Pretty good but missing some important perspectives.
3 stars
This book is another step along the path toward the formation and realization of Black womanist thought. I am 46 years old and grew up with a copy of The Color Purple in my home. I read Their Eyes Were Watching God for the first time when I was in high school and I minored in Women & Gender studies in college, reading bell hooks, Assata, Audre Lorde and so many others. In the last several years, I've become intimately familiar with the writing and work of Patricia Hersey. For someone like me, this book was mostly review--and I think that's a good thing. It was a good opportunity to refresh my memory and to witness younger generations building on the knowledge passed on by our ancestors.
That being said, I think what is needed now is the centering of the most vulnerable and oppressed among us. I think that …
This book is another step along the path toward the formation and realization of Black womanist thought. I am 46 years old and grew up with a copy of The Color Purple in my home. I read Their Eyes Were Watching God for the first time when I was in high school and I minored in Women & Gender studies in college, reading bell hooks, Assata, Audre Lorde and so many others. In the last several years, I've become intimately familiar with the writing and work of Patricia Hersey. For someone like me, this book was mostly review--and I think that's a good thing. It was a good opportunity to refresh my memory and to witness younger generations building on the knowledge passed on by our ancestors.
That being said, I think what is needed now is the centering of the most vulnerable and oppressed among us. I think that womanist thought will benefit from centering the voices and perspectives of trans and disabled individuals and may also make these kinds of books less repetitive for those of us who have been following womanist theory for a long time.
There were moments in the book when I thought for sure that the author would turn her focus to transgender experiences (such as the chapter on the importance of names), but she did not. She calls out transphobia on at least a handful of occasions in the book, so it's not that she is transphobic. It's just that she is limited by her own identity and personal experience, which is absolutely natural. So, it's not that I have major critiques of this book, it's more that it makes me want to seek out more womanist writing from queer, immigrant & first gen, trans & non-binary, disabled, etc. perspectives. And not just for the sake of "diversity," but because womanist theory is so potentially revolutionary, and we can only complete the mission if all of these voices are allowed to shape it.