Book Review: The Guilty Feminist

Why do we find it so hard to say 'No'? What does poker teach us about power structures? How can feminism be more inclusive? The Guilty Feminist will challenge you, reassure you and empower you to see the world differently.

A fantastic book. Even if you've listened religiously to The Guilty Feminist Podcast, or seen the author's solo shows, there's plenty of new material in here.

It's a powerful and inclusive piece of work. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about modern feminism, I guarantee you'll find something new - and breathtaking - in there.

It'll get you angry, fired-up, and hopeful for the future.

I stopped highlighting passages halfway through, because it feels like every other sentence could be pasted on a t-shirt. This is the one which resonated the most for me:

If you’ve been raised with running water and had it every day of your life, you will feel entitled to it. Hot and cold water from a tap doesn’t occur in nature, so this is a privilege you’ve always known that’s come to feel like a right. If your water got turned off today, you’d phone the council. If it wasn’t back on in forty-eight hours you’d be tweeting, and if it wasn’t restored in a week you’d be writing angry letters. At no point would you think, ‘Well, I guess we don’t have running water any more. Where’s the closest river? I guess I’ll have to walk down there with a jug on my head.’ Although many people around the world live like that every day, it would almost certainly never be acceptable to you because running water is your standard, your normal, your expectation. Entitlement is the residue of privilege.