Lying

Zero Stars

This book was recommended by a female author who I greatly admire and having read the books description I was interested to read more. However, when I got to page 17 were the author gives an example of using a “white lie” when a “fat” woman asks if she looks good in her dress, he then goes on to illustrate that the woman is 35, single and “desperate” to get pregnant and that if he was simply “honest” and told her that all of her problems were on account of her being “fat” that the outcome, he goes on to explain, would be that she would be shamed into dieting, become skinny and therefore be more attractive to men which would lead to a higher likelihood of her getting pregnant...two things struck me having read this paragraph 1. How shocking it is that a man so academically acclaimed is so tone deaf to both his blatant misogyny and how problematic fat shaming is (let’s look at another “truth” say that his fat shaming leads this woman into a series of unsuccessful dieting and disordered eating or worse an eating disorder, trying to get pregnant with an eating disorder is impossible once your body stops having periods, a common side effect of starving yourself - but well done you can pat yourself of the back for being “honest” what a fine fellow you are) 2. This example automatically throws the authors thesis out the window because clearly “truth” is subjective - fat women are unattractive to men - is not true in my opinion. Finally, let me be completely honest here, I am raging I bought this book and inadvertently supported this misogynist.