Book Review: "Men Who Hate Women" by Laura Bates

Before I read this book, I definitely had heard of Laura Bates before. Like other feminists that have since become more and more famous by the day - she has become steeped in the culture of female liberation from the very beginning. Since then, she has started to climb the ladder of being a person who is qualified to speak about gender and sex related issues but from time to time I will not lie and say that I don’t worry about the way in which she presents herself as an academic writer of ‘essays’. Be that as it may, there are many good arguments within this book that too, deserve extra attention for their ability to not create a binary of Men vs. Women but show how the two are equally disadvantaged by the upholding of these blatantly sexist ideas that are held by the groups in question within the text.

The book starts off pretty roughly in my opinion. A lot of it is stuff everyone has heard before. We have the Intel community and the various language mechanics involved to create this complete hatred of women and the categorisation of them. Some of the arguments though do not seem like her own and have been said by older feminists before her. References are important and in the case of argument copying, I do not think there were any. To reference BuzzFeed though, is concerning to me and that should not be done with any amount of enthusiasm and, if possible, find a more reputable source. The arguments themselves are fine, but the way in which they are presented simply annoys me a little bit. We are given hypothetical situations, the quotation is mentioned to back up the source - but then in some cases in the first half of the book that is pretty much it for the quotation unless it is being simply used to back up another argument. I think that it would have been better if the book was a little bit longer and she went into depth about statistics and percentages that this quotation supports or vice versa. It would have added depth and been more readable for an audience enjoying nonfiction critical cultural writings.

The latter half of the book is far, far better by miles. The arguments are less about social media and more about politics, other mediums and culture. It is more about the real world and is less known to people about how this undermines the power of women and the way in which men can operate without fear. I think that the latter half of this book is very important in the way it presents the value of the sexes to the argument of defeating sexism. Through the way in which we get this political language come in by people such as Cernovich and Pence, by Donald Trump and the Republican right, we can see that there is a definitely requirement in the real world to start educating men in how to respond to situations and asking them to stand up for us rather than against us.

The book in itself is useful, I was hoping for more statistics. But because of this book I am now going to read other books by Laura Bates because I may not wholeheartedly enjoy the writing style but I do think what she is talking about is not just every white feminist ever. It is important and inclusive, it is a requirement for our future and even though I would not have really called myself a feminist (though I do actually identify myself as one, I seek not to put labels on to my being) - I can say that I believe very much in the arguments she has presented in this book.