The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.40
Trade in The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.40, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'A dose of feminist commonsense.' --Guardian
'Banyard's focus on action is inspiring ... Read it. Share it. Give it to your mum, your daughter, your son, your brother, your sister, your dad.' --Irish Times
'I love this book! Name-calling, finger-pointing and factually fascinating, it seems set to throw a giant spanner into the plans of man-pleasers, woman-haters and other assorted sad-sack seat-sniffers who put around the lie that feminism is no longer needed.' --Julie Burchill
'Banyard's focus on action is inspiring ... Read it. Share it. Give it to your mum, your daughter, your son, your brother, your sister, your dad.' --Irish Times
'I love this book! Name-calling, finger-pointing and factually fascinating, it seems set to throw a giant spanner into the plans of man-pleasers, woman-haters and other assorted sad-sack seat-sniffers who put around the lie that feminism is no longer needed.' --Julie Burchill
Book Description
A passionate and urgent new voice that will reclaim feminism for a new generation.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do we have an equal society?,
By
This review is from: The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today (Paperback)
Arranged in the form of progress through a typical day - the book starts with appearance and eating disorders. Anorexia and Bulimia are primarily women's diseases and over 90% of sufferers are women. Even young girls are expected to go to school wearing makeup and with their hair done properly and to diet until their bodies conform to the generally accepted ideas of beauty. For women a great deal of time must be spent ensuring they are fit to face the world. Appearances are all important and women will be judged on them throughout the day. Unlike men they can't just shower and throw on a few garments.The book highlights the way women are still regarded as bodies first and foremost rather than people. Women are judged on what they look like, what they wear and how they behave rather than being judged on their capabilities. The author raises some of the same questions as Natasha Walter in 'Living Dolls'. Is it really empowering to take up a career in the sex industry? The women the author talks to show clearly that being a lap dancer is not glamorous or even very well paid and that most women involved do it because they have been unable to find any other work which fits in with their other commitments. At work or school women and girls run the risk of being harassed and criticised for their appearance. I was horrified to read about the schoolgirls who suffer sexual abuse - both physical and verbal. Even if they complain they are just told `Boys will be boys'; which is hardly a constructive attitude. At work similar things happen and women are rarely judged on their ability to get the job done. Women are still in a minority in Parliament and in the top 100 companies. One fact which stuck in my mind is that Rwanda has more than 50% women in its government and that the position of women in that country is improving tremendously as a result. If they can do it why can't the First World? Anti-discrimination laws cannot change people's attitudes and even though legislation in the 1970s made overt discrimination illegal changing the law will not change people's attitudes so covert discrimination will still exist and is very much more difficult to identify. There is no doubt domestic violence of any sort is a serious problem in modern Britain but the book fails to discuss women's violence against men and children. It concentrates on male violence against women. Obviously this is important but I would have liked to see some mention of violence where women are the aggressors rather than the assumption that where women use violence it is always in self-defence. I thought the section on pornography and the sex industry in general was very interesting and conveys the way pornography is becoming ever more extreme. Aggression towards women is commonplace and women are treated as objects which men use for their pleasure. Lads mags are freely available - not even on the top shelf in newsagents - though their content is ever more pornographic and misogynistic. Pornography is almost exclusively heterosexual and strongly influences fashion and beauty - most notably in the way women are expected to remove all traces of body hair. This is an extremely interesting and well written book which raises many questions about the state of gender equality today. It contains a comprehensive list of organisations fighting for gender equality, together with notes on each chapter and a short list of useful reading. There are many references which can be followed up for more information and an index. As this book has `The Truth about Women and Men Today' in its title I would have liked to see a bit more about the way stereotypes and expectations affect men as well as women but that does not detract from the overall message - the fight for equality has a long way to go.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat disappointing,
By
This review is from: The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today (Paperback)
Compared to the many 5-star reviews and the media hype appearing to surround Banyard's book, I found the contents of the book itself rather disappointing.In truth, most of the official descriptions of the book ("Banyard reveals the uncomfortable truth about men and women ... ", "A dose of feminist common sense ... ", "A global perspective ... ", from the back cover and from reviews) do not say much about the actual contents of the book, so in that sense, it would be unfair to claim that the book is misrepresented by the media. It is, in fact, precisely what the media claims it to be: Polemical, name-calling and finger-pointing. Banyard's book is about what she considers the unjust condition of women in modern society. She describes this condition across several chapters spanning the topics of body image, education, workplace conditions, domestic violence, the sex industry and reproductive rights. While all of these topics are certainly both interesting and relevant, I found that Banyard's treatment had several problems: -First of all, Banyard comes off as constantly angry and finger-pointing, which makes the book feel lacking in objectivity. -Banyard points out where men and women differ in society, but she takes very little time to reflect on the causes and reasons for such differences or what may be done to alleviate the inequality. For example, in the chapter on body image, she points out that many women suffer from low self-esteem as a cause of their perceived inadequate physical appearance, and she rages on about the unfairness and unacceptability of beauty norms and the fact that the same issues to not apply in the same degree to men, but does not reflect much about what could be done about it. Banyard speaks of the tyranny of beauty and the objectification of women, but her fury appears undirected. She offers little evidence as regards the causes of the problem, mostly blaming the modeling and the cosmetics industry in some way. She does little to argue who should share the responsibility for the suffering of the women afflicted by the issues. And finally, she offers few ideas for practical solutions. -Banyard appears to use some rather cheap tricks to generate sympathy for the women discussed in the book, for example when considering a woman who is stressed because the buses are late and she forgot to recharge her bus fare card. Such personal stories are at most superficially relevant to the discussion of gender differences, and attempting to generate sympathy by anecdotal stories of this sort makes the author appear biased. These issues aside, the societal problems discussed by Banyard are real, and particularly the chapter on the sex industry is worthwhile. In general, however, the apparent display of undirected indignation in the book, and the lack of reflection on causes and solutions, severely detracts from the quality of the book. For an example of a discussion of gender issues which appears more balanced and constructive, I would recommend "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing reality,
By
This review is from: The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today (Paperback)
It is very difficult to enlarge or improve on the review of Damaskcat who provides a useful detail of the books contents. This book is very depressing, particularly as I realise that its synopsis of Women & Men today is shamefully true and while in some areas life is easier for women and their opportunities greater than earlier generations (women drivers, accountants, lawyers, trades women etc.) we are easily deluded into thinking that everything is OK now. But we need to think and act again and Kat Banyard and other authors like Natasha Walter have exposed a very ugly world and has put us back to the drawing board when it comes to working out anew how to respond. Part 2 of the book offers many ideas here, but I am not sure that activism alone is sufficient - there has to be major inner changes in peoples understanding and views of fellow human beings. This must be possible (I cannot hold the defeatist attitude of Ulrome in his comments on Damaskcat's review) and we owe a lot to those like Kat who are dedicated to this task.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
