexual violence.

Going along with the status quo may be easy and even benefit us in the short-term, but it hurts all of us in the long-term. The invisible web she describes is imposed on us, but also something we internalize and impose on others. Hay argues:

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re in charge of controlling massive numbers of people. What’s the best way to get them to do what you want? What would the most effective method of social control look like? ….What’s needed is surveillance. Constant surveillance. (p. 48)

Who is watching and controlling us? We notice when people step outside the line in any sort of way – when little boys want to wear nail polish like their moms; when we observe that GI Joe is an action figure, not a doll; when we comment on weight, shoes, and hair. Notice what we gossip about and consider why.

Carol Hay is thoughtful without taking herself too seriously. She laughs at her sometimes conventional choices in shoes, grooming, and make-up, which are matched by unconventional decisions about parenting, relationships, and more. Her examples are fodder to help us understand the nature of the oppression women (and men) live with. We’re surrounded by oppressive and objectifying messages, she notes, like fish are surrounded by water, "but we also come to need it, and some days, even like it" (p. 53).

I enjoyed the dialectics she uses to set up her discussions: something is both objectifying and liked/needed. We – both women and men – are not simple and easily understood. Those caricatures of feminists as man-hating beings is mostly just a caricature, although we can hate some of the things that some men (and women) do.

Hay finishes by addressing the complaint that we should not call ourselves feminists but humanists. "“Humanism” … implies equality. And who doesn’t like equality?" (p. 189). Nonetheless, calling ourselves humanists now would ignore the inequities that still exist.

Calling ourselves humanists rather than feminists would be like insisting All Lives Matter (and of course they do), while diminishing/ignoring the very real inequities that People of Color in the US experience.

[Karen Adkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

When this book is strong, it's terrific. Hay's goal here is to write a general-interest history of feminist philosophy, and she's such a good writer and thinker that she's able to do this work incredibly effectively. She makes good use of metaphors in ways to illustrate sometimes complicated arguments, manages to simplify concepts down without trivializing them, and has organized the book around key arguments and principles. But the two weaknesses in the book really stood out for me. First, while sometimes her humor was enjoyable and bracing, at times it just rang incredibly tone-deaf (prison rape jokes aren't funny ever, but they are particularly off-putting in a feminist text. And sometimes it felt like the humor was more for affect than as a way of engaging a reader (I got whiffs of what Gillian Flynn so memorably described as "Cool Girl" writing with some of the jokes). And secondly, while for the meat of the book Hay is really well focused on an intersectional approach to feminism, her concluding paragraph ("The Rubber Hits the Road"), which is meant as a bit of a how-to for living a feminist life, read entirely trivially to me, and in particular, the tips were useful mostly for someone who's middle-class, straight or straight-presenting, and raising a kid. It just felt like a missed opportunity, and in particular, one that ended up trivializing what was actually a lot of strength in the rest of the book.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great primier on the subject that would be a fantastic core text to an introductory course on the topic, or for the curious individual. A wonderful tool to annotate and dissect and start a personal exploration of topics from this well researched, cited, and engaging work.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Today the word "feminist" can mean something different to 100 different people. In Think Like a Feminist Carol Hay attempts to boil down over two hundred years of feminist thought into one book. The first two chapters give an overall history, as well as, the stereotypes of feminism and give four metaphors for understanding oppression. These two chapters are AMAZING - they are very readable and really break down the various waves of feminism and explain what was achieved (or not) in each wave. The next two chapters focus on the social construction of gender and sex. In my opinion these two chapters were a little more academic and not as easily readable for someone not super interested in this topic. There is also a chapter on sexual violence and then just when you're feeling like all hope is lost, the last chapter focuses on things you can do every day to try to continue to move the feminism movement forward.

