Secondhand: travels in the new global garage sale by Adam Minter
One of the hottest trends right now is minimalism and decluttering - Marie Kondo's name and catch phrase "spark joy" are household terms. So, what happens with all the stuff we declutter and donate? Adam Minter follows donations around the world. Secondhand explores this often-hidden, multibillion dollar industry of used and recycled goods. Minter sees everything from electronics being repurposed and repaired in Ghana to street markets in Mexico that obtain all their wares from Goodwill stores across the border in the US. He also uncovers new businesses in both the US and Japan that specialize in cleaning out the homes of deceased persons and donating or recycling their belongings that the families don't want. This is a really unique book that explores our relationship with our stuff and how that stuff can also transform the lives of others where secondhand goods are valued. Reading this book will definitely make you question yourself the next time you're in a store, "Do I REALLY need this?"
Some quotes I liked:
"Todd loves rags made from reclaimed textiles. But he can't simply ignore the declining quality of used textiles. So, in recent years, Star Wipers [a rag company] has started to manufacture a new, 100 percent cotton wiping rag from yarn grown and manufactured in North Carolina. 'We can follow it from field to here,' he tells me. The environmental impact of that new rag is steep compared with that of a reclaimed one (growing cotton is highly water intensive)...Star Wipers' 100 percent cotton rag is known as the STB - short for Simply the Best - and around the wiping rag industry, that is a widely acknowledged statement of fact." (p. 163)
[On secondhand child safety seats. Minter notes that parents are DRILLED about how car seats expire and need to be destroyed rather than sold or given away secondhand. In looking into this he could find no actual data that shows that this is the case.] "Professor Kullgren concluded by writing that Folksam's recommendation is that so long as a seat hasn't been in a crash or otherwise doesn't exhibit any damage, it's fine to use. He also noted that seat designs are always improving, so a consumer buying a newer seat is likely getting a safer seat - especially if the old one exceeds ten years in age. But there's nothing illegal or unsafe in using an older one...Thinking back on the [Goodwill] auction, I think it's too bad Target recycled those more than 500,000 seats over the years. They would've sold, and many children south of the border would be safer because their parents had access to a secondhand market." (p. 198-99)
"I suggest that [Robin Ingenthron's] grandfather's advice about repair is from a different era. He corrects me. 'I think it's advice from poor people. People who are poor fix stuff. I was raised that the smartest thing you can do is buy a rich person's broken thing,' he says. 'The best deal you can negotiate is when the rich person doesn't know how easy it is to fix it.'" (p. 228)
"The business model is a unique one. iFixit (with the help of an army of volunteers) creates repair manuals for devices that don't have them and posts them to its website, where anyone can access the information for free. As of this writing, there are more than thirty-eight thousand manuals (and counting) for products ranging from the latest Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone to the Oral-B Vitality electric toothbrush. To monetize this massive informational giveaway, iFixit sells repair parts and tools, as well as software and consulting services. In 2016 the company generated $21 million in sales." (p. 231)
"Recognizing the potential in secondhand markets led Dell to design products that can last longer because their profitable. Right to repair is a means of encouraging reluctant companies uninterested in secondhand to rethink their approach, and hopefully adopt Dell's...As of 2019, more than twenty U.S. states are considering right-to-repair legislation (unsurprisingly, Apple and many other leading consumer electronics companies vigorously oppose them)." (p. 240-41)
Some quotes I liked:
"Todd loves rags made from reclaimed textiles. But he can't simply ignore the declining quality of used textiles. So, in recent years, Star Wipers [a rag company] has started to manufacture a new, 100 percent cotton wiping rag from yarn grown and manufactured in North Carolina. 'We can follow it from field to here,' he tells me. The environmental impact of that new rag is steep compared with that of a reclaimed one (growing cotton is highly water intensive)...Star Wipers' 100 percent cotton rag is known as the STB - short for Simply the Best - and around the wiping rag industry, that is a widely acknowledged statement of fact." (p. 163)
[On secondhand child safety seats. Minter notes that parents are DRILLED about how car seats expire and need to be destroyed rather than sold or given away secondhand. In looking into this he could find no actual data that shows that this is the case.] "Professor Kullgren concluded by writing that Folksam's recommendation is that so long as a seat hasn't been in a crash or otherwise doesn't exhibit any damage, it's fine to use. He also noted that seat designs are always improving, so a consumer buying a newer seat is likely getting a safer seat - especially if the old one exceeds ten years in age. But there's nothing illegal or unsafe in using an older one...Thinking back on the [Goodwill] auction, I think it's too bad Target recycled those more than 500,000 seats over the years. They would've sold, and many children south of the border would be safer because their parents had access to a secondhand market." (p. 198-99)
"I suggest that [Robin Ingenthron's] grandfather's advice about repair is from a different era. He corrects me. 'I think it's advice from poor people. People who are poor fix stuff. I was raised that the smartest thing you can do is buy a rich person's broken thing,' he says. 'The best deal you can negotiate is when the rich person doesn't know how easy it is to fix it.'" (p. 228)
"The business model is a unique one. iFixit (with the help of an army of volunteers) creates repair manuals for devices that don't have them and posts them to its website, where anyone can access the information for free. As of this writing, there are more than thirty-eight thousand manuals (and counting) for products ranging from the latest Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone to the Oral-B Vitality electric toothbrush. To monetize this massive informational giveaway, iFixit sells repair parts and tools, as well as software and consulting services. In 2016 the company generated $21 million in sales." (p. 231)
"Recognizing the potential in secondhand markets led Dell to design products that can last longer because their profitable. Right to repair is a means of encouraging reluctant companies uninterested in secondhand to rethink their approach, and hopefully adopt Dell's...As of 2019, more than twenty U.S. states are considering right-to-repair legislation (unsurprisingly, Apple and many other leading consumer electronics companies vigorously oppose them)." (p. 240-41)
This Much Country by Kristin Knight Pace
Kristin Pace grew up in Texas but came to love the rugged terrain and mountains of the West. She attended an outdoors camp in Colorado every year for several years as a teenager and worked there as a counselor during college as well. During her senior year of high school Kristin meets Alfred online. Alfred lives in Montana, was Native American, and five years older than Kristin. Alfred flies out to Texas just before she graduates and a few days after graduation Kristin is driving from Texas to Montana to be with Alfred. Anyone from the outside could see Alfred was a loser and jerk, but Kristin loved him and they eventually got married. They both worked seasonal jobs that often meant they might be apart for weeks at a time. After they had been married a few years Alfred asked for a divorce. Kristin was devastated and her friend in Alaska contacted her about house-sitting and watching a guy's sled dog team for the winter. Having worked with sled dogs in Denali National Park before and already a dog lover Kristin jumps at the opportunity. That decision changes her whole life. She falls in love with sled dogs and decides to stay in Alaska. She also meets Andy and falls in love again. They start their own sled dog kennel and both start entering sled dog races. The book culminates in Kristin finishing the Iditarod, a 1,000 mile sled dog race that was her dream once she started sled dog racing.
