About the last book I'd ever pick up on my own (I am about as far from interested in sports as one can possibly be), but Ware's successful integrationAbout the last book I'd ever pick up on my own (I am about as far from interested in sports as one can possibly be), but Ware's successful integration of a widespan of provocative topics--feminism, Title IX, the politics of athletics, BJ King, public outing, &co--proved a quite interesting and educational (but not boring) read. I can't say I came away from the book *liking* King really at all, but I don't require that from a biographical portrait. She certainly offers a useful icon/figurehead for the intersections of these diverse issues, even if she seems self-serving and, well, profoundly fake.
It's an accessible book that wears its research well. In the interest of full disclosure, Susan Ware was teaching a grad course I was in at the time of reading, but this is no sycophantic review. I think particularly if you're interested in feminist history, sports, tennis, or King this will be a wonderfully useful book to have at hand....more
I'll need to come back to this one, as I'm not sure I quite buy (or perhaps simply don't understand) the notion of the "female mind" that has been effI'll need to come back to this one, as I'm not sure I quite buy (or perhaps simply don't understand) the notion of the "female mind" that has been effaced through the normative injunction in literature for male readers. To implicitly rely on a notion of 'liberating' the feminine way of reading seems to me, (a) very in line with a tradition of French feminist though, and (b) unproductive in relation to Felman's discussion of the instability of self-knowledge and autobiography. So this deserves a re-read, and will be getting one when I've more time in the spring. Really powerful reading of Freud's Irma dream, and though I've not read Balzac, her chapters on his stories were fun reads. It's the first and last chapters, however, where Felman stakes her claim--and it's to those chapters that I need to return before making a clear response to this text....more
Rarely have I felt alienated by a feminist text; I've read hooks on a few occasions (and enjoyed her), but I found this book to be both hostile and hyRarely have I felt alienated by a feminist text; I've read hooks on a few occasions (and enjoyed her), but I found this book to be both hostile and hypocritical. As hooks is arguing for an allowance of complexity and a breakdown of dualistic cultural thinking, the way she phrases both her issues with the 'white bourgeois femininst movement' (an appropriate critique at that historical moment, so foundationally, I agree) and possible solutions, she once again falls into reductive formulations and dualisms on race, class, sex/gender, and sexuality--it becomes an us vs. them sort of text, rather than one (as she 'claims') that seeks ways in which everyone can in fact work together for feminist movement. Which is not to say I naively believe in some utopic vision of 'solidarity'--but only that the venues of change hooks imagines presuppose very specific images of the 'good' feminist and the 'bad' one (or the 'enemy'). Which, to my mind, is wildly unproductive.
I give the book 3 stars, nonetheless, because I agree with many of the principles/problems hooks sets forth (the critique of white hegemony in feminist movement, her push for literacy and educational opportunity, her understanding of 'revolution' as a gradual process), but just not the way she articulates them, or many of the resolutions (which are often merely utopic, rather than pragmatic--despite her push for praxis). A seminal text, and I can always appreciate dated feminist books for their positions at a certain historical moment, but I have doubts about the efficacy of this one now....more