I felt like the author did a great job overall with explaining different aspects of feminism and also being honest about how some factions of feminists work against each other or don't include all women (often women of color). The only reason I didn't rate it higher was because I felt like a lot of readers would get bogged down in chapters 3 & 4 and quit reading or get overwhelmed. But, if you're new to this issue or trying to have easy ways to explain some of the ideas to someone else this book is a great resource.

Here are some quotes I liked:

"Having spent a very long time playing Whac-A-Mole with people's misconceptions of feminism - in the classroom, on social media, at the Thanksgiving dinner table - I've ended up with a whole bag full o' tricks to get the skeptics' guard down and get them to listen to what feminism is really about. This book is the collection of this hard-won repertoire." (p. xvi)

"Honestly, if you were to ask ten feminists to define feminism you'd probably get eleven different answers. There are a few core things that we do agree about, though. First, feminists agree that women have been, and continue to be, disadvantaged relative to men...Second, feminists agree that these disadvantages are bad things that can and should be changed. And third, we agree that these disadvantages are interrelated, that they're the result of mutually supporting systems of privilege and deprivation that are structurally embedded in virtually every aspect of society and that systematically function to screw women over." (p. 1-2)

"'Many women,' speculates the radical feminist activist Andrea Dworkin, 'resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.'" (p. 17)

"As we'll see, de Beauvoir and those in her wake are almost always less interested in passing judgement on what individual women choose to do with their lives than in taking on the social structures that constrain women's options in the first place. But skeptics fasten onto the image of the Angry Feminist as a sanctimonious shrew who should mind her own business because it's less unsettling to muster outrage over her ungrounded right to criticize what you've done with the hand you've been dealt than it is to sit with the possibility that she might be right when she claims that the deck's been stacked." (p. 19)

"This kinder, gentler [Girl Power] feminism talks the talk of championing women's empowement, but it does so without ruffling feathers, reassuring everyone that the status quo won't be interrupted in any significant way. It's no coincidence that the statue that faced down the bull on Wall Street is a Fearless Girl, not a Fearless Grown Woman. Strength in girls is unthreatening precisely because they're still too little to actually do anything with it; strength in women is off-putting as hell." (p. 25-26)

"Most of the time, oppression's structures chug along in the background, subtly constraining what's possible for people without most of us even noticing what's going on. This means that oppression has a tendency to fly beneath our collective radar." (p. 43)

"Let these words sink in: the mind shapes itself to the body. The concern here isn't just that the beauty and frivolity and femininity required of girls and women is a waste of time, or that it's not as lofty as the pursuits open to boys and men. The worry is that what's permissible or required for girls and women to do with and to their bodies determines what's possible for them to do with their minds." (p. 51)

"The explanation for this bizarre response, Catharine MacKinnon suggests, is that we don't want to believe the empirical facts about what it's like to be a woman, despite the clear statistical evidence, because we're clinging to the collective belief that men and women really are equal. 'This,' she says, 'is equality for us': a world in which 1 in 6 women will experience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. The statistics for men are strikingly different: 1 in 33 men will experience rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. Hardly equality. Rape is no less tragic for male victims than it is for female victims, obviously, but we shouldn't pretend that the risks are the same for both sexes. They're not." (p. 132-33)

[Paul Crider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carol Hay's Think Like A Feminist is a wonderful tour of feminist thought. This book has zoomed to the top of my list of "great for beginners" feminist texts, but by that I don't want to diminish the depth and subtlety Hay's presentation. The discussion is valuable for everyone, but it is especially valuable for its clarity and good humor. Hay does a remarkable job of explaining some of the classic feminist arguments that are so often dismissed by the uninitiated as absurd (like "rape is about power, not sex") with admirable clarity.

Hay explores oppression through four metaphors, themselves gleaned from the feminist literature. These are:

A birdcage: individual wires (of oppression) are inconsequential and easily escaped, but in criss-crossing combination coordinate to significantly constrain realizable freedom.

A knapsack: full of burdens that the normative white male doesn't have to carry, but women do, with racialized and otherwise marginalized women carrying their own knapsacks of distinct kinds of burdens.

