Hags
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
'Rich, complex and witty' ROSE GEORGE, SPECTATOR
'Devastating and clever' BEL MOONEY, DAILY MAIL
'Could not be more necessary' RACHEL COOKE, OBSERVER
What is about women in their forties and beyond that seems to enrage - almost everyone?
In the last few years, as identity politics have taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings: the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused.
In Hags, Victoria Smith asks why these women are treated with such active disdain. Each chapter takes a different theme - care work, beauty, violence, political organization, sex - and explores it in relation to middle-aged women's beliefs, bodies, histories and choices. Smith traces the attitudes she describes through history, and explores the very specific reasons why this type of misogyny is so very now. The result is a book that is absorbing, insightful, witty and bang on time.
Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards announced 21 November 2023.
Customer Reviews
An unhinged rant devoid of self-reflection
Nuance and complexity missed this author by a country mile. She works very hard to paint young feminists in particular as an unscrupulous mob that won’t think critically. She lost me fully when she says they are willing to overlook child predators and sexual assault in exchange for sexual liberation - Shut up about child rape lest you come across as an old prude?! Who and where?! It is sardonic throughout, makes heaps of unsubstantiated generalisations and no efforts to entertain perspectives other than everybody and anybody hates middle-aged women and our saggy tits. Some really important core themes about middle-aged women get lost in her ranting, sadly.