Medium – Book
About the Book – Rosalind Miles traces the history of female rebellion from the days of the French Revolution to the modern day. She uses case studies of female rebellions in dress, science, education, health and wellbeing, and sets a (wo)manifesto of what women need to be truly equal in today’s society, where-ever you live in the world. She discusses histories of women throughout the world (not, as seen in many books, just the Western world) and shows how far women’s equality has come, and how far it has still to go.
My Feelings – I really enjoyed this book, and the fact that it considered women’s equality from the French Revolution to the modern age. Not that I don’t think there were strong women before this point, but because I think that period of revolution from the end of the 1700s was the beginning of a movement to give women more of an equal status. The women covered in the book are wide-ranging, from authors to scientists to activists to actors, and many other types of women too. The women covered in this book come from all over the world, so this is not just a ‘Western’ book, but instead looks at a wide range of cultures and their attitudes to women.
I found one of the most interesting chapters in the book to be the one about women’s control over their own body. Whilst abortion is briefly discussed (especially in terms of the legalisation of it in Northern Ireland), the author discusses in more depth the availability of contraception, the rights of women to be able to make choices over their healthcare, FGM, Domestic Abuse and victim shaming. I enjoyed the style of the author’s writing – all of the aspects discussed in the book are supremely important in allowing women equality, but she writes in a very dry, witty and readable way. The book was thoroughly enjoyable and only an increase in my workload meant it wasn’t finished earlier!
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