The Star E-dition

Exploring feminism, courage

Living While Feminist – Our Bodies, Our Truths Edited by Jen Thorpe Loot.co.za (R99) Kwela

STAFF REPORTER

Mad Woman

Louisa Treger Loot.co.za (R220) Bloomsbury

The power of structural violence is that it tries to silence us. The power of feminism is that it gives us a voice. So much of our life experience is filtered through our bodies – norms, myths and cultural standards continue to shape the way that we and the world feel about our bodies and how we see ourselves.

Feminism is necessary to help us learn and unlearn things about ourselves and the world we live in. Feminism is for all of us.

This collection take us from an examination of skin and hair, to an exploration of pleasure, sex and safety. They explore the way our bodies change, our health, and how we become who we are. They examine the way that institutions can trap us, how we can trap ourselves, and the importance of our hearts in all of this.

In 1887 young Nellie Bly sets out for New York and a career in journalism, determined to make her way as a reporter, whatever that may take.

But life in the city is tougher than she imagined. Down to her last dime and desperate to prove her worth, she comes up with a dangerous plan: to fake insanity and have herself committed to the asylum that looms on Blackwell’s Island. There, she will work undercover to document – and expose – the wretched conditions faced by the patients.

But when the asylum door swings shut behind her, she finds herself in a place of horrors, governed by a harshness and cruelty she could never have imagined. Cold, isolated and starving, her days of terror reawaken the traumatic events of her childhood. She entered the asylum of her own free will – but will she ever get out?

An extraordinary portrait of a woman way ahead of her time, Mad Woman is the story of a quest for the truth that changed the world.

METRO

en-za

2022-08-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestar.pressreader.com/article/281663963786576

African News Agency