June Book Review: Men Who Hate Women
For our June Book Review, Bookstagramer Karolina talked to us about ‘Men who hate Women’, by Laura Bates.
“My favourite thing about reading is the moment when you realise the book you are reading is so good that you don’t want to put it down. I love those moments when nothing else but reading this book matters, when I stop paying attention to anything else — this is how I know I’ve stumbled onto a special book” smiles Bookstagramer Karolina, our June Book Reviewer.
Bookstagram: finding a community during the pandemic
Karolina is originally from Poland but moved to England when she was 7. To acquire a good grasp of English, she started reading books in the language, while still reading in Polish to keep the familiarity of her own language.
Early on, she got really invested in all types of media: books, television shows, or movies. “I love escaping into another world that’s not mine, and reading about people that are completely new to me and facing different struggles and problems”.
The Bookstagram in itself got started in 2020, after some internal debating. Karolina stopped reading for years after she finished her school exams, but lockdown made her pick up books again, like so many others. “I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do. And I just really missed reading!”.
She never really had friends who shared the reading passion with her. Those who were reading were at 1 or 2 books a year, when she could sit down and finish a 300 pages book in one go.
“With lockdown and quarantines, I wanted to find a community of people to discuss books with and discover new books I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. I wanted to find people to get excited with, over book releases, new instalments in a series, exclusive editions of books, and just all things book related!” she explains earnestly.
Karolina loves writing book reviews, mainly to keep track of all her thoughts, but also to engage in discussion with the community through comments.
This year has been fruitful so far. Out of the 34 books she’s already read, she came across some really good finds, her favourite one at the moment being A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson.
“I know this is an odd choice — most people would pick a classic or something a bit more profound or meaningful maybe. But for me, reading is just about fun, and AGGTM is the book I had the most fun reading. I couldn’t put it down, and it will always be a special book to me”.
Men who hate Women: the strength of the facts
But for our June Book Review, Karolina decided to go another way. She chose to talk to us about ‘Men who hate Women’, by Laura Bates.
“The title caught my eye straight away! ‘Men who hate Women’ sounds rather aggressive and straight to the point, I wanted to know more” she remembers. Karolina has always been passionate about gender equality. Anything educating her further on the topic was exciting.
The book is exploring the different extremist online communities that are misogynistic towards women, and how those online communities have started to shift into the real world. It also discusses ways in which we could stop these groups from expanding.
“For me, the book’s strength is that it’s all based on facts. Everything has a source. Lauren Bates cites all of the studies and evidence she used to put this book together. I think this is a strength because a lot of the men in these communities use fake facts to prove their points on why they hate women, why women are inferior to men, etc. Laura Bates doesn’t have to use fake facts, and I think that’s really powerful and shows that the cause she is fighting is real” analyses Karolina.
She loved the hard data but warns against the multitude of it. While she believes that the author did an incredible job of research, sometimes she also felt “bombarded with horrible information. It’s a lot of data and events and statistics being thrown at you constantly”.
Karolina confesses that she couldn’t have read this book in one sitting, too heavy with information. But still worth it.
Online gate groups: raising awareness
Karolina was shocked first and foremost by those online hate groups. “I knew they existed of course, but I didn’t know what exactly they got up to and what exactly they were saying about women on a daily basis — it is truly frightening. A certain portion of these men have taken their thoughts offline and committed acts of terrorism because of their views. This was shocking to me because stuff like this doesn’t get reported — this book touches on this fact and makes some fascinating points about media, which gave me a lot to think about”.
She was also shocked by the profile of those people. Some of the men taking an active part in these communities have been exposed as owning highly respectable jobs, being normal people. “I could walk past a man from one of these communities and not even realise it”.
Overall, she’s certain this was one of the most important and informative books she’s read. She could 100% recommend it.
“It’s not a quick read and it’s incredibly heavy, however, I feel it is important for everyone to know the information Laura Bates has gathered. A lot of people don’t know about these extremist groups and they should! We should be having discussions about this and raising awareness”.
Follow Mooi Publication for more amazing book reviews here
