Review by Booklist Review
Just in time for the hundredth anniversary of white women's suffrage comes this masterful outlining of the progress and flaws of the feminist movement. Journalist, critic, and fiction writer Beck skillfully challenges the centralizing of white feminism and the women who have used it to advance their own rights while ignoring the rights of others. In this meticulously researched yet eminently readable history, she weaves in personal examples from her work as former editor-in-chief of Jezebel and executive editor at Vogue to illustrate how the legacy and ideology of white feminism still profoundly impact what we pay attention to and what we do not. At a time when "girlboss" is emblazoned on shirts in trendy fonts and women are encouraged to see personal success as a win for equality, issues such as poverty, police brutality, and immigration are not seen as being under the umbrella of women's issues. Beck's clearly laid-out examination and interrogation of white feminism will change the way readers think on a daily level. This new history is a timely call to action, and earns its place as required reading for anyone who claims to care about the future of feminism.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Beck rebukes mainstream feminism for catering to cisgender, heterosexual white women "with managerial ambitions" in this impassioned debut. Broadly defining "white feminism" as "a specific way of viewing gender equality that is anchored in the accumulation of individual power rather than the redistribution of it," Beck traces its history back to the suffrage movement, describing how elite white women fought primarily to gain the same rights and privileges enjoyed by their fathers and husbands. The women's movement of the 1960s and '70s repeated these sins, Beck argues, by focusing too narrowly on workplace issues and failing to make common cause with more radically transformative movements. Nowadays, Beck writes, profit-oriented corporate culture has merged with white feminism, resulting in a transactional #feminism brand that merely reinforces the status quo rather than challenging power structures. She argues for a more collective approach, urging readers to use their privilege to ensure that marginalized people are considered, to think systemically about oppression, and to hold powerful women accountable for perpetuating abusive systems. Beck makes many scholarly ideas about neoliberal and intersectional feminism accessible to lay readers, but her hyperfocus on the media sphere contradicts her call for a more inclusive movement. Still, this is a bracing rethink of what feminism can achieve. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Writer and author Beck, former editor in chief of Jezebel, critiques the dominance of white narratives in mainstream feminist discourse, especially its emphasis on corporate values and the pursuit of financial success for some privileged women at the expense of other women. The author draws on examples from U.S. history and popular culture to show how white women have embraced feminism as a branding strategy, from Lean In to women's magazines to Etsy merchandise at the 2017 Women's March. Meanwhile, she shows how the needs and basic rights of women of color, especially securing their physical and economic safety, have been sidelined and ignored. Beck's use of examples to illustrate her points is highly effective, and every page of this well-rounded book offers fresh insight. This essential account offers a skilled analysis of the ways feminism in the United States has been co-opted by white women in pursuit of wealth, and has failed to be inclusive and self-aware of women of color, economically disadvantaged women, and women in the LGBTQ community. VERDICT Readers who have not yet taken the time to deeply consider how privilege impacts feminist movements will finish the book with new perspectives on the topic of gender equality.--Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A clear analysis of the commodification of feminism from protest to brand. As the former editor-in-chief of Jezebel and executive editor of Vogue, Beck is no stranger to the White feminism that permeates the modern cultural landscape. As influencers blithely attach Audre Lorde quotes to Instagram ads and White women are once again donning literal and metaphorical pink hats in "protest," the author deftly retraces how we ended up here and highlights the many women this brand of feminism elides or ostracizes. Beck offers a lively history of the suffragettes and their ideological descendants, including the #GirlBoss and #MeToo movements. The author effectively brings out of the background many of the Black working women who enabled the success of the predominantly White and upper-class women at the center of these stories. "Instead of a protest vehicle," she writes, "feminism became a brand….To 'revolutionize' your life through business once again merges the radicalism of feminism with the corporate, women-oppressing language of capitalism. If you threw a millennial-pink lens over this saying, you could put it on Pinterest." Beck posits that the stark inequalities of so-called "women's empowerment" are exacerbated even more unevenly in the Covid-19 era. The pandemic has engendered further demarcations along class and racial lines, between protected forms of labor and the economically vulnerable--e.g., nannies, housekeepers, and other caretakers. The author situates herself as a woman with considerable influence who chooses to amplify underappreciated workers in concrete ways rather than resting on the laurels of corporate "diversity." With both vigor and rigor, Beck outlines a variety of fundamental problems with contemporary liberal feminism, which relies too much on brand endorsements and shallow empowerment. As she writes, "we can avoid becoming the next generation of white feminism by incorporating the points of view that this ideology does not account for." A timely, compelling dissection of feminism's reliance on consumerism and useful suggestions for paths forward. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
