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April 2026

feminism or death (d'Eaubonne) ★★ ½ I read this to take a break from Irigaray but I still expected it to be a little challenging. I wanted theory, which I think is reasonable for something called "ecofeminism," but I got a list of facts and statistics from the 70s. anything else I have to say I said in this blog: I recently read Feminism or death by Francoise d'Eaubonne and I was underwhelmed. She proposes anti-natalism to solve overpopulation. Besides the fact that overpopulation is a myth of the rich to blame ecological collapse on the poor, I am suspicious of the usefulness of her demand (a suspicion of utility that I can thank Bataille for, who also opposes Malthusian economics of lack). We know that the planet has witnessed climate change at the turn of every geological epoch and that it will absolutely outlive this one. It has never been about saving the planet but saving ourselves. and when women's role is already to preserve the species through reproduction, d'Eaubonne's anti-natalism has only repackaged that duty …

women without men (Parsipur) ★★★ [read for bookbug] stories of women turning into trees have been following me for the last eight months. bernini's sculpture of apollo and daphne in a baroque art class (the first time I heard of the myth at all), seeing Jesse Mockrin's A story told this many times becomes the forest in-person in a gallery, and the concept appearing multiple times in a class on short stories, including "Sans Souci" by Dionne Brand. I like how the last two and women without men extend the metaphor until it disturbs the simplicity of the original myth enjoyed by men. resisting men's understanding is one of the only things we have going for us, I think, as long as it's turned against the mystique they try to make of it. that's the limit of my praise for this book, though. I started reading Faridoun Farrokh's 2011 translation -- the newer translation -- and it was awful. I think it was the first time I was compelled to find an alternative. so much so that I subjected my kobo to the only terrible scan of the 1998 translation that I could find online, compressing it enough so that instead of taking a full 5 seconds to turn the page it was only about a couple. the older translation was more tolerable but it was still soo dry. I can't believe the original farsi is that dry. the stories alone were interesting but the form will always be what matters to me. but I don't want to act like a north american white woman's enjoyment of the book is what's important as much as what women without men did. my respect for shahrnush parsipur is endless, she was imprisoned for her writing both under the shah and the islamic republic. duras: "a woman that writes. that's cruel for men."