The Panopticon: the feminist application of Bentham's cylindrical prison observed by one centralized but obscured guard. We monitor ourselves to enforce patriarchal norms just as the prisoners in the Panopticon monitor themselves.

“In contemporary patriarchal culture,” Bartky writes, “a panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women: They stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgement. Woman lives her body as seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other.”

As a devotee of Adam Smith, I am struck by how much the "panoptical male" resembles a kind of sinister impartial spectator, a "misogynist in the breast."

The traffic intersection: that describes the interactive effects of intersecting modes of oppression. Different modes of oppression are multiplicative rather than additive, not in the sense of getting to greater magnitudes but in the sense of qualitative transformation.

Hay uses these metaphors throughout the work to explore contemporary feminist issues, from the social construction of gender and the social construal of sex, to objectification, gendered domestic work, sexual violence, trans liberation, and pornography and sex work.

Hay is particularly sharp in her defense of trans persons. She describes womanhood as having a family resemblance structure, so that the concept defies an exact listing of essential features that wouldn't exclude people uncontroversially recognized as women. Moreover, trans women face a double bind of needing to perform femininity to be recognized as women but then suffer accusations of artificiality for needing to try so hard. But, as Hay makes clear, all women work to perform femininity, and the apparent ease with which this work is done by cis women is deceptive, a testament to how we internalize patriarchal dictates as natural.

Finally, Hay's treatment of pornography and sex work is nuanced and careful. I appreciate that she defends the radical feminists MacKinnon and Dworkin who "are used as whipping girls by too many feminist critics who don’t appreciate just how influential and sophisticated their analysis has been" despite herself coming down on a more "sex-positive" view. But we should be troubled and conflicted about porn that continues to depict women as objectified and degraded.

Indeed, troubled and conflicted is what Hay leaves her readers with. Because of the totalizing nature of patriarchy, living as a feminist inevitably means making compromises. We must view the compromises other feminists make with grace and understanding, and simply pick our own battles as judiciously as we can.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

220808: from the perspective of cis half-whiteman, this is an excellent introductory text on current philosophy of feminism. direct, concise, accessible, this does not ask for too much pre-knowledge. this does ask for openness, awareness, recognition we are, after all, talking about humans in human worlds psychological and social...

she talks about what feminism is and is not, versus the 'angry' sort and the 'girl power' sort, she offers four metaphors to understand meaning of 'oppression', such as the, however gilded, 'birdcage', to the 'invisible knapsack', to the 'intersection' multiplication, to 'the basement' of 'family resemblances' of all sorts...

she investigates the social construction of 'gender', and its problems for actual women, then the equally problematic social construction of 'sex'. as philosophers she references de Beauvoir existentialism and particularly 'the second sex', but this focus on authenticity is no difficulty for me...

she talks about the reality of sexual violence, the extreme disproportion this visits women, the conflicts about pornography, objectification, consent, the real world application of her theoretical work. this is perhaps too introductory for some readers, but is an easy, compelling read, in one siting...

[Frank Jude · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book and wrestled a bit between ultimately giving it two or three stars. It feels like a three-star book, but according to the significance of the stars here on Goodreads, two-stars means "It was okay" and that's actually pretty much how I feel about it. This is not to say there aren't some really good points raised throughout the book; there are! However, overall, there's a surprising amount of waffling and incoherence for a book written by a professional philosopher.

First, some good points:
1. Chapter One begins by attempting to define "feminism" and Hay correctly states that "the feminist movement is messy, rife with internal disputes and contradictions.... there simply isn't enough we agree on to ground a single shared course of action. If anything, there are multiple, sometimes competing, feminist agendas." Given this situation, the bare bones definition comes down to an agreement "that women have been, and continue to be, disadvantaged relative to men." From this, it is agreed that "these disadvantages are bad things that can and should be changed." And finally, "these disadvantages are interrelated" and are "the result of mutually supporting systems of privilege and deprivation that are structurally embedded in virtually every aspect of society." I can't imaging ANYONE -- other than an avowed sexist -- who would disagree with these postulates.

