Review: The Geek Feminist Revolution
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hurley presents a formidable discussion about the role of women and her own experiences in writing, in science-fiction, and in the world in general in this collection of essays. Her discussion provides an inside and critical lens to the challenges, frustrations, threats, and dangers of trying to exist in spaces dominated and guarded by men, such as the realm of science fiction writing. She destroys the straw-man arguments about the absence of women in sci-fi while also illustrating the need for a wider range of authors than the traditional white men in order to do what sci-fi does best, imagine new and dynamic worlds that don't just differ from our own but become aspiration guides in ways that open up opportunity and possibility. In breaking up the book into three sections, she focuses on how she became and succeeded as a writer (the goal for writers is persistence), then she pivots to provide critiques of science-fiction in US culture, and finally, she discussed how her personal life has been disrupted and disregarded within a patriarchal, capitalist system that would devalue her as a person for being a woman. Hurley's work is a powerful book that helps readers to think more deeply about what they read, what they write, how they engage in politics, and how they may or may not perpetuate the inequalities of our current system through such actions. And, of course, after reading it and hearing about her world-building, I am itching to go and read her fiction because it sounds amazing.
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