LitPick Review
This book starts with a call for all women and allies of women to join together and go on the journey of understanding the struggles women face in today’s society and learning how to come out on top of those struggles. There are two parts to the book. Part one is about identifying problems women face in society such as abusive partners, society expectations, and low mental health as well as understanding the roots of those problems. Part two discusses how women can and should take charge of their own lives by becoming what the author calls a “Fire Woman”. By becoming a Fire Woman, a woman is taking charge of her life and protecting herself. The author gives stories, examples, and anecdotes throughout the book that relate to the points she is making. She also references many other books related to topics discussed so the reader can learn more. Overall, the author’s goal is to empower women to take control of their lives and live the best life they possibly can.
Opinion:
The beginning of the book was very inspirational and positive. With advice like “You need to feel if you are to heal” and a discussion about how “reparenting” yourself to heal, I connected to the constructiveness of the message. While I appreciated the overall idea of the book, I had several problems with the tone and bias the author has throughout the book.
First, I will discuss the tone and why it threw me off. The author states (many times) that she is not man-hating. But time and time again, she bashes on all men for what she calls the typical behavior of men. She made it clear that she believes SOME men are good, and if a woman is lucky enough to have one, good for them, but keep reading, because eventually he will probably turn bad. Her tone is combative the entire time and really puts a reader on edge. I understand the anger of women being mistreated. But I don’t need to be yelled at and given the same stories of the mistreatment of herself and a couple friends as proof that men are the worst.
Another problem I had with the story and where I actually almost stopped reading was the bias the author wrote about and how she contradicted herself. She acknowledges that her upbringing was “traditional Christian” and outlines the problems that upbringing brings to women. But as she is trying to establish herself as an advocate for empowering all women, she proceeds to shame women who are sex workers. Many empowered women throughout history have chosen sex work as their profession and do not need to be judged by a self-proclaimed feminist who sees their chosen line of work as shameful. The author discusses shame and sex quite a bit, stating that women should feel free to explore and enjoy their sexuality. But her clear disdain for sex workers contradicts her message of sexual empowerment.
The last thing I will comment on is the editing. The book was not edited very well, with several errors per chapter like excessive repetition, grammatical errors, and incomplete sentences leaving me scratching my head. I understand creative license and that the voice the author used was chosen on purpose, but the execution fell short in several places.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to a fellow woman without front-loading them about the bias, giving some trigger warnings about some of the stories, and opening the discussion for feminism standing on its own values without cutting at men at every turn.
