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aimiller 's review for:

Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed
4.0
challenging informative reflective medium-paced

There's a lot of layers to this, though I do think it's a fairly accessible text--maybe like a feminism 200 level book, rather than a specific intro. I think it's a book that's really open to an interesting discussion on so many things, making it very useful in the classroom for sure. 

The section where she discusses her own feminist awakening(s) but in the second person is certainly a choice that I struggled with, because it took what was a personalized experience and made it feel universalized (which is a thing that happens a lot in less careful feminisms through discussions of socialization that universalize rather than personalize;) while I appreciate the need for distance from her own trauma, I think it made that section far messier and unclear than it might have otherwise. 

And the chapter on lesbian feminism was exciting but also kind of retrod a lot of areas that don't match up always with the women of color feminism that Ahmed is in the tradition of (interesting to read that chapter alongside Audre Lorde's writings on why separatism isn't feasible, for example--which I don't think is necessary for a lesbian feminism, but is a greater feature of Ahmed's lesbian feminism than I think makes sense. Plus, the separatism is less fun than the loving women and being oriented toward women, but that's a whole other essay.) 

But I do think it's a solid read, and again, could be super useful in teaching for sure!