Book Reviews: He's a Stud, She's a Slut

I'm a huge fan of feministing.com and since I have an amazon prime account (thanks, Gillian!) I thought He's a Stud, She's a Slut and 49 Other Double Standards That Every Woman Should Know by Feministing's Jessica Valenti would be a good purchase.

I really like Jessica's writing. Actually, I really like Jessica. She's sort of tomboy-chic or something. She's delightful feisty and pretty darn sassy. Sometimes I think she gets a little bit too sarcastic (especially I think she over does it on the "how charming." type humour) but mostly she cracks me up, and semi-more importantly, riles me up and makes me think.

I bought this book in hopes that it would make me feel a bit more affirmed. I feel like I'm always being told to shake it off, chill out. He didn't mean to be offensive. Take it easy. That's only one way of interpreting it. Pick your battles. And hearing that all the time just gets old. So I guess I bought this book to encourage myself to stand up a little louder next time even if everybody else is still in their seats.

And I was totally not let down. Even the basic stuff (like the chapters "he's manly, she's a sasquatch" or "he's childless, she's selfish") that can sometimes get all "I know, I know" was written in just such a fun way. She provided pithy facts so that next time say, wage discrepancies comes up, I'll have some cold hard numbers to back myself up. I underlined things from almost all of the 50 chapters. Sometimes I underlined like, the whole chapter. (Best one: "he's a hero, she's a damsel")

At the end of every chapter, Jessica gives a "So... what to do?" of things we should do to combat the double standard. Most of the time it was like "okay, I'm kind of already doing that" and a few times it was like "oh, good idea" but one time... well, it was the chapter on how the media targets female celebrities. Blah blah how terrible is that, etc. Many of my feminist friends have picked a bone with me over my love of celebrity gossip (usually ending with me getting really defensive and all, "I DO IT OUT OF LOVE. JENNIFER GARNER AND BEN FOREVA. ALSO, HOLLA HOLLA KRISTEN BELL") but I am addicted to that stuff so I keep on reading. But Jessica provided a bunch of good points and then in her "So... what to do" section told me I have to stop reading celeb gossip. "WUT. NO WAY." I said decisively. "Yes way," the book said back. "K FINE" I cried and on the spot removed ALL (except Jezebel because that doesn't all the way count, right?) my celeb gossip book marks from my tool bar. WOWIE. And I haven't looked back since, really. (Kind of. I still browse US Weekly when I'm at Borders but come on.)

So what I'm saying is that you should really get this book. You can read the first chapter and a half and see the full chapter listing on amazon. It's like $11. I really recommend it. I'm definitely going to buy her other book (soon to be books plural) but first I have to finish a bunch of other books I bought on sale that I haven't read yet. (Slaughter House Five. It's a hard one to start, you know?)

[Rating out of a hundred just for Peter: 93/100]