Women Don't Owe You Pretty

the first book that every girl needs as they're growing up is that american girl doll ‘care and keeping of you' book. the second is florence given's Women Don't Owe You Pretty.

i cringe thinking of all the times in my life this book would've come in handy as near-free therapy. while from the outside it seemed like very live-laugh-love feminism, instead we got class-conscious, privilege-acknowledging, girlbossing feminism. love the book, hate that it took me 24 years before reading it

I especially related to Chapter 1, ‘Feminism Is Going To Ruin Your Life', because it did in fact ruin my life. When I first started looking into feminism more, I became aware of so much blatant misogyny. It's in everything, it's everywhere, and it really does ruin your happiness. Things that you used to once enjoy now leave a sour taste in your mouth.

I also really appreciate that Given made many notes about POC, disabled, and trans women and the problems that they have to go through that other women do not. I always feel as if the feminist movement is dominated by white cigendered women and I valued seeing more diversity, it gave me an entirely new perspective.

With that being said though, at lot of what Given wrote was repetitive. Most of the book was what any feminist had heard before, I feel she started out pretty strong in the first chapter but it gradually became stale. The last 6 or so chapters I found myself skimming pretty hard.

Perhaps closer to 4 stars.

Great entry for feminism, explored a variety of subjects.

The drive to read this kind of stemmed from watching 20th Century Women and seeing how a partial solution to raising a boy was to give him feminist literature to read. (who knew I could learn so much about being a man by reading about how to be a better woman? Probably every woman). Cool stuff


This ruled. And was a big slap in the face for me.

It's very beginner friendly which was perfect - it's the first time I have deliberately chosen to sit with and engage with some kind of feminist literature outside of a school / lecture setting and it made all the difference. Granted I only ‘sat with it' for 3 days (chewed through it) but it taught me so much about the things I think I knew and revealed heaps of my blind spots - not just about gender related issues but also about how I can have more boundaries, preserve my own energy etc.

Also, as a male identifying person, reading the book was a beautiful stretch in my empathy. Which should be the standard thing to do, so more work to do there.

I fall out of the “ideal” age bracket for this book, however there was still loads for me to read and consider. As well as the fact I am bringing up children, it helps me think of the way the world can influence them too. To be aware is to be able to make change.
Essential reading tbh.