I'm sorry to hear Unshrinking is your lowest-selling book, but I hope it will help at least a little to know how much of an impact it had on one of your readers.
I've been struggling with internalized anti-fatness my entire life, and it was only in my mid-40s that I finally jumped off the dieting hamster wheel. I read everything I can get my hands on and listen to every podcast I can find to help me learn how to dismantle the harm anti-fatness has inflicted in my own life, but it wasn't until your book and your chapter on body neutrality that I finally found a framework that made sense to me. It's baffling how obvious it seems to me now, but it wasn't until I read that chapter that I fully began to understand and appreciate that my body is for me and me alone, and that I have a right to eat whatever I please, dress it however I please, and move it however I please. After having spent decades of my life incessantly dieting and dressing and doing all the things women are expected to do to make themselves socially acceptable, the relief I've felt in letting go and working on worrying only about how my body serves me has been indescribably liberating.
Thank you for writing books. I love books and am, too, writing books. It's extremely difficult and lonely work, but worth it for ourselves and others. Besides thanks, I also thought I would share that your Substack is one of the few that I find worth reading regularly. Thank you for that, too. And finally, I share your need to press down much harder on defining things as misogyny. It's like it's so everywhere that it's nowhere. I think I really started to "get it" when I was living near the shooting in Montreal. On 6 December 1989, a man entered a mechanical engineering classroom at Montreal’s École Polytechnique armed with a semi-automatic weapon. After separating the women from the men, he opened fire on the women while screaming, “You are all feminists.” This was a wake-up call on our campus (in Ontario) and this was the first time I really started to understand the relationship between hating women and violence, and even the idea that men hated women at all. Keep pressing on this topic. It matters.
This world is a better place because Kate Manne decided to write a book, and not an op-ed. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, truly. Keep educating us!
I’ve read them all. I even found one on the shelves of our library here in a red state where 70% of my neighbors voted for our current nightmare. I appreciate all of your efforts, Kate. My intention is to continue my support for your creative, important work… and to continue to learn from you. Thank you. 🫂
"[W]hat was important was not what Elliot Rodger felt, but what these women faced, at the hands of a gun-toting aggressor who was aiming to slaughter them. If that’s not misogyny, then nothing is: and that’s a problem."
Over the years, I have quoted from and recommended "Down Girl" many times -- to students, friends, colleagues, and relatives -- for this and many related insights. (Particularly your endlessly helpful definition of the term as "the law enforcement branch of the patriarchy.") Thank you for sharing the story of its origins and for all of your excellent work!
Each of your books IMO has been equally brilliant. Unshrinking, due to its close-to-home subject matter, is the most affecting for me. It has a prominent place on my bookshelf alongside Aubrey Godon and Christy Harrison's work. Thank you for your love of book writing and please don't stop!
Oops I pressed send too soon. I meant to say that I was walking around the upper east side the other day, where I grew up, and it seems like the women there are getting thinner and thinner, and it caused me so much distress to think of how they had starved and punished themselves, and I wondered why it is that we ask women to deny their appetites…to literally go hungry??? Your books help me understand this…and so many other disturbing sexist phenomena.
Life-long voracious reader here. While I've had lengthy essays published (so many footnotes: what was I thinking?) I am in awe of people who invest their attention to write an actual book. I'm deliberately using 'attention' here as defined by Simone Weil: the rarest and purest form of generosity. Reading a book that is disruptive and challenging? The best. It is generous for serious thinkers like you to permit access to readers like me by writing books. Thank you.
Substacks are great but books are the container that allows concepts to mature and catalyze. Like you explained in this stack, your defining 'misogyny' equips all of us 'to identify the potent problems facing us. And misogyny is a structural phenomenon that can be manifested not just by hate-filled individuals but also by the social practices and institutions that control and enforce gendered expectations—such as the expectation that we be providers of love, sex, admiration, and attention to designated privileged male recipients.' Again, thank you!
I've been a reader for as long as I can remember. (Remembering is getting harder at 77, but still.) My house is filled with books. I've got at least 20 books on my shelf waiting for me to get to them. (I'm afraid I am overly ambitious in this regard.) Now I've got to go out and look for yours---but I do it with pleasure. I like hearing about what you like about writing, about your process and about those who support you. And thank you, as always for your candor and honesty.
How do you see a link between the sale of Unshrinking with Ozempic?
I enjoy your books and wait the next one and understand huge commitment it takes to write one. I would like to hear more. These are scary times for women and would like to understand how understand misogyny and present politics.
I'm sorry to hear Unshrinking is your lowest-selling book, but I hope it will help at least a little to know how much of an impact it had on one of your readers.
