Review: Bad Feminist

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's been quite a while since I've read an essay collection the whole way through. Story anthologies tend to be uneven, and that was what I was expecting here, but instead I got a pretty consistent collection - consistently pretty good, never bad but never great. The essays are generally themed on the intersection of pop culture and gender/race issues, with a few detailing the author's background and her relationship with feminism.

My main problem with a large number of the essays is their focus: so many started out on one topic and ended on another. Generally there was an evident connection between the two halves of the essay, but the second half was never tied back to the beginning to make the essay feel cohesive. One started as a discussion of "bad feminism" on a personal level, continued on to briefly talk about several high-powered women and their feminism (or lack thereof), and then ended with a long dissection of "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg - and then ended, very abruptly, without tying in that initial theme of "bad feminism." Obviously, these parts are connected. Meandering through related points is not a flaw in itself, but the lack of cohesion and repeated failure to eventually connect the initial THEME of the essay to its subject was disappointing. Often, this leads to the essays feeling unfinished.

Related to the above, Gay addresses a lot of tough issues - but rarely does she give them complex enough treatment. I felt like there was often an obvious next step in her argument or discussion and I was surprised it was left off. Perhaps this is because these essays were originally for wider audiences and not necessarily for a feminist essay collection, or because she is having a more a raw, passionate discussion than an academic one. Still, I was disappointed again there.

There were also three essays, right after another, that discussed race and media. I don't have any problems with the point of these essays - that movies (usually written/directed/produced by white people) like to fetishize black pain and slavery and use it to sell tickets, instead of telling any other kind of story about black people - but they were all essentially the same essay. Passages from each one felt re-hashed from others, especially because the movies discussed in-depth in one essay were often referenced more briefly in another. This is not a flaw of the individual essays, but a flaw of collection. They could have been adapted and combined, but one after another they are repetitive.

On the upside, though, there was a lot to enjoy about this. The prose was easy and enjoyable to read. You get a sense for the author's passions and personality in the early autobiographical essay, and her voice comes through consistently throughout. She brings up many tough issues, and usually gives them a pretty decent treatment. The occasional lack of cohesiveness is not a fatal flaw, because it feels like she is sitting there talking to you about things she cares about.

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