Good and Mad

October 1, 2018

Traister (All the Single Ladies) explores the power of women's anger, both individually and collectively, to bring about systemic change. The author argues that women expressing anger, black women in particular, have historically been caricatured as unhinged and hysterical; their legitimate concerns and grievances dismissed or ignored. She asserts that anger is a natural reaction to blatant injustice and should be harnessed, not quelled. She compares the fury and shouting of Bernie Sanders, which was applauded on the campaign trail in 2016, with the poise Hillary Clinton conveyed at all times, lest she appear strident. Unpacking the #MeToo Movement, she discusses ways in which pent-up feelings of injustice over rape, sexual assault, and harassment against women in the workplace finally boiled over to create a wave and also touches on the backlash such waves of rage can provoke. While Traister's thesis that women's anger "must be and always has been at the heart of social progress," is incomplete, she sends a clarion call for a more intersectional approach to feminism in order to effect lasting change. VERDICT A solid choice for feminist collections and for fans of Traister, although readers may find Soraya Chemaly's Rage Becomes Her more convincing.--Barrie Olmstead, Lewiston P.L., ID

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2018
Traister (All the Single Ladies?, 2016) takes a deep dive into the current political climate to explore the contemporary and historical relationship women have with anger and the ramifications of expressing and suppressing feminine rage. Traister uses the 2016 election as a jumping off point, when to the shock of many, an eminently qualified female candidate was defeated by an inexperienced white male businessman who spouted off sexist and racist comments without compunction. While Donald Trump's and Bernie Sanders' angry rhetoric was lauded, Hilary Clinton was lambasted for being shrill and screechy (ditto, other female firebrands like Kamala Harris and Maxine Waters). Traister uses this startlingly obvious double standard to explore how attaching negative connotations to women's anger has always been used to silence and dismiss them. Although at times that anger boils over and energizes a movement, such as when suffragettes fought for the right to vote in the nineteenth century and when in 2017 the revelation of the depth and scope of Harvey Weinstein's crimes against women ignited the #MeToo movement. Traister doesn't shy away from the complicated issues surrounding feminine rage, exploring, for example, the ways white women have discounted and discredited the experiences of women of color. Timely and absorbing, Traister's fiery tome is bound to attract attention and discussion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from August 27, 2018
In this trenchant analysis, journalist Traister (All the Single Ladies) explores the “nexus of women’s anger and American politics,” in which “noncompliant, insistent, furious women have shaped our history and our present.” This emotion “has often ignited movements for social change and progress” yet often goes unacknowledged in a culture in which women in politics are “not lauded for their fury” while their male counterparts are. At the core of this analysis is the idea that the achievements of female political activists such as Florynce Kennedy, Rosa Parks, and Shirley Chisholm have been “erased from the record” rather than celebrated. Traister argues forcefully that women are an “oppressed majority in the United States,” kept subjugated partly by racial divisions among the group. Four sections consist of essays, each capturing a factor in the current social and political climate—the failure of the ERA; the role of women in the Tea Party; responses to Hillary Clinton’s presidential run; and the birth of the #MeToo movement. Traister closes with a reminder to women not to lose sight of their anger—even when things improve slightly and “the urgency will fade... if you yourself are not experiencing” injustice or look away from it—because “being mad is correct; being mad is American; being mad can be joyful and productive and connective.” Agent: Linda Loewenthal, the Loewenthal Co.

December 21, 2018

The vast and often surprising political energy stemming from the rage that ensued after the 2016 presidential election inspired feminist journalist Traister to examine the contemporary and historical impact of anger-specifically women's anger-within American society. The author states that women's anger has long been dismissed and repressed, and angry women often ridiculed as hysterical, irrational, even crazy. Yet she asserts that women's fury at injustice has been one of the most powerful forces in U.S. politics and culture, coalescing in numerous protests and movements that brought about lasting change. Traister explores the characteristics and themes of anger as well as the ways in which it took shape within social movements. She also recounts anger's role in defining the women's suffrage and feminist movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. Traister's arguments are deeply thought provoking and endlessly compelling, although she isn't always inclusive-she offers a thorough analysis of the different characteristics of white and black women's anger but mentions only briefly other women of color. Librarians should note that the cover's background pattern features a potentially offensive expletive. VERDICT Recommended for burgeoning activists and teens interested in politics, history, and current events.-Kelsy Peterson, Forest Hill College, Melbourne, Australia

Starred review from October 1, 2018
In this resounding polemic against political, cultural, and personal injustices in America, Traister (All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, 2016, etc.) studies women's anger as a tool for change.Citing fury as a driving force of her journalism career, the author, a writer at large for New York magazine and contributing editor at Elle, set out to write this book as a means to convey her own rage in response to innumerable inequities. She explores how feminist outrage has been suppressed, discouraged, and deemed unattractive and crazy. With articulate vitriol backed by in-depth research, Traister validates American women's anger as the heart of social progress and attributes its widespread denigration to the "correct understanding of those in power that in the fury of women lies the power to change the world." Some of the major topics of these clear, blistering pages include Donald Trump and the 2016 presidential election, ongoing sexual assault scandals and the #MeToo movement, systemic racism, and the public censure of women. The author weaves together discussions of the long-silenced accounts from women who were molested by powerful men with the deafening calls, by women across the country, for men who've abused their authority to be held accountable. She draws from a staggering number of sources, ranging from dozens of newspaper articles to Abigail Adams' 1776 warning to her own husband to pay attention to women. Traister has meticulously culled smart, timely, surprising quotations from women as well as men. The combined strength of these many individual voices and stories gives the book tremendous gravity. It is neither a witch hunt nor a call for vendettas against men. Rather, the author provides a reflective, even revolutionary reminder that women's collective capacity to catalyze change outweighs individuals' fear of backlash or turning a blind eye to ongoing subjugation. The goal is not anger for its own sake but to access, acknowledge, express, and use it to rebuild structures.A gripping call to action that portends greater liberty and justness for all.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.