But even here in this first chapter, the section on "The Origins of Sexism" is surprisingly weak, with no acknowledgement of Jack Holland's deep dive into Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice" which shows the deep roots in the two Western cultural streams that shape our history: that of the Hebrews and of the Greeks. I highly recommend this book which should fire up anyone who hasn't given this topic the attention it demands.

2. Her concise history of feminism, through the various waves is a good summary for those who may not have been aware that there indeed have been these "waves" focused upon and conditioned by different historical contexts. It ends with an important skewering of two caricatures that tend to get more attention than either deserves: the "Angry Feminist" and the "Girl Power Feminist." She states "understanding women's empowerment as the success of individual women, not the collective betterment of all women, Girl Power Feminism claims a victory every time a woman makes it in a man's world" and gives The Spice Girls ironic credit for "practically" inventing the genre. While she does mention neo-liberalism in this context, I think she could have given the connection a bit more attention. Her biting critique ends by referring to The Onion's headline satirizing Girl Power Feminism: "Women Now Empowered by Everything a Woman Does" and writes: "Feminism as self-care, as self-empowerment, as self-absorption, as marketing strategy, as lifestyle choice, is toothless" and loses its radical potential to affect the world in meaningful ways, and is why it has been co-opted so readily by the mainstream: "it poses no threat to upend the social structure." Unfortunately, it is just this kind of feminism that permeates the yoga and wellness community.

3. Chapter Three is a fairly deep dive into "The Social Construction of Gender" and except for the minority of feminists self-identified as "Difference Feminists" and "Eco-Feminists," she points out that most contemporary feminists are anti-essentialists. I come to my feminism through the anti-essentialist teachings of the Buddha as framed in the discourse on "emptiness" and "not-self" but periodically, Hay reveals an essentialism of her own through her use of overly broad generalizations and an often simplistic reductionism that seems to contradict her earlier statements about women's diverse lived experiences.

4. In a chapter that otherwise has many problems, not least of which is a contradictory incoherence that seems to argue that transwomen are women from what sounds like an essentialist paradigm while criticizing TERFs for falling into a biological essentialism, she mades a point through an analogy that I wish more people would consider: It has been estimated that "people born with intersex conditions make up around 1.7% of the human population" and I have heard some people use this small percentage to write off making any concessions to this population, yet this is "roughly equivalent to the percentage of the US population who use a wheelchair" and while there remains more we can do, just consider all we have done to accommodate wheelchair users from curb cuts, and ramps to special elevators etc. And yet, many resist simply acknowledging that there are people who fall outside the male/female binary! As Hay reminds us: "This social erasure has concrete effects on their well-being."

The major problem I have with this chapter is that she grounds it on Judith Butler's assertion that "sex isn't a clear-cut biological reality any more than gender is" and as far as I know, Butler is not any kind of biologist! Here is where Hay hammers home an ideology and ignores the on-going conversation as to how to think of biological sex. She confuses the sexist patriarchal valuations of sex differences projected onto gender roles while there is no inherent reason that this need be! It is that prejudiced valuation that needs to be jettisoned, not necessarily the concept of biological sex. This is not to say that the concept itself can not also be altered, expanded, but to reduce it to a complete cultural construct at this time does not seem to be justified according to the state of the scientific discourse.

5. Chapter Five, "Sexual Violence" offers a clear and sobering investigation of what is really meant by "rape culture" and is a sobering reminder of just why the need for feminism! Ask any woman what measures they take to avoid sexual assault. Some of what they say I do as well to avoid being mugged... but being raped tends not to be on the mind of any man. In fact, when Hay asks her students this question, the male students have no response other than sometimes joking "I'd avoid going to prison" to which Hay responds: "Wrap your head around this: the number-one fear that men most have about going to prison is something that women live with every day of their lives." THAT should be fucking sobering and maddening to all right-thinking people.

