Hunger roxane gay la review of books
If we do not do this we are loud, obnoxious, ugly. I live in a contradictory space where I should try to take up space but not too much of it, and not in the wrong way, where the wrong way is any way where my body is concerned.”Īs women we are always told to occupy less space, shrink our bodies, shrink our personalities. And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space. As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. She talks about the contradiction of being fat and being a feminist when she says, “ I am hyperconscious of how I take up space. She connects the invisibilised ties of body shaming and capitalism by letting her readers know about the multi-billion dollar industry being created just to make money off shrinking and invisibilising women’s bodies. She talks about her struggle with loving and accepting her family as they took the liberty to constantly criticise her body and put it under scrutiny, another grey area of being hurt by someone you love and who loves you, an experience numerous fat/curvy women experience everyday.
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“We don’t necessarily know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to accept that violence is as simple as it is complicated, that you can love someone who hurts you, that you can stay with someone who hurts you, that you can be hurt by someone who loves you, that you can be hurt by a complete stranger, that you can be hurt in so many terrible, intimate ways.” She talks about the grey areas of violence when she says: She doesn’t shy away from sharing moments of pure pain and hurt that she experienced in a way that has never been done before. She claims the bigger her body got, the more invisible yet safe she felt. She talks about wanting to make her body bigger and bigger so no man could harm her. Roxane Gay traces the journey of her body as she makes it a fortress, that protects her and becomes her. She calls her body “ unruly” and explores how a patriarchal society wants to contain, dominate, and train her body. She does not only speak about physical hunger but about hunger for love, respect, safety, intimacy, and even justice. Divided into two parts, pre and post-sexual assault, Roxane Gay does not only talk about the politics of fatness, but talks about embodiment and the significance of a woman’s physical body especially when it has been violated. Roxane Gay in her book creates revolution through raw vulnerability. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it’s something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us.”Īlso read: Reflections On Being A Fat Woman: My Body As The Site Of Moral Panic
We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. “This is what most girls are taught – that we should be slender and small. If you identify with an ideology based on the visibility of women, how do you deal with consequences of breaking these patriarchal expectations? This is what Roxane Gay explores in her book Hunger: A Memoir of My Body We are supposed to be thin but not too thin, polite but not boring, talkative yet not too talkative, visible yet not more visible than men.
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In between questions from Gay, the audience asked Garcia what Lafayette, IN was like, how she enjoyed her MFA from Purdue, and the latest on a potential #OWAS movie spin-off.Our society poses numerous expectation on women, one of them being the constant modification of our physical bodies in order to match up to unattainable beauty standards. With the success of her debut novel, Garcia explained how adjusting to author life was new and challenging, but that connecting with readers is what made it all worth it. With timely themes such as migration, addiction, and freedom, Garcia discussed how the different generations of her characters came to be and how poetry influenced the narrative language within Of Women And Salt. Following the reading, Roxane Gay moderated an engaging discussion with Garcia, Gay’s former MFA student, where they discussed how Of Women and Salt began as a project that was close to Garcia’s heart and ended in a successful publication. The evening opened with a dynamic set by Cuban artist DJ Leydis and was followed by a heartfelt reading by Garcia. On Thursday April 1st, 2021, Latinx in Publishing was honored to co-sponsor and host with WordUp Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria a reading of Of Women and Salt with author Gabriela Garcia and Q&A led by Roxane Gay.