Four Stars

I’m still so angry that I’m surprised I could focus long enough to finish this book. I started it right before the election, and finished it this weekend, in between quietly (I was visiting family) screaming at Twitter and just generally being pissed at how racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and just plain shitty so many people are in this country.

But I digress.

This is a useful book right now, as we all know that the sexists who may have been thinly veiled already are starting to show their asses even more. It is focused specifically on workplace sexism, which is perfect because the rules of engagement in that arena differ from, say, figuring out whether you want to kick directly in the balls the man who grabbed your arm on a street corner. It’s a more challenging environment, because how you react to the sexism can ultimately hurt you. Which is bullshit, but still true.

Ms. Bennett breaks the book down into six sections: Know the Enemy, Know Thyself, Booby Traps, Get Your Speak On, F You Pay Me, and What Would Josh Do. Each section takes on a different component of workplace misogyny, describing the problem and then offering some realistic and varying ways of responding. She isn’t telling us that every solution will work each time; she’s helping us build our arsenal so that we have the right weapon to deploy at the right time.

I am lucky in that my actual office is not particularly sexist. My team is more women than men, my boss is a woman (and so is her boss, and her boss’s boss, who happens to also be the head of the agency). However, outside my workplace, I am in a field full of not just men, but a lot of men in traditionally ‘manly’ roles – police, fire, military – which can include some … let’s go with ‘outdated’ actions and statements. While I’m not looking forward to needing to use the advice in this book, I am looking forward to using it effectively.

I think this is a great gift book to any young woman in your life who is entering the work force, or any woman currently in the work force, or any man in the work force (because they need to know what we are facing).

Four Stars

CN: Rape

I first learned about Ms. Luther during Wendy Davis’ filibuster of HB 2 in Texas – the bill that would eventually become the TRAP law that made it all the way to the Supreme Court as Whole Women’s Health. She is a journalist who has built her career focusing on the intersection of sports and culture, reporting extensively on how women are treated when they report that an athlete has sexually assaulted them.

Unsportsmanlike Conduct is a book from a small press that focuses exclusively on issues in sport, and the publishers approached Ms. Luther to write it. They also worked with her to create the framing for the book, which is about sexual assault committed by football players, and how both the victims and the student-athletes are failed by the system as it currently stands.

The first half consist of five chapters that set the stage – or field, as it were – as it currently stands. There is the field – the universities and colleges themselves – as well as what we don’t see.

She explores the tension that exists with a sport that sees majority black players and (assumed) majority white female who are assaulted and raped, and the history of racism there. The chapter that focuses on this history was fascinating and depressing, and important for understanding the entire issue. One fact she shared, which I found both unsurprising but also depressing as hell, was that the most important predictor of opposition to paying student athletes was if someone had a negative view of black people. Yikes.

With this history firmly grounded, Ms. Luther moves on to discuss the ways Universities, the NCAA and police will try to simply make the reports of rape and assault go away. Or, Coaches and Athletic Directors will claim that the cases just aren’t that big of a deal. Finally, she includes my personal (least) favorite – the attempt to just move on, and pretend everything has been handled appropriately. I loathe the ‘we’re looking to the future’ mentality, when the transgressions of the past have not yet been properly addressed. It is infuriating, and this chapter handles this well.

With the field set, Ms. Luther focuses the second half of the book on things that can be done to improve things now. There are ten chapters of varying length; the one that I think is the most critical (if we were to rate them) is the one that explores the reality of what trauma looks like. We so often hear ‘why didn’t she go to the police right away’ or ‘why did she text the guy a week later’ or ‘her story changed,’ but the media doesn’t provide the context for how the brain recovers memories after a traumatic event like a rape or assault.

I think this is an important book. Unfortunately, I cannot see coaches or the NCAA bothering to read it, because it is so critical of them. But if more students, players and journalists took the time to read it, I think we could see some progress. If the subject matter isn’t too triggering for you, I really hope you consider picking it up.

Three Stars

The day this book (which I had pre-ordered) was released, it was in the 80s out. I was walking home from work wearing two tank tops and covered with a sweater, because even though I was walking 1.5 miles home (uphill) in 80+ degree weather, I have big boobs, and those of us with big boobs know that hot weather clothing and a large chest don’t mix well if one wants to make it through the day without leers and snide comments. Of course, that’s not a guarantee that such comments and looks won’t come, as evidenced by the fact that on my way home, a man blocked my path, hovered about a foot away, made a move like he was going to walk away, then turned back with his hand out, making to grab my chest. He didn’t; instead he laughed and kept walking, while I told him to fuck off.

Good times.

Ms. Valenti’s memoir includes some similar stories, although her focus tends to be on her actions and reactions not necessarily to specific instances, but on how those instances are part of a larger, non-stop cacophony of shit that women deal with. Teachers who turn out to be creepers. Authority figures who don’t take threats to women seriously. Men who rape unconscious women but don’t really see anything wrong with it (*cough* Brock Turner *cough*), men who whip out their penises on subways or rub up against women on subways to get off (I, like Ms. Valenti, have experienced both of these things as well). Her own way of navigating this world involved drugs (mostly cocaine, and pot) and sex, at least as she has highlighted in this memoir. It follows her from youth through your daughter’s birth and beyond; however, I don’t think it actually really is fully chronological, although I could be wrong.

I believe I understand what Ms. Valenti was going for in framing her memoir this way, but I’m not entirely sure this book is successful in that regard. Each individual essay is mostly okay, although they all jump around in tenses so often that I actually did find myself having trouble understanding them at times. The topic areas and what she said will likely stick with me, but the organization of this memoir made it hard for me to really feel like I was connecting to the material, or to the author. I adore Ms. Valenti’s writings – Full Frontal Feminism and The Purity Myth are two of my favorite books – but this one won’t be added to that list.