6. Her final chapter has some really good things on the practice of consent, but otherwise is the weakest chapter of the book. The section "How to Talk to Kids" begins with yet another generalization: "What's the first thing you do when you're making small talk with a little girl? You compliment her dress. You comment on her hair...." and it goes on and on from there! Really? In this day and age she expects that this is how someone who reads a book on feminism talks to girls????

An overarching issue I wrestled with in reading this book comes up when she argues about the "internalization" of sexism and oppression. For instance, she quotes Catherine MacKinnon who wrote: "Women live in objectification the way fish live in water" to which one must ask how MacKinnon can argue that if true! Is it because she has some special power or position that she can say this? The logical contradiction is this: IF the internalization is so total, she could not be able to make such a criticism! Not only that, when the argument is made that "others" have internalized their oppression, one completely denies them any self-agency and that's a move I personally feel I must be wary of. All those White women who voted for Trump? Blacks who voted for Trump? Are we really going to be so arrogant that we will reduce their choice to internalized oppression? Now, I am not denying the reality of internalization... I'm simply saying we can not ever be sure that it is the factor at play in any given situation. When she writes "We're not going to get to the root of this injustice unless we're allowed to have something to say about the content of people's desires" I hear a voice asking who gives any the right to comment on the desires of others?

And then Hay follows this with: "We know it's insulting to be treated like a piece of meat...but we simultaneously feel bad when we're not treated this way." Note that Hay uses what Matthew Remski has coined the "First Person Plural Omniscient" as if she can speak for ALL women (there's that essentialist streak creeping in). Do ALL woman have this experience? I may be wrong, but I've had many, many women friends over the course of my life, and I'm not sure ALL of them would agree.

My biggest disappointment comes from Hay's often interjecting her own inability to embody the very critique she is making and once again assuming that this is as common experience among women and maybe it's because I know so many women who seem to live outside this box but I have some difficulty with her complicity. She writes: "When a woman capable of approximating traditional beauty ideals invests in her femininity...she makes things worse for women who can't or won't be seen as conventionally attractive." Now, that in itself is actually a questionable statement, but worse she elsewhere shares how she does just that (investing in her femininity).

A. "Lest you think I fancy myself above all this cultural brainwashing, let me make it clear that I'm writing this with my stomach rumbling from having skipped lunch, the underwire from my bra digging into my rib cage, and mascara flaking into my eyes."

B. "I'm quite certain I'm not alone in feeling naked if I go out in public without wearing makeup. I know I'm not the only femme with a closet full of agonizing shoes she hardly ever wears. I'll confess to spending a truly shocking percentage of my monthly budget on waxing, haircuts, and mani/pedis. No one is forcing me to do any of this stuff, and I'd be lying if I pretended that I didn't enjoy it. How then, are we to understand my responsibility here?" Aside from that universalizing "we" I can ask why do it if you don't like it and why complain if you do?

And in her closing section of the book she shares about how she usually enjoys performing her femme identity, the makeup that's "fun" and the "cute shoes" and feeling "glee" when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror on a day when she's feeling pretty. And she adds, "I've been pretty good about not falling prey to the bad-faith pretense that I want to look and dress like this 'for myself' because, c'mon, if we're honest with ourselves, dressing for ourselves looks like yoga pants and fuzzy sweaters, not stilletos and push-up bras."

Her strategy for dealing with her contradictions is something she calls "candid ambivalence" inspired by Sandra Bartky who argues that "a woman is entitled to her shame." Hay comments, "It's not that this woman ought to feel shame, exactly.... But neither is it that she ought not to feel shame: "her desires are not worthy of her, after all, nor is it clear that she is a mere helpless victim of patriarchal conditioning, unable to take any responsibility at all for her wishes and fantasies" and it makes sense for this woman to feel shame because "shame is a wholly understandable response to behavior that is seriously at variance with your principles."

