Bitch Planet Volume 2

Powerful writing. I found it to be riveting.

I must know what happens next! If this lacked a bit of the fresh verve that accompanied my reading of the first volume, it was more than compensated by the wonderful representation of trans women, and a greater glimpse into the resistance!

ELEANOR
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Incisive, subversive, infuriating and enlightening. I had forgotten a lot of the worldbuilding from Vol. 1 but, ah yes, we're in a nightmare corporo-theocracy where American gender norms are taken just a couple inches further. And it is a frickin' NIGHTMARE.

In our (real) world where:
- the government is legislating that employers can deny to cover women's birth control
- and don't even talk about abortions
- also, btw, paid maternity leave is a mythical unicorn
- articles are written about women “having it all”, as if there's some sort of inherent tension between giving birth and working OH WAIT WE JUST LEGISLATED THAT TENSION INTO EXISTENCE
- and we have “respectability feminism” stuff like Lean In or whatever, where - as long as women negotiate more/speak up more/do XYZ more/better - then all the structural sexism will magically disappear at their feet, into puddles
- where a man with a wide reputation for, in his 30s, having sexually pursued girls in their teens, lost a Senatorial race IN A SQUEAKER and everyone was relieved and amazed!
- where a man bragged about assaulting women (“when you're a star, they let you do it”) and later won the Presidency

and so on. Yeah, so that's the sexist nightmare we're already living in, and it blows. The Bitch Planet universe takes place, say, 100 years from now, and assumes things never get any better, and only get a little bit worse. It's also kinda like Orange is the New Black, in that it's about prison sisterhood. It's great. I loved it. When's Vol 3 coming out?!