Having recently suffered through one and a half other books that promised to teach me about interesting women I've never heard of but which were, in reality, 60% Tumblr level "lol men are the worst am I right?" kind of jokes, 20% obnoxious pop culture references, 10 % insinuating that literally nothing has changed since the 19th century and women are just as oppressed as ever thanks to Trump obviously, and maybe 10% relevant information, I was excited for Women Who Dared because I really, really love to read about groundbreaking, trailblazing, amazing historical women, and just once I would like to be able to do so without straining my eye muscles from rolling them too hard.
Unfortunately, this book is also not the answer I was looking for, but this time it's harder to put into words why. Certainly it was not too political, which I appreciated, but it had numerous other problems. I couldn't entirely get behind the writing style, for one thing. Colloquial in certain places, pretentious in others, it was as if the author couldn't decide whether he wanted to write a serious, informative non-fiction book, or a gossip column-worthy, flippant account of the lives of these women, full of rumours told as facts, possibilites presented as certanties, and blatant misinformation.
And oh, these women. I can't for the life of me understand what possessed the author to choose these six women in particular for his book. Certainly they all fit under the "women who dared" title, and it's probably my fault that I expected to find actual role models in here instead of con artists, barely important socialites, and women whose only claim to fame is their messy divorce and all the men they fucked. And just to show that I'm not kidding or exaggerating about any of this, let's take a look at the book chapter by chapter.
1. Victoria Woodhull
The book was off to a promising start with a chapter about the first female candidate for President of the United States, and I was excited to read about just how that was even possible in the 19th century. Well, that I never really found out. Victoria's presidential run amounted to about half a sentence in this chapter that was mainly about her inredibly messy home life, her career as a successful "spiritual healer", con-woman, and broker, and her attempt to ruin the life of a prominent man who was once mean to her. I can't even recall what platform she ran on, other than maybe "fuck monogamy" and "free sex for all", which seemed to be about 90% of her belief system, according to this book.
2. Mary Wollstonecraft
By far my favourite chapter, it was also, unfortunately, the shortest, and it would have been even shorter if not for the tangentially related account of women's role in the French Revolution that took up maybe half of it. Still, at least Mary is a role model, and I appreciated that she was included at all, even if I did have to roll my eyes a bit at the author's relentless insistence that her goals and ideas (namely education and equal opportunities for women) "have yet to be fulfilled" in our society. We could save so much time and help so many people in actual unequal and oppressive societies the world over if we finally stopped pretending this was true.
3. Aimee Semple Macpherson
I've never heard of Aimee before and honestly I'm not sure I missed much. The fact that she was the first female preacher in America, as well as one of the first true media celebrities, back when "mass media" really only meant the radio, is admirable alright. But the fact that she also used "faith healing" as one of her spectacles, and that she founded the first of those wacky American megachurches, is a dubious claim to greatness, and that's not even touching her kidnapping story.
4. Edwina Mountbatten
This is where things started to go downhill for me. I tried to enjoy the chapter for its dual biography nature, but couldn't get past all the inconsistencies and guesswork that clearly went into writing it. One part where it really sticks out is when Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson, a young black singer, is described as "destined to become Edwina's lover", and then a few pages later the author admits that she might have had an affair with a completely different black man, we don't know for certain, since Hutch always denied the claims. Then there are the parts where he describes specific events that prove Edwina's husband's bisexuality (which the author treats as a fashionable pastime all throughout the book), except I couldn't find a single source online that would corroborate that. This is really where the book completely crosses over into tabloid territory, since the actual historically important, not to mention the most interesting parts of Edwina's life, her involvement in rescue operations during the Blitz, are treated as mere anecdotes in the sea of all her affairs and glamorous social life.
5. Margaret Argyll
And then THIS is where the author completely drops the ball and gives up any pretense of writing about actually important women. Margaret Argyll was, by all accounts, and appalling person, and the only reason she is even talked about now, if ever, is because she was stupid enough to leave detailed records of her affairs AND pictures of herself giving blowjobs lying around for her husband to find. That's literally it. She was born rich, grew up privileged, lived off her father's money well into adulthood, didn't work a single day in her life, or did anything to make life better for anyone but herself... why is she included in this book then, you might ask? Well, the author's reasoning is that she, or specifically her disastrous and very public divorce, marked a turning point in the way people looked at aristocracy, and ushered in a more democratic, less class-conscious age in Britain. Honestly I'm not even certain that's true, and even if it was, she was nothing but a passive participant in those events. She didn't DO anything, other than cheat, lie, scheme, and spend money. Was she then, a "woman who dared"? Sure. Dared to be an asshole.
6. Coco Chanel
I guess this chapter could have been interesting, but by this point I felt so dragged down and angry by the last two that I just kinda wished the book to be over. I'm not really into fashion anyway and I have no idea how Chanel no. 5 even smells like, but at least Coco really was a pioneer in her own field, who used her own talents and resources to enact change in the world where she felt like it needed some, and that makes her infinitely better than certain others on this book.
So there you have it. All in all I would call this a disappointing book which took a good idea and went in a completely pointless direction with it, but I recognize that others might think differently. Were the women described in the book technically interesting to read about? Sure, and if that's all you're looking for, you might enjoy this a lot better than I did.
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