Name: Matthew Royal's review of Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett
Item: Feminist Fight Club
Rating: 4
Author: Matthew Royal

Jessica Bennett

'Engaging, hilarious and practical - I will proudly proclaim myself a card-carrying member of the FFC' - Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and bestselling author of Lean In This is a call to arms. Are you aged zero to infinity? Finished with the sexist status quo? Ready to kick ass and take names? Welcome to the Feminist Fight Club. You have lifetime membership. Feminist Fight Club provides an arsenal of weapons for surviving in an unequal world. You will learn how to fight micro-aggressions, correct unconscious bias, deal with male colleagues who can't stop 'manterrupting' or 'bro-propriating' your ideas - and how to lean in without falling the f*ck over. Every woman needs this book - and they needed it yesterday. This is not a drill.

A Survival Manual For a Sexist Workplace

Feminist Fight Club

Part manual, part manifesto, a humorous yet incisive guide to navigating subtle sexism at work—a pocketbook Lean In for the Buzzfeed generation that provides real-life career advice and humorous reinforcement for a new generation of professional women. It was a fight club—but without the fighting and without the men. Every month, the women would huddle in a friend’s apartment to share sexist job frustrations and trade tips for how best to tackle them. Once upon a time, you might have called them a consciousness-raising group. But the problems of today’s working world are more subtle, less pronounced, harder to identify—and, if Ellen Pao is any indication, harder to prove—than those of their foremothers. These women weren’t just there to vent. They needed battle tactics. And so the fight club was born. Hard-hitting and entertaining, Feminist Fight Club blends personal stories with research, statistics, infographics, and no-bullsh*t expert advice. Bennett offers a new vocabulary for the sexist workplace archetypes women encounter everyday—such as the Manterrupter who talks over female colleagues in meetings or the Himitator who appropriates their ideas—and provides practical hacks for navigating other gender landmines in today’s working world. With original illustrations, Feminist Mad Libs, a Negotiation Cheat Sheet, as well as fascinating historical research and a kit for “How to Start Your Own Club,” Feminist Fight Club tackles both the external (sexist) and internal (self-sabotaging) behaviors that plague today’s women—as well as the system that perpetuates them.

An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace

Matthew Royal

As a gay man, I sometimes feel like I don't have a dog in the fight between the sexes, but this book raised my awareness of the things people do in offices -- overly, covertly, and ignorantly -- to marginalize people based on characteristics other than abilities and performance. Definitely I identify with covert discrimination: did I get passed over or treated shittily because of someone's unspoken prejudice? 

This book is great for allies of women, to understand what you can do to help your office recognize and grow talent by 1) giving you bias detection tools that help you make decisions unobscured by sexist norms you take for granted, 2) speaking up in support of women's good ideas and making sure you or other men don't steal credit, 3) interrupt the Interrupters who talk over female colleagues.

I like that Jessica approaches problems from 2 directions: things that women do that put themselves at a disadvantage in our corporate culture like deflecting credit or claiming they're lucky or not asking for raises, and raising everyone else's awareness about anti-women biases and attitudes that if you flipped them onto men would be unacceptable. This two-pronged approach is effective and eye opening.

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller! Named a best book of 2016 by: Chicago Tribune, Refinery 29, Forbes, Bust, CEO Reads. It was a fight club—but without the fighting or the men. Every month, women would gather in a New York apartment to share sexist-job frustrations and trade strategies for how to tackle them. For years, these meetings were kept secret. But the time has come to talk about the club. In Feminist Fight Club, acclaimed journalist Jessica Bennett blends the personal story of her real-life fight club with a studied assessment of the gender gap that continues to plague the American workplace. With equal measures wit and rigor, Bennett provides the tactical strategies—and the camaraderie—every woman needs to fight back, as well as tools for the men who support the cause.

