I cannot write about Solnit's writings; she is so far ahead of me, I learn from her every time I read her works. ( )

The cover was a turn-off for me (almost made me not read the book), but I consider this better than her previous one.

A few excerpts ...

“To be a young woman is to face your annihilation in innumerable ways ….” (p4)

“I was often unaware of what and why I was resisting ….” (p4)

Yes. Let’s not understate the value of having words for what we experience. The words ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ didn’t always exist, so it was hard to identify, let alone talk about, what it was …

“The fight wasn’t just to survive bodily … but to survive as a person possessed of rights, including the right to participation and dignity and a voice.” (p4)

“… back when I was trying not to be that despised thing, a girl, and ….” (p6)

“sometimes at the birth and death of a day, the opal sky is no color we have words for, the gold shading into blue without the intervening green that is halfway between those colors, the fiery warm colors that are not apricot or crimson or god, the light morphing second by second so that the sky is more shades of blue than you can count as it fades from where the sun is to the far side where others color are happening.” (p7)

Best description of a sunset (in San Francisco) I’ve ever read!

“What is rape but an insistence that the spatial rights of a man, and by implication men, extend to the interior of a woman’s body …,” (p77-8)

So well-put.

“Most urban women, you know, live as though in a war zone….” (p98)

Yes. I’ve often said living as a woman in our society is like living in an occupied country. And men have no idea. Most men.

“There are three key things that matter in having a voice: audibility, credibility, and consequence. … Gender violence is made possible by this lack of audibility, credibility, and consequence.” p229, 231 ( )

This is my first Rebecca Solnit, but definitely there will be more! ( )

We often say silenced, which presumes someone attempted to speak, or we say disappeared, which presumes that the person, place, or thing first appeared. But there are so many things that were never murmured, never showed up, were not allowed to enter rather than forced to exit.

This collection of essays relate to the fact and the effect of women’s silence and invisibility -- from the absence of role-modeling and opportunity, to the incidence of insults and threats, rape and murder. I’ve read two of Solnit’s couple-dozen books now; I suspect many of them work this same material AND all of them will be worth reading. I highlighted many passages, here are a few (some of the short ones placed together):

From childhood onward, we were instructed to not do things -- not go here, not work there, not go out at this hour or talk to those people or wear this dress or drink this drink or partake of adventure, independence, solitude; refraining was the only form of safety offered. …

You could be erased a little so that there was less of you, less confidence, less freedom, or your rights could be eroded, your body invaded so that it was less and less yours, you could be rubbed out altogether, and none of those possibilities seemed particularly remote. …

I suppose some women push it down to some corner of their mind, make choices to minimize the reality of the danger so that it becomes an unseen subtraction of who they are and what they can do. … I erased myself as much as possible, because to be was to be a target. … What is armor after all but a cage that moves with you? … We die all the time to avoid being killed. … ( )

Throw out this review! The writing is excellent. I just wasn't in the mood to contemplate the victimization of women. I did not finish so I don't know if it ended well or not. ( )