RogerBW's Blog

Trainwreck, Sady Doyle 12 February 2020

2016 non-fiction. Doyle examines the history and the anatomy of the celebrity trainwreck, the (female) figure who is deemed to have fallen from grace and behaved badly.

And the first point is that this is not at all new: for example, Mary Wollestonecraft, whose private correspondence was published by her husband after her death, was known far more for having had a sexual life than for A Vindication of the Rights of Women, for a century or more after her death.

This is a consciously feminist book, and it makes a consciously feminist point, with many examples: that for the woman there is no way to win this game other than never to come to public attention in the first place, because nobody can measure up to the perfect-woman image (and while men can have problems, and are usually allowed to get over them, women are defined by them). Have sex? Slut. Not have sex? Frigid. As a woman, you can be a Hilary Clinton or a Monica Lewinsky, but you'll be abhorred either way.

And in the modern day, "public attention" can mean "one statement on social media that people notice".

Some of this gets heavy-handed; bad behaviour by women is always excused, while bad behavour by men is castigated, though the conclusion largely tries to fix that problem. But even so, books like this point up one of the reasons why I call myself a feminist: because I see the behaviour of the people who want that to be a bad word.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1