I am a bad feminist, not in the same vein as Roxanne Gay, but still I don't find myself to be a good feminist. I believe in women having every single opportunity, I believe in women making equal wages, and I think that having a vagina doesn't mean you have to be separated from a person with a penis unless literally it is for a porno casting. Women are every bit as smart, as strong, as capable as our male counterparts. Yet we're valued as less because somehow, somewhere, that became okay; and women have spent centuries trying to stop that bullshit.
Kameron Hurley's collection of geekish essay's lets me be okay calling myself a feminist. She doesn't blame men for the current plight of the females of our species, and she doesn't rally females into violent assault either. What she does is spend plenty of time building the reader up, and reminding them that regardless of gender we have a world we need to create, a world we need to support and embrace, a world that we need to be held responsible for and for what we put into it. As writers, consumers, citizens we have the immense responsibility for what we pour out of ourselves and into this world.
My copy of The Geek Feminist Revolution is now struck through and looks as though it is bleeding with the portions I have underlined, the notes I have added, the questions I have asked it knowing I won't get the answers from the pages; but rather from what I do after I read this book. TGFR contains real world advice on writing, the importance of ownership, and the surprising look into how much of geek culture is made up of women who aren't accepted into it. Hurley also spends a portion of the book explaining the culture of geekdom, how mainstream media dissects and perpetuates certain tropes and archetypes, and what makes her brand of geeky feminism so personal to her.
I can't explain what it is exactly that makes me love this book, and honestly I don't think I loved it for any specific reason. Finding something that helps you explore and understand a part of your identity as a woman and a geek in 2017 isn't easy, and I wasn't really looking for it. When I decided to read this book I needed to fulfill my Litsy A to Z "G" challenge, and find something that wasn't fiction. A collection of non-fiction essays certainly fit that bill, but gave me something more. I'm more fueled now to keep reading everything, to pick books that I normally wouldn't, to accept the fact that I love to read books that make most people think I'm a psychopath. I found utter acceptance in Hurley's essays, and I can't be the only one who did.
Challenge Met:
#LitsyAtoZ
Publishing Info:
287 pages (including notes and annotations!)
Originally Published on 5/31/2016 by Tor Books in English
ISBN 13: 9780765386243
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Geek-Feminist-Revolution-Kameron-Hurley/dp/0765386240/
Author Page: http://www.kameronhurley.com/
TBR because of this book:
Geek Girls Unite: How Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits Are Taking Over the World by Leslie Simon
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