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Hey ladies! Just wanted to share a book that I just read. I have no idea if this was on the FDS book list, but it def should be if there is a new FDS book list.
Mona’s seven necessary Sins for women and girls are: Anger, Attention, Ambition, Profanity, Power, Violence, and Lust.
This books feels SO refreshing. Mona doesn’t hold back. She pulls from her life experiences as well as events across the world that broadened my own perspective. I absolutely loved the sections on Anger and Violence.
Mona Eltahawy talks about crimes against women, so major TW if you decide to read the book.
Here are just some quotes from the book -
“The most subversive thing a woman can do is to talk about her life as if it really matters.”
"Attention is power. When you command attention, you command power, and so patriarchy has muddied the waters around attention with the word 'whore.' A word intended to shame is used to convince women that to want attention is to want something shameful. Much like sex."
"We must refuse those crumbs [patriarchy gives some women]. Those crumbs are offered as compensation for a host of oppressions that patriarchy employs to maintain itself. I don't want crumbs; I want the whole cake. And I don't want patriarchy's cake - we must bake our own."
"If every act of violence against women were reported on the news, it would be recognized for the epidemic - the war - that it is. Instead only 'especially' violent attacks are reported and not even all of those, which tells you that society does not care and/or is immune to them. A daily war is carried out against women, and yet it is not called “barbaric” or savage.” we are supposed to learn to live with it, accommodate it, never fight it.”
“If every murder, rape, sexual assault, beating, and instance of physical and sand emotional abuse of women were reported, everyday, it would force us to see that it is not merely “psychopaths” who are violent towards women but fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, boyfriends, and ordinary men. [And this benefits all men]”
“Not only are women socialized into submission, but we are told, essentially, not to be violent even as a form of self-defense but to wait until the men can stop being violent toward us.”
“Men do not fear retaliation for violence against women, whereas women do fear retaliation for their use of violence against men.” - Quoted from Miami School of Law professor Mary Anne Franks.
"The national US average prison sentence of men who kill their female partners is two to six years, while women who kill their partners are sentenced on average to fifteen years, despite the fact that most women who kill their partners do so to protect themselves from violence initiated by their partners."
“But I don’t want to be protected. I just want patriarchy to stop protecting and enabling men. I don’t want to be protected. I want to be free.”
I'm glad you posted this, as I had been contemplating getting this book. Women are so powerful, so much so that we are socialized out of using our power to hold up this horrible system. I really hope that is changing.
“Not only are women socialized into submission, but we are told, essentially, not to be violent even as a form of self-defense but to wait until the men can stop being violent toward us.” My grandma, which called herself a feminist, told me as a child that if I was ever kidnapped I should fake being in love with my abuser to get a chance to escape. I think I really internalized this lesson and became and became an extreme people pleaser to ensure my safety. “Men do not fear retaliation for violence against women, whereas women do fear retaliation for their use of violence against men.” I feel like assertiveness is dangerous for women, and I definitely shouldn't have to feel this way. I wish I was as physically strong as a man, as free to walk alone at night, as free to unapologetically ask for my needs to be met without fearing violence.
This book is definitely worth reading seing the quotes. Adding it to my kindle . 😇😇🤗🧐❤
I'm late to this post but I definitely need to read this.
"Attention is power. When you command attention, you command power, and so patriarchy has muddied the waters around attention with the word 'whore.' A word intended to shame is used to convince women that to want attention is to want something shameful. Much like sex." (p. 37)
"In the summer of 2018 Tokyo Medical University (TMU) was forced to admit it had 'systematically lowered the scores of female applicants to keep the number of women in the student body around 30 percent,' Agence France Presse reported...Unsurprisingly, the university blamed women for getting in their own way. The determination to limit to 30 percent the number of women admitted to the medical school, said an unnamed source to the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, was due to 'concerns female graduates were not going to practice medicine in employment.' [Because obviously they would have children and quit working]" (p. 89-90)
"The national US average prison sentence of men who kill their female partners is two to six years, while women who kill their partners are sentenced on average to fifteen years, despite the fact that most women who kill their partners do so to protect themselves from violence initiated by their partners." (p. 145)
“What if we nurtured and encouraged the expression of anger in girls the same way we encourage reading skills: as necessary for their navigation of the world? What if we believed that, just as reading and writing help a girl to understand the world around her and to express herself within it, expressing her anger was also a necessary tool for a girl making her way through life.”
“…I own my body. Nobody else owns it: not the state, the street, or the home, not the church, mosque, or temple.”