A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace

Alexandra Sklar

Read on recommendation of a friend. Perhaps I am not the desired audience for this- it felt very 101 and like a cursory overview to me. That impression could also be a function of reading it in 2017- socially, these conversations and issues are much more at the forefront now, and this seemed less revolutionary. Some good advice, but it felt dumbed down. Also found the repetitive format tiresome.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Me encanto! Lo super recomiendo! Todas podremos identificarnos con las situaciones del libro, y las recomendaciones y/o conclusiones que se pueden extraer de él son super útiles y aplicables. Lo recomiendo, yo lo leí en ingles, pero esta disponible en español.

Deniz Erkaradağ

First of all, this book is suffering from cisgenderism and I'm really sick of hearing vagina when you mean is woman. It also continues the sexist approach that attributes a behavior to a gender. 

However, I found it also strengthening. I am a person who suffers from sexism at any place and I can pick up some strategies. It also contributes me to check myself e.g. my attitude towards women bosses and coworkers. 

Lastly, I took inspiration to form my own feminist fight club from this book.

Mariana Afonso

This book is a sort of guidebook on how to handle hostile sexist workplaces, and how to improve yourself by being a part of a feminist group, empowering other people at the same time. The author gives the reader tips that are definitely good and might come in handy in the future. Some of the stories are quite revolting but the reality of the workforce for women is very well explained. 
My rating isn’t higher because the book is just this. It doesn’t tackle other issues, neither does it shine a new light on the matter. So the reader doesn’t exactly end the book feeling like it was groundbreaking or that it brought all that much new information.

An Office Survival Manual (For a Sexist Workplace)

Katarzyna Karpinska

m in a teeny tiny rush to finish at least some of the books from my ginormous pile of "currently reading" category. This one I've read a couple of weeks ago and discussed together with some awesome boss-babes kick-ass ninja-princess friends of mine.

The verdict? I moderately enjoyed it. It's funny and frilly and in my opinion very self-helpish (which is not exactly what I like about books). It talks about toxic work environments, overwhelming misogyny, and our inner saboteurs.

Great! But it's all so oversimplified and drawn with a thick crayon. I get that it has to entertain but I miss a more nuanced approach. Maybe it's better targeted to American readers because the men I deal with here in 🇩🇰are trained by second-wave feminism to mask their bias under benevolence and snarky humor. They are not basic Joshes, their work behavior is trickier to unmask.

Two worth mentioning are:
1. Under every "research/science says" the author actually provides the reference to said science (well done author!).
2. The concept of "glass cliff" which is the idea that: "Women and people of color are more likely to be placed in leadership roles when the organization [or a project] has a problem, then criticized or ousted (...) when they fail to fix that problem". Thank you @jessicabennett, that explains a ton of situations in my professional life. I'll be smarter now and recognize them earlier.

[I'm also reviewing books on my Instagram account: @slowgram_cph]

Katie Bell

KZAaaam

Carolyn Yoo

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2016 BY: Chicago Tribune, Refinery 29, Forbes, Bust, CEO Reads Part manual, part manifesto, Feminist Fight Club is a hilarious yet incisive guide to navigating subtle sexism at work, providing real-life career advice and humorous reinforcement for a new generation of professional women. It was a fight club—but without the fighting and without the men. Every month, the women would huddle in a friend’s apartment to share sexist job frustrations and trade tips for how best to tackle them. Once upon a time, you might have called them a consciousness-raising group. But the problems of today’s working world are more subtle, less pronounced, harder to identify—and harder to prove—than those of their foremothers. These women weren’t just there to vent. They needed battle tactics. And so the fight club was born. Hard-hitting and entertaining, Feminist Fight Club blends personal stories with research, statistics, and no-bullsh*t expert advice. Bennett offers a new vocabulary for the sexist workplace archetypes women encounter everyday—such as the Manterrupter who talks over female colleagues in meetings or the Himitator who appropriates their ideas—and provides practical hacks for navigating other gender landmines in today’s working world. With original illustrations, Feminist Mad Libs, a Negotiation Cheat Sheet, and fascinating historical research, Feminist Fight Club tackles both the external (sexist) and internal (self-sabotaging) behaviors that plague women in the workplace—as well as the system that perpetuates them.

Jen &
Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett

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Join the club

Jen &Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett

Reviews

Join the club

Jen &
Feminist Fight Club by Jessica Bennett