I've been struggling with internalized anti-fatness my entire life, and it was only in my mid-40s that I finally jumped off the dieting hamster wheel. I read everything I can get my hands on and listen to every podcast I can find to help me learn how to dismantle the harm anti-fatness has inflicted in my own life, but it wasn't until your book and your chapter on body neutrality that I finally found a framework that made sense to me. It's baffling how obvious it seems to me now, but it wasn't until I read that chapter that I fully began to understand and appreciate that my body is for me and me alone, and that I have a right to eat whatever I please, dress it however I please, and move it however I please. After having spent decades of my life incessantly dieting and dressing and doing all the things women are expected to do to make themselves socially acceptable, the relief I've felt in letting go and working on worrying only about how my body serves me has been indescribably liberating.
THIS!
I read books because I love books - and I love reading YOUR books.
Thank you for writing books. I love books and am, too, writing books. It's extremely difficult and lonely work, but worth it for ourselves and others. Besides thanks, I also thought I would share that your Substack is one of the few that I find worth reading regularly. Thank you for that, too. And finally, I share your need to press down much harder on defining things as misogyny. It's like it's so everywhere that it's nowhere. I think I really started to "get it" when I was living near the shooting in Montreal. On 6 December 1989, a man entered a mechanical engineering classroom at Montreal’s École Polytechnique armed with a semi-automatic weapon. After separating the women from the men, he opened fire on the women while screaming, “You are all feminists.” This was a wake-up call on our campus (in Ontario) and this was the first time I really started to understand the relationship between hating women and violence, and even the idea that men hated women at all. Keep pressing on this topic. It matters.
This world is a better place because Kate Manne decided to write a book, and not an op-ed. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, truly. Keep educating us!
Thank you for sharing so openly and so eloquently.
Courage is variously defined. In my view, courage is facing one's fears without knowing the result.
Brava Professor.
I'd read your next book, eagerly.
I’ve read them all. I even found one on the shelves of our library here in a red state where 70% of my neighbors voted for our current nightmare. I appreciate all of your efforts, Kate. My intention is to continue my support for your creative, important work… and to continue to learn from you. Thank you. 🫂
"[W]hat was important was not what Elliot Rodger felt, but what these women faced, at the hands of a gun-toting aggressor who was aiming to slaughter them. If that’s not misogyny, then nothing is: and that’s a problem."
Over the years, I have quoted from and recommended "Down Girl" many times -- to students, friends, colleagues, and relatives -- for this and many related insights. (Particularly your endlessly helpful definition of the term as "the law enforcement branch of the patriarchy.") Thank you for sharing the story of its origins and for all of your excellent work!
Kate,
Each of your books IMO has been equally brilliant. Unshrinking, due to its close-to-home subject matter, is the most affecting for me. It has a prominent place on my bookshelf alongside Aubrey Godon and Christy Harrison's work. Thank you for your love of book writing and please don't stop!
Oops I pressed send too soon. I meant to say that I was walking around the upper east side the other day, where I grew up, and it seems like the women there are getting thinner and thinner, and it caused me so much distress to think of how they had starved and punished themselves, and I wondered why it is that we ask women to deny their appetites…to literally go hungry??? Your books help me understand this…and so many other disturbing sexist phenomena.
Your books have changed my life in profound and liberating ways. Thank you for writing them.
I was walking around the upper east side of Manhattan (
Life-long voracious reader here. While I've had lengthy essays published (so many footnotes: what was I thinking?) I am in awe of people who invest their attention to write an actual book. I'm deliberately using 'attention' here as defined by Simone Weil: the rarest and purest form of generosity. Reading a book that is disruptive and challenging? The best. It is generous for serious thinkers like you to permit access to readers like me by writing books. Thank you.
Substacks are great but books are the container that allows concepts to mature and catalyze. Like you explained in this stack, your defining 'misogyny' equips all of us 'to identify the potent problems facing us. And misogyny is a structural phenomenon that can be manifested not just by hate-filled individuals but also by the social practices and institutions that control and enforce gendered expectations—such as the expectation that we be providers of love, sex, admiration, and attention to designated privileged male recipients.' Again, thank you!
I've been a reader for as long as I can remember. (Remembering is getting harder at 77, but still.) My house is filled with books. I've got at least 20 books on my shelf waiting for me to get to them. (I'm afraid I am overly ambitious in this regard.) Now I've got to go out and look for yours---but I do it with pleasure. I like hearing about what you like about writing, about your process and about those who support you. And thank you, as always for your candor and honesty.
So good to read your ascent and I am so happy you are on Substack.
How do you see a link between the sale of Unshrinking with Ozempic?
I enjoy your books and wait the next one and understand huge commitment it takes to write one. I would like to hear more. These are scary times for women and would like to understand how understand misogyny and present politics.