Fight Like a Girl

September 1, 2018
In her ruthless debut essay collection, Australian activist and agitator Ford presents a feminist manifesto for the 2018 woman and her allies. Ford rails against the most contemporary issues of misogyny, from rape culture to partner violence to internet harassment. Blending memoir with critical analysis, she creates an intimate, though universal, call to arms. As a prominent feminist, Ford has seen her fair share of venom from readers online. As they've begged her to explain why she so deeply hates men, Ford uses this book to explore why men so viciously hate women. She meditates on society's insistence that women physically shrink themselves, how society polices the uterus, and how society allows the female body to be defiled over and over with few or no repercussions for the perpetrator?and all this in a society still predominantly run by men. Ford's book is a galvanizing tour de force, begging women to never give up on the most radical act of all: loving themselves wholly and completely in a world that doesn't love them back.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 1, 2018

With just the right balance of sarcasm and straightforward, informational content, writer and broadcaster Ford's first book is one people need to read in the wake of the MeToo movement. The author defines systemic misogyny and how we internalize it, then breaks down topics such as abortion, eating disorders, mental illness, rape culture, and the enduring stereotyping of feminism as a movement based on man-hating, which delegitimizes the real anger we can and should feel toward those who violate women's and girls' rights. VERDICT Ford's quick, provocative read will appeal to anyone who desires a better understanding of the complex, intersectional issues so often lumped into phrases such as rape culture. Read alongside Susan Faludi's Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women and Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards's Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 28, 2016
In her engaging debut, Fairfax columnist and feminist Clementine Ford surveys what it means to be a girl in the world today, covering topics from eating disorders and abortion, to online trolls, masturbation, rape culture and domestic violence. Each of these issues is explored through the prism of Ford’s own experiences, and through a feminist framework that is acutely aware of the movement’s historical limitations and its failure to adequately support women with disabilities, trans women and women across all racial and class backgrounds. As a prominent feminist commentator, Ford has been subjected to unrelenting sexist abuse online. She recounts these attacks with weary frustration, but also a sense of the absurdity and contradictions inherent in patriarchal power structures that can be so easily threatened by outspoken women. Fight Like a Girl is fuelled by Ford’s clear-eyed defiance and refusal to compromise, and by her powerful combination of personal testimony and political polemic. In the vein of Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman or Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, Ford’s book functions as a valuable primer for young people encountering feminism for the first time. It will also have broad appeal for readers seeking a thoughtful snapshot of the modern movement’s most urgent priorities. Veronica Sullivan is Prize Manager of the Stella Prize