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Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why (2016)

by Jude Ellison Sady Doyle

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20611131,599 (4.18)1
Sociology. Women's Studies. Nonfiction. HTML:??Smart ... compelling ... persuasive .? ??New York Times Book Review
She??s everywhere once you start looking: the trainwreck.
 
She??s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying ??crack is whack,? and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself.
From Mary Wollstonecraft??who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman??to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle??s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to ??behave.?
Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Doyle??s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionate??an essential, timely
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Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
If any book belongs on my "women can't win" shelf, it's this one. Such an important read. ( )
  lemontwist | Sep 4, 2023 |
I really enjoyed this look at how women are dismissed, patronized and to some extent, demonized. The information about historical trainwrecks like Mary Wollstonecraft and Charlotte Bronte was new information to me and made me want to learn more about them both. ( )
  msmattoon | Aug 24, 2023 |
The 'uplifting' conclusion falls flat, but otherwise this is an engaging and thoughtful (if also profane and breezy) takedown of western culture's penchant for broken/breaking women. ( )
  elenaj | Jul 31, 2020 |
The author's thesis, I think, is that the obsession with female "trainwrecks" not only shows all of the rules we have around what women can and can't do (and some persistent double standards, to boot) but is also a primary means by which we ensure that women follow those rules. It was entertaining, often frustrating and heartbreaking, educational, and probably right. But this leads to my one quibble: she skates over a lot of the ideas and processes that would connect the trainwrecks she talks about with the way they function as restraints in women's lives. It's there, but it's not really fleshed out in a way that allows for real engagement with the central idea.

It was good, though, and she's probably right. ( )
  andrea_mcd | Mar 10, 2020 |
I loved this book just as much as I expected to. Doyle collects fascinating anecdotes from as far back as Mary Wollstonecraft of celebrity culture and the pillorying of women in the spotlight as a means to keep all women "in line."

Many of the stories here were unfamiliar, nearly all will make you want to read them aloud or repeat to a friend the next day. Even the cases most of us would think of as familiar, like Britney Spears -- Doyle brings new context and compassion to.

Not a new idea, but an important reminder. ( )
  greeniezona | Jun 14, 2019 |
Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
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She's everywhere once you start looking for her: the trainwreck.
There's no neat and simple taxonomy of the trainwreck.
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Sociology. Women's Studies. Nonfiction. HTML:??Smart ... compelling ... persuasive .? ??New York Times Book Review
She??s everywhere once you start looking: the trainwreck.
 
She??s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying ??crack is whack,? and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself.
From Mary Wollstonecraft??who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman??to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle??s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to ??behave.?
Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Doyle??s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionate??an essential, timely

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