Book Review: Seeing Like A Feminist

My Ratings: 9.0 / 10

About the Author

Nivedita Menon is a noted feminist, author, activist and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has a history of involvement in wide range of issues: secularism, labour rights, women’s rights, sexuality and opposition to nuclear programme. She is a frequent writer on current issues at kafila.org.

Her major book publications:

• Power & Contestations: India since 1989
• Seeing Like a Feminist
•  Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law
• Gender and Politics in India
• Sexualities

You can follow her posts in Kafila at: http://kafila.org/author/nivmen/

About the Book: It’s all about the theme

After going through a lot of book review blogs, I have found that most of the reviews doesn’t capture the memorable moments when you read a particular book. As a change from the usual routine of writing a monotonous book review, I thought I would just include some of the memorable quotes from the book which would capture the essence of the theme discussed and help people in making a decision on whether to read the book or not.

The book ‘Seeing like a Feminist’ is definitely worth reading and I would rate as one of the must read books in your lifetime. It helps the reader in understanding how the world appears to a feminist and learn what is meant by a feminist stance. I would include some of my favourite quotes from the book which would summarise and help you understand what to expect from this book.

“When one sees the world like a feminist, with the gaze of a feminist, it’s like activating the ‘Reveal Formatting’ function in Microsoft Word. It reveals the strenuous, complex formatting that goes on below the surface of what looked smooth and complete”

“If the body we inhabit is marked male, it has one kind of effect, if female, another kind of effect, if Black, or Dalit, or disabled another kind of effect. These effects are structural, material and psychological”

“The real remedy to breaking caste is inter-caste marriage. Nothing else can serve as solvent for caste”

“If they see breasts and long hair coming, they call it woman. If beard and whiskers, they call it man. But look the self that hovers in between is neither man nor woman”

“Racism is a good example of biological determinism, as is the caste system, because both ideologies are based on the assumption that certain groups of people are superior by birth, and they are born with characteristics, such as greater intelligence and special skills, that justify their power in society”

“Until the middle of twentieth century in the West, for instance, pink was the colour for boys and blue for girls. It is only in the mid twentieth century that the opposite colour coding began to appear normal”

Last but not the least; the book contains a lot of notable cases which has happened around the world and the consequences. These cases are highly informative and help us get a firm understanding on the roots of the problem. A special case study is covered on the sexual harassment case lodged against a powerful male professor of Delhi University and the aftermath. Overall the book is a must read for people who love to see a change in the society.