Not That Bad- Roxane Gay (Ed.)

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Synopsis

‘Not That Bad’ is a collection of essays about rape, sexual assault and rape culture.

Review

I read it mainly in the hope of finding it as enlightening as I had found ‘Yes Means Yes’ which covers similar themes (and one of the essays is by someone featured in ‘Yes Means Yes’).

Each essay seems more or less 'extreme' but each has something that makes it 'not that bad'. Because it wasn't violent, because you loved them, because you didn't die, because you didn't speak about it.

The overarching message is that how can we say anything is not that bad? It all has an impact, an effect.

By saying it's not bad we are blaming the survivor. Because how dare they let it affect them?

But it's a safety to. If we can find a reason for blaming the victim it won't happen to us, because we wouldn't do that, we don't do that

By doing that though it makes it almost acceptable.

The essays in this one didn't strike me as much as in 'Yes Means Yes'. There were a couple that did. In a feminist perspective rather than just being generally of note

The 1 was about how we expect a survivor to behave, and generally how that makes things difficult

The other around how we have expectations of how others will react, and the difference that makes

Is not exactly an easy or enjoyable read. And I didn't find it that enlightening, but I'm still glad I read it