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Rachel Holmes

Auteur de Eleanor Marx: A Life

7+ oeuvres 417 utilisateurs 17 critiques

Œuvres de Rachel Holmes

Oeuvres associées

Refugee Tales (2016) — Contributeur — 36 exemplaires
Refugee Tales: Volume II (2017) — Contributeur — 12 exemplaires

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Unrestrained by convention, lion-hearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman. Hers was the first English translation of Flaubert's Mme Bovary. She pioneered the theatre of Henrik Ibsen. She was the first woman to lead the British dock workers' and gas workers' trades unions. For years she worked tirelessly for her father, Karl Marx, as personal secretary and researcher. Later she edited many of his key political works, and laid the foundations for his biography. But foremost among her achievements was her pioneering feminism. For her, sexual equality was a necessary precondition for a just society. Drawing strength from her family and their wide circle, including Friedrich Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx set out into the world to make a difference - her favourite motto: 'Go ahead!' With her closest friends - among them, Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, Will Thorne and William Morris - she was at the epicentre of British socialism. She was also the only Marx to claim her Jewishness. But her life contained a deep sadness: she loved a faithless and dishonest man, the academic, actor and would-be playwright Edward Aveling. Yet despite the unhappiness he brought her, Eleanor Marx never wavered in her political life, ceaselessly campaigning and organising until her untimely end, which - with its letters, legacies, secrets and hidden paternity - reads in part like a novel by Wilkie Collins, and in part like the modern tragedy it was. Rachel Holmes has gone back to original sources to tell the story of the woman who did more than any other to transform British politics in the nineteenth century, who was unafraid to live her contradictions.… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
LarkinPubs | 3 autres critiques | Mar 1, 2023 |
Dreadful tragic ending for this woman. Some of the ideas considered in the book, most especially the importance of global socialism, made me think again. Marx worked like the proverbial Trojan yet both women and labour have made only marginal progress in the years since she lived.
 
Signalé
wbell539 | 3 autres critiques | Dec 22, 2021 |
Sylvia Pankhurst: Natural Born Rebel by Rachel Holmes sweeps the reader along as we revisit much of 20th century history. This is so much more than just a biography of a remarkable woman, this is a history of some of the major struggles of last century.

I tend to read several books at a time and when I approach a lengthy book I try to figure out how much I want to read each day while giving the time and thought to my other reads. This is so well written and the subject was such a dynamic person that I found myself reading this faster than I intended. Even at the end of those three days I would have happily spent more time wrapped up in Pankhurst's life and Holmes' prose.

While many of the issues Pankhurst confronted are still with us today I think another valuable aspect of this work is showing the reader the types of decisions a person has to make if they decide to follow what they believe to be right. Taking a stand, broadly speaking, can be straightforward. But figuring out exactly how you're going to make that stand can put one at odds with people making the same general stand. It is in deciding specifically how one tries to make an impact that one really has to make tough decisions. Sometimes family and friends are sacrificed in the name of what is right. These more nuanced choices are highlighted in this volume because Pankhurst never shied away from the difficult decisions.

I highly recommend this to any reader interested in the early suffrage movements, as well as 20th century activism as a whole.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
pomo58 | Sep 11, 2020 |
I think a certain group of radical feminists are being very selective and cherry picking examples of media where women are apparently "objectified".

I mean for instance, batwoman isn't just a lesbian but also an intelligent, political feminist (she was expelled in the United States Military Academy because of the "don't ask, don't tell" rule). Catwoman, on the other hand is meant to emulate a femme fatale with a dominatrix-like bitchy personality. Her "style" has nothing to do with deliberate attempts to "objectify" women but is meant represent a common comic character "motif" for narrative purposes.
You have to realize that video game / comic characters are meant to be "larger than life" to keep reader interest. How can a graphic novel convey information if the words used are considerably shorter than a book? It does this through hyperbole, exaggerated action shots / poses / emotions and character dramatization.

These companies are well aware of keeping up with diversity. Many comic book publishers including mainstream ones have superheroes of different races, different sexualities and different ways of life. Some longstanding stories do feature powerful, sexy and seductive heroines, but these heroines also kick major arse and are not "merely wank fodder". It's incredibly disrespectful to the artist to criticize their choice of making their characters look aesthetically pleasing.

It's also victimless (digital girls are not exploited) and nothing more than printed ink. I am fed up of gungho, clueless radical feminists who think us "males" just love oppressing women in the media for the sake of it. If you want freedom you must also treat those whom you disagree with respect and dignity and not just call us simple minded idiots for daring to call bull**** on this ideologically-driven moral panic. By all means attack Nuts / Zoo, I couldn't give a s*** about those wank mags, but please the leave video games and the SF genre alone!

