This was my first time reading a whole book by Roxane Gay. I
already suspected that I would like it since I’ve read her articles and essays
before, but I really appreciated being able to take a deep dive into her mind
this this.
While the essays in this book range from her life to pop
culture, the main topic is about the title, Bad Feminist. To Gay, a
feminist in this day and age has turned into a certain sort of person and a
certain sort of woman. Feminists are supposed to be militant, angry, and
strictly independent. You are either someone who falls into this category and
is a feminist, or you are not.
Gay is not this kind of feminist, and she acknowledges this.
In fact she wholeheartedly embraces it. She knows that the fact that she wants
a family and kids seems “un-feminist” and that a number of her ideas outlined
in these essays are “not feminist.” But she’s discussing them and explaining
her opinions anyways. I think that this acknowledgment makes her work all the
more engaging because, honestly, who is a “good feminist” these days? And more
importantly, if you are a “good feminist” are you a good person? Not to say
that you can’t be both, but in my experience the people I meet who are
stereotypical feminists are usually following this image because they think
that’s what they’re supposed to do, not because that’s who they really are.
Which is fine, and sometimes is necessary in order to discover who you are, but
a lot of these people seem to lose touch with their own opinions along the way.
Most valuable, to me, were her thoughts on race. She
discusses numerous times how media portrays Black people primarily as slaves or
servants, when really all she wants is a movie about happy Black people. And
this dearth of material then leads to them accepting anything that comes their
way, even if it isn’t good. Which can be said of many marginalized communities,
but it is most striking for the Black community. Also I know I do not see
reviews of movies featuring Black actors that are written by a Black author
very often, so I quite appreciated those essays.
In short, I thought this was an excellent book. Gay is
welcoming and approachable and explains all of her ideas so well. You can’t
help but agree with her nearly every step of the way, and relate to her
experiences of trying to make it as a Black, female author in a white male
world. White people need to step it up as allies in order to make this world a
more welcoming place to people of other races.