Well, to that I can say, an alternative is to live in integrity... or at least move in that direction. If one seriously feels this contradiction between behavior and principles, then that seems the least one can do.

[MMelania · Rating 3 out of 5]

well researched and organized, accessible and practical (maybe too practical, the feminism dos and don'ts were a little too much for me)
do i agree with everything hay wrote? no, but i still think this book gives a valid insight into feminism history and key concepts.

[Sandra]

Listened to an episode of the podcast Factually with Adam Conover discussion this topic with the author Carol Hay, super interesting.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to intersectional feminism. Very approachable, concise, addresses gender identity, class, and race.

[Rachel Miller Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great crash course to refresh my memory of what I learned in college and catch me up to where we are today with regard to intersectionality. Easy to read, with a clear author’s voice.

[Mateo Dk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of thoughts I don't particularly want to put in a review right now but this is an interesting read and I loved when philosophy was included -- that's the highlight!!

[Sam Webber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a little basic for me, but I think it would be useful for a teen or young person who didn't know much about feminism but was interested in learning. Definitely written in a casual, conversational way.

[Kendra Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. Especially women who start conversations with "I'm not a feminist, but..."

Think Like a Feminist works hard to decenter white feminism and to call out the ways that women can connect across class & race lines (sometimes, that means white women learning better listening skills--this reviewer included). She is clear that the term women includes trans women (obvious, but a required caveat to keep me reading). And that people should be able to choose their gender expression, but that patriarchy holds sway over all of us (and the way we present ourselves), feminists included. She champions holding the system accountable instead of a micro-focus on the actions of individual women (most of whom are doing the best they can under a patriarchal system), while still calling for personal accountability for the reader (after all, you can only control you).

Carol Hay manages to fit in a heap of philosophy--and actually make me care about it. I've long avoided philosophy because it kind of makes my brain hurt. But but the end of this book, I was scouring the notes trying to figure out what I should read next.

I laughed multiple times while reading Think Like a Feminist--laugh out loud guffaws. Hay made me feel like I was grabbing an espresso with a friend, laughing at the tomfoolery of the patriarchy, while admitting that there's serious work to be done. In essence, Hay's work made me feel decidedly not alone.

There are practical tips, thoughtful discussions, and a healthy dose of hope for a way forward--all while admitting that this work will not be finished in our lifetime. Or even in the next generation's. But truly intersectional feminism is the path forward for us all to rise (men included).

If I could wave a wand and require that everyone read this book, I would. It's solid primer on feminism. I'll be thinking about it (and reading books from its bibliography) for a long time coming.

[Susan Lenci]

I am a feminist. I believe equality between the sexes. I also know, as stated in the book, that feminism has a “PR problem.” I believe everyone should read a book like this to further understand the true meaning behind the word and deep problems within our society.⁣
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Carol Hay uses her more than 20 years of experience in teaching and writing about feminism to cover topics such as oppression of women, gender roles, sexual violence against women, as well as broad connections between sexism, racism, classism, and homophobia.⁣
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It is a widely known truth that women are disadvantaged relative to men, but rarely accepted as something that should be changed or acted upon. I think a book like this could change that mindset. ⁣
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Especially in the world where major political candidates have been credibly accused of sexual harassment and assault, I think this is an important book for everyone to read and further understand treatments, experiences, and underlying oppression of women.⁣
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Thank you to @netgalley and @w.w.norton for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. ⁣

[Alicia Mayonesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a friend we created this year a Feminist Book Club, and started off by reading this book, which we heard of from Overthink podcast interviewing the author. It was really a great book.
Personally I loved the birdcage analogy to explain oppression, and intersectionality is amazingly well described. The chapter on rape was also very interesting. Personally the weakest points for me where the chapters on sex and gender, which I found a bit too superficial, but still very good.
It is anyway an introductory book to feminism, which touches upon many different topics, so don’t expect it to go very deep into anything. But brings up many other authors and people of interest in every chapter, so you can dig further in whatever interests you.