I can see through the attack on "video games" as nothing more than a "strawman" attempt to discredit a subculture which has made massive progress to be as diverse as possible and have welcomed women with open arms. The only problem is purely that of a historical one (less women have historically taken up "computer sciences" hence there is under-representation). There is no patriarchal cyber-boogeyman!

Respecting artistic freedom and freedom of expression is qualitatively more important than pandering to dogmatic, moral imperialism. I too am tired of the same old tropes being trotted out by so many writers (of both sexes), such rape as the go-to trigger for "character development" or as the principal (or only) threat to female characters. I'm fortunate not to have suffered any such event in real life, but it's never far from women's minds - is it too much to ask that we get some wish-fulfilment too?

The internet is full of hilarious critiques of this double standard, Men vs. Women on book covers - maybe you should read some:

http://www.jimchines.com/2012/01/striking-a-pose/

I don't really get a lot of the criticism leveled at the T&A comic poses? Is it any different to the improbably handsome bare-chested hunks that adorn the cover of romance/erotica novels? Both are aiming at a particular target demographic.

It's not the same thing at all:

1. Bodies - Men get to look like incredible athletes. Women get to look like pneumatic blow up dolls;
2. Clothing - male superheroes are generally in all over outfits. Female superheroes have to wear skimpy outfits with it all on display;
3. General depiction - the men get to do heroic poses. The women get to do frankly ridiculous poses to show off boobs, bum or both.

Comics are pretty horribly sexist (at least your mainstream DC and Marvel are). This is now being highlighted more and more - hopefully pressure will bring changes. Specifically on the body subject. Comic book heroes reflect the social ideal body image of their time for both men and women, though definitely filtered from the male perspective. So yes, the guy look like seasoned athletes because that's the image of "What you should look like" that's pounded into guys from the moment they start watching television, and one the female side, the women are extremely physically attractive, though not as nearly as muscled because that's the social ideal that men get for women.

And that's not exclusive to men, though it'll look different with women since while the women will look more realistically athletic, the guys usually end up somewhere between Robert Pattinson and Ryan Gosling.

And frankly, that's how superheros will almost always be. They're supposed to projections of our ideal selves, especially physically. So unless you can reform society so there is no ideal body image for any gender (which is both probably impossible, and may not even be beneficial since we hopefully want people to strive towards *some* physical goal, though it shouldn't the brick shape men are expected to be now, or the ultra-skinny, but conspicuously large-breasted ideal we have for women) you're always going to get Superheroes that just don't look like real people, because that's kinda the *point*.

Ah so politics is fine so long as it reflect debates in 'the real world' except of course feminism is a well-established political narrative and clearly generates a lot of debates so wouldn't such a political message reflect 'the real world'? You can't demand that politics and political messages in games follow a well-worn path of cultural norms as dictated as acceptable and then expect games to be innovative. The only way for games to progress as a medium is to smash socially conservative boundaries they are currently hidden behind and to be able to engage as all art forms on topics that those producing the work wish to cover.

Feminists are getting a bit desperate if they're going after fantasy novels, comic books and games. “Game of Thrones” does have a lot of sex and nudity, but it is hardly the first HBO series to be like that. As for Charlaine Harris, my guess is that the majority of her fans our women. Hers is a welcome antidote to the asexual blandness of the Twilight saga (yes I know the Harris's books were written first). After all, women like sex too.

As for fantasy genre in general, yes you can critise, as long as it doesn't turn into some kind of feminist witch-hunt. At the end of the day it is fiction and escapism. If you don't like a game, a book or comic, then don't buy it.

A story that reflects the values of the reader is relaxing and comforting. A story that challenges the values of the reader is more stressful and, well, challenging to read. Also, material that fits with existing stereotypes just slots in quietly and lets you concentrate on the plot. Material that goes against your stereotypes hogs the attention and distracts from the plot. And that is without considering people who object to having their stories mixed with what they consider hostile political propaganda.

Bottom-line: Are there any women who have read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series? The heroine is not only a holy prostitute but also a masochist (an “anguissette” in the book, one who gets sexual pleasure from pain), yet Carey, to my mind, makes her believable, sympathetic, and even admirable. I'd be interested in hearing a woman's opinion of her. Carey seems to have been a little unfortunate to have been too early for the recent vogue for women's S/M porn, with all the sex and sadism going on in her book she should rename the series 50 Shades of Red. Carey’s writing is much more my alley than the essays in “Appignanesi’s collection (and they’re so frigging boring and naïve too)!
… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
antao | 2 autres critiques | Nov 19, 2019 |

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Œuvres
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