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Difficult Women
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Anthologies & Short Stories
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A classic work of feminist scholarship, Ain't I a Woman has become a must for all those interested in the nature of Black womanhood. Examining the impact of sexism on Black women during slavery, the devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism among feminists, and the black woman's involvement with feminism, hooks attempts to move us beyond racist and sexist assumptions. The result is nothing short of groundbreaking, giving this work a critical place in every feminist scholar's library.
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One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past 50 years, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, "essential" notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category "woman" and continues in this vein with examinations of "the masculine" and "the feminine." Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.
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An absolute classic let down in its performance
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Difficult Women
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Performance
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Helen Lewis argues that feminism’s success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. It’s time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women.
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Performance
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Story
Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he's doing in the baseball diamond. Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life. And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won't ever talk about any of them again. He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it's no accident. All of them are suspects. Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you'll go to protect them.
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Okay story, saved by the performance
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Queenie
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- Unabridged
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Story
A darkly comic and bitingly subversive take on life, love, race and family, Queenie will have you nodding in recognition, crying in solidarity and rooting for this unforgettable character every step of the way. A disarmingly honest, boldly political and truly inclusive tale that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and acceptance and found something very different in its place.
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Disappointing, had potential
- By Taneshia Deckon on 24-04-20
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White Fragility
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- By: Robin DiAngelo
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reactions only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction. Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy.
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Very repetitive, very preachy, poorly evidenced
- By Michael on 03-06-20
Summary
The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. A pair of sisters, grown now, have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind.
From a girls' fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbours conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America.
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What listeners say about Difficult Women
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- Amazon Customer
- 28-06-20
awful narrator
couldn't finish with the audio book as I couldn't cope with the awful narrator .
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- Isabel
- 21-07-19
Raw, real, fascinating, beautifully written
Some of the stories are hard, the kind that gets under your skin, makes you suffer. But they are so well written, so raw and real, that it is hard to stop listening. Highly recommended.