These speeches emphasize women's liberation as key to a truely liberated society. The ideas of women's emancipation reach far beyond traditional liberal ideas, and he stresses the importance of men changing their behavior in all of this as well. I am looking forward to learning more both about his leadership and the organizing done by the women of Burkina Faso. 

While there are definitely limitations, they are largely expected given the time period. You would be hard pressed to find another male politician coming close to speaking about solidarity with women in such a way in most places in the 80s. 

This is the sort of memoir that you can tell is written by a poet. Told in series of vignettes, Minnie Bruce Pratt recalls parts of her life from her childhood in a mostly white southern town, through her marriage to a man and subsequently coming out as a lesbian, and experiences with a variety of lovers until finding Leslie Feinberg. There are reflections on her experience of activism, lesbian community, her own experience of gender as a femme, sexuality and autonomy, and so much more. As much as this is about her experience and her and Leslie's relationship, it is also about the time, community, with a lot about importance of solidarity regarding race and gender. There are elements that are vulnerable and visceral, raw and erotic, and reflective and layered

I am still trying to wrap my head fully around this read. It was intense and fractured, at once surreal and shockingly vivid. There's so much to meditate on around community, place, trauma, and so much more. 

There was a lot that I liked about this. I love a good character-focused lit fic with a bit of mess, and I felt like this brought life to very particular feelings in a pointed and beautiful way. However, there were some scenes that just went way too in the weeds for my taste, like long descriptions of eating (which did work well in some scenes -- but others, not so much) or awkward small-talk dialog. So a little bit of a mixed bag, but I did end up liking it overall. 

In this essay collection, Nick Walker revisits her older articles and essays about the Neurodiversity Paradigm and adds newer commentary, delving into neuroqueering as well. This was a good mix of review and new information for me. I really liked that she included both the older essays and the additions, showing how her thinking and general discourse has changed. The biggest thing that hit me personally in this was what she had to say about somatics/movement. It was a bit of a watershed moment for me, as that is a way I really stifle myself. 

Overall, this is a good introduction to the Neurodiversity Paradigm and neuroqueering. I do think one would want to read more introductory things to disability in general before reading this if you are totally unfamiliar with discourses on disability, but if you have a basic understanding, this is a must-read. 

This was interesting and definitely made me feel encouraged to continue doing art. It brings in a lot of neat things happening with people using art for healing. But there was a disconnect for me. So much of the conclusion spoke to individualism, which seemed to be the antithesis of so much of the majority of how art was being used in the book. And even before then, there were bits about business that I didn't care for and not a lot on marginalized people and art (save for the section on Indigenous people which had some good information but still seemed to be framed in an off-putting way... especially given the individualism in a lot of its analysis). Don't get me wrong, this is a huge topic. I get that every facet of art won't be covered. But for me, hearing about a CEO discovering the existence of ~the innovative power of music ~ or whatever is just not interesting. I could say more but I'll stop there. However it does start an interesting conversation and has some cool info on art. I picked it up with no expectations and got a bit out of it, even if I found some of it's analysis to be lacking. 

There was a lot I really liked about this. The relationship was cute and well paced, not forced (although I had to have a laugh at how similar the feelings of supposed hatred sounded like attraction). The friendships in this really shined as well, I'd say as much or more than the romantic relationship. There was also really good discussion of mental health and complicated family dynamics. Even with the resolution being maybe too clean to be realistic, I do think they were able do explore a decent amount of nuance. And I've got to say, I'm not a sports gay, but by the time we get to the big game at the half way point, I think I had a decent idea of what was going on game-wise which speaks to the author's writing and the way that the game play ends up being integrated into the scene I think. 

I'm kind of mad it took me so long to get to this, but once I got started, I read it in a little over a day. A nice start to my reading year!

In it's time, a lot of this would have been groundbreaking. While we discuss concepts like familial homophobia with more nuance today, it was nice to see an earlier work about it. Seeing Schulman's own experience with this was impactful and definitely added to this. 

The biggest thing I got out of this is that *we* as a community can be the solution to a lot of things. As cheesy as it may sound, speaking out can do so much in interpersonal situations. And homophobia at large has justified abuses and lessened the likelihood that people will speak out. A lot of what she said makes me very excited to read Conflict is Not Abuse, which she published quite a while later. 

I do think it could have been more developed in some ways and it really would have benefited from research backing her points. The question of course would be, were there people out there doing psychology or sociology research on familial homophobia? It was probably slim, so I understand her decision to lean on her own experiences here. 

I also take issue with some of her proposed solutions. She mentions things like bringing in court-ordered therapy and relying on the state to diffuse certain situations. I don't think that is viable (and I'm not even sure whether or not the author would either at this point). There is also a lot that would have benefited a lot by an analysis of race in all of this as well. These, like the bit around gay marriage, I think says more about the state of discourse then (which is valuable to understand I think). 

Over all, it was a neat read. Not her best, but it meditates on important topics, many of which remain relevant, and definitely tells us something about its time.