If you are wondering whether to read it or not, I recommend you listen to the Overthink podcast episode on feminism with Carol Hay, and see whether that is what you’re looking for.

[E.R. Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I didn't realize I was desperately waiting for! Carol Hay distills centuries of feminist thought, from Mary Wollstonecraft to modern intersectional feminism, into 190 pages of pure badass clarity. She presents many of the conflicting and complementary ideas of feminism and brings a modern, intersectional, antiracist, LQBTQIA-friendly take on them. She tackles TERFs (they're not real feminists, and they suck); how racism and classism come into play; how women can both serve the patriarchy and be subjugated by it. Please, if you're in need of a quick, digestible primer on feminist thought, pick up this book.

[Joe Zivak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vyborne zaklady feministickeho myslenia. Aktualne a zrozumitelne napisane. Bolo by dobre vydat aj v slovencine.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hay provides what seems to me like a pretty good primer on Feminism. She presents the material in a way that will be attractive to those who do not count themselves feminists yet. One of the smarter moves is to address and set aside that part of feminism which feeds two common narratives about feminism, the trope of the angry feminist and the more positive but not very helpful one of Girl Power, e.g. the idea of leaning in, making it in the corporate world. As she recognizes, these are elements of feminism that "get traction in the popular imagination" but they are not mainstream feminism and not very helpful to building a movement. She does not deny that there is a wing of angry feminism to acknowledge, but as she acknowledges it and the experiences that lead some women to adopt an angry stance, she also cabins it off and leaves it and the idea of girl power feminism off to one side. I imagine that there will be those who think this approach is dismissive of those angry sisters, but I think Hay is wise to recognize that her effort to reach a wider audience is helped by this cabining off of the fringes. Yes, to some extent this makes this a sanitized feminism, safe and comfortable for the middle class white women (and men) who read it.

I think she is right to recognize that "Women sour on this kind of feminism [angry feminism] because we see feminists as enemies of glamor, because we resent being called out for our failures of existential responsibility, because we think it threatens what little influence we have in a man's world." I would go a step further myself and suggest that many women are not as uncomfortable with the status quo in the men in it as feminist analysis says they should be. I would imagine that Hay aims for an audience of women who are questioning the place assigned them by society and looking for others who are also questioning. For the right reader this would definitely be a four or even five star read. As for me, it gave me what I was looking for, a clear and readable summary of feminism in a tone and voice that was very accessible for me, a white male reader who has recently felt a bit behind on the developments in feminism represented by the third wave.

[Giorgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book, I am by no means a scholar on feminism or critical theory, so I found it super accessible. I really needed a book like this in my early years of university. I used to be one of those young women who felt uncomfortable with the label of "feminist" because of the tropes of the "angry feminist" and the "girl power feminist". It seemed like those were the only two options. Cis women around me at uni were going to "slutwalks" and arguing with people online, wanting to "free the nipple", taking sexy photos for social media, talking about rape culture and wearing "Dump Him" earrings. To be clear, I have no issue with any of these actions, I just couldn't relate to them at all. These young women used to talk with vitriol about some of the men in their lives. I had always cherished the men in my life, and I was very familiar with their vulnerability.
I didn't want to buy a "male tears" mug. It probably helps of course that I haven't been persistently abused or assaulted by men. I understand that I'm privileged in that sense and that many of these women were very much justified in their anger.

I also didn't relate to the whole "hot girl summer girl gang" stuff. I was so sick of seeing conventionally attractive cis women in supposedly groundbreaking nude photography projects on social media about reclaiming the female gaze.

I have always felt like a person first, and I happen to be a woman. Other women around me seemed much more comfortable or at least certain about their womanhood and its corollary oppressions.

As Carol Hay says in the book, "men in general are not the enemy" and "feminism's real enemies are those men and women who willingly support a patriarchal society and it's social institutions, norms, assumptions, and expectations that function below the level of which we're usually consciously aware". I know this already, but it's refreshing and actually helpful to see it in print. I am a feminist and I'm keen to read more.

[Bridget Hathaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of this book! A lot of other feminist-focused books I’ve read often are filled with history and facts about women’s oppression (wage gap, sexual assault, beauty industry stats that are beginning to sound like a broken record) but I really appreciated the ‘thought experiments’ Carol posed in many parts of this book as she explored various hypothesis, although I guess that is the nature of philosophy. I also appreciated that she recognized the many sides of feminism & their opposing viewpoints along with their corresponding battles.

Something new for me was “sex as a social construct,” which I found a very interesting idea. In previous gender studies classes, I had learned lots about gender as a social construct, but continuing to learn about sex as a sliding scale (especially in other cultures) rather than black & white (& sometimes grey) adds a lot of context to many feminist & equality arguments.

Can’t recommend enough! Her Canadian humor is a bit of an added bonus (:

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Feminism has a PR problem."

4.5⭐
Every year, I try to choose a non-fiction book to study; sometimes they're about cults, trees, or this year, feminism. The concepts Carol Hay writes about aren't new but she introduces them in a way that doesn't feel overwhelming. There is a humour to her writing that is genuinely captivating and kept me going throughout the chapters when they felt a bit academic. I loved her approach to this book and will be trying to see if I can get my hands on her other book in the new year.

[Ali Marinelli-Cetin · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I texted a friend- she’s dropping the truth and making me laugh at the same time. I might also add that she provides practical solutions without pretending to be a high brow theorist with little real world connection. Though she’s real, she is armed with a deep and fluent understanding of feminist philosophy and history. It makes me want to educate myself further, and that's my most favorite kind of book.

[Lumpy Space Queen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Think I'm Too Old for This Book

I must be getting old, but this book had a bad case of meme speak. I felt like I was reading a reddit thread on buzzfeed. I could picture the blurbs on tumblr or ig. It tries too hard to be relevant. I'm creeping up on 50 & am firmly in my Gen Z demo, so maybe it's me turning into a cynical crone. Whatever.

That being said it did give me new insights on an old struggle.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the history of feminism, but perhaps a bit remiss in mentioning the lessons we should have learned (?) This book could be used as perhaps an appropriate hand-over for our feminist youth. Especially liked how she describes the departure from the historical idea of feminist activism (and hence, facilitating real change for all by actually DOING the work), by illuminating the error in becoming devoted to and/or blindsided by modern day 'squad' (Taylor Swift) culture.
Decent.

[Renee Parlopiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a second wave feminist . This book taught me things I didn't know and confirmed things I did. It also taught me new ways of looking at problems every woman faces no matter her age. I'm very proud to have raised a son who teaches a class in feminism on a college level and recommended this book. I recommend it as well.

[Valeria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great introduction into feminist thinking. It clearly outlines the problems that feminism is concerned with and sort of why/where they stem from. Carol Hay takes you on a journey of the history of the feminist movement while being accessible and hilarious at some points. I would recommend this book to anyone who is not sure about what feminism is and what it involves.

[Madeleine Gale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Debated between 2 and 3 stars for this book. While I liked a lot of the ideas Hay brings up throughout the chapters, ultimately the book is a bit disappointing. I wished she had spent more time on some topic. Also, I found the final chapter to be rather underwhelming. Overall, a good introduction to thoughts of feminism but nothing i would call enlightening.

[Genae Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book. It’s thoughtful and wise while also bringing Hay’s iconic wit, irreverence, and ability to promote catharsis. It also has something for everyone from the feminist novice to (at least from my experience) those who are already in the trenches. I will be assigning this for my classes going forward, as I think that it is required reading.