While Kristin's story is inspiring, the life of a professional sled dog racer seems ridiculously hard. It's obviously not something that just anyone can do. For Kristin it seemed almost like a calling and she really found herself in being able to manage the dog team and the grueling races on her own. Also, as an aside I just hated Alfred from the beginning. It seemed like everyone around her could see what a jerk he was except her -ugh. I'm glad she didn't waste more time with him and found someone much better for her.
Some quotes I liked:
"'I'm so amazed by you three women,' she said, referring to me, Ryne, and Tamra Reynolds, the only three women running the [Yukon Quest] race. 'I just can't imagine doing what you're doing. You three are so brave. Aren't you terrified of being out there all alone?' She said it like we women had an additional burden to bear. Like our experience would be that much more scary and difficult because we weren't men. And also, like men didn't need to be brave to run the Yukon Quest. Like they just came that way, with bravery built in. 'Well, all of us are doing something we've trained for many years to do,' I said. 'Both the women and the men.'...'Don't you think you should value yourself a bit more?' I asked her. 'You're a woman, and I'm sure you've done some very hard, brave things.'...I was grateful to be in a sport where there were no divisions between men and women. And out on the trail, we could hardly tell one another apart. Underneath the big parkas and frozen ruffs, we were all one thing: dog mushers." (p. 212-13)
[During the Iditarod race in 2016 two dog teams were intentionally attacked by people on snowmachines. One attack left one dog dead and two others injured. Later in the race another female competitor experienced an attempted sexual assault from two men on snowmachines.]
"We should have been focused on surviving in -20 degree temperatures, on traveling a hundred miles a day through unforgiving wild land, on keeping our dogs healthy and exemplifying the pioneer know-how and spirit of thousand-mile mushers. Instead, we were fearing sexual harassment, violence, and rape. Instead, we were fearing what men thought our bodies owed them. How on earth could they watch us go by, these icons of the northland driving powerful dog teams, and have the nerve to reach out and touch one of us? Have such a feeling of entitlement over us as to grab one of our asses? To violate? If they could do that to a total stranger, to a professional athlete passing by on a dogsled, what were they doing to the women in their lives, in their schools, in their houses?...And just like Jeff and Aliy, she would swallow the invasive, pervasive fear and keep going. But unlike Jeff and Aliy, Sarah wasn't attacked at random. She was attacked because she was a woman. And the thought of what those men could have done to her if they had succeeded in pulling her off her sled would haunt me all the way to Nome." (p. 300-302)
While Kristin's story is inspiring, the life of a professional sled dog racer seems ridiculously hard. It's obviously not something that just anyone can do. For Kristin it seemed almost like a calling and she really found herself in being able to manage the dog team and the grueling races on her own. Also, as an aside I just hated Alfred from the beginning. It seemed like everyone around her could see what a jerk he was except her -ugh. I'm glad she didn't waste more time with him and found someone much better for her.
Some quotes I liked:
"'I'm so amazed by you three women,' she said, referring to me, Ryne, and Tamra Reynolds, the only three women running the [Yukon Quest] race. 'I just can't imagine doing what you're doing. You three are so brave. Aren't you terrified of being out there all alone?' She said it like we women had an additional burden to bear. Like our experience would be that much more scary and difficult because we weren't men. And also, like men didn't need to be brave to run the Yukon Quest. Like they just came that way, with bravery built in. 'Well, all of us are doing something we've trained for many years to do,' I said. 'Both the women and the men.'...'Don't you think you should value yourself a bit more?' I asked her. 'You're a woman, and I'm sure you've done some very hard, brave things.'...I was grateful to be in a sport where there were no divisions between men and women. And out on the trail, we could hardly tell one another apart. Underneath the big parkas and frozen ruffs, we were all one thing: dog mushers." (p. 212-13)
[During the Iditarod race in 2016 two dog teams were intentionally attacked by people on snowmachines. One attack left one dog dead and two others injured. Later in the race another female competitor experienced an attempted sexual assault from two men on snowmachines.]
"We should have been focused on surviving in -20 degree temperatures, on traveling a hundred miles a day through unforgiving wild land, on keeping our dogs healthy and exemplifying the pioneer know-how and spirit of thousand-mile mushers. Instead, we were fearing sexual harassment, violence, and rape. Instead, we were fearing what men thought our bodies owed them. How on earth could they watch us go by, these icons of the northland driving powerful dog teams, and have the nerve to reach out and touch one of us? Have such a feeling of entitlement over us as to grab one of our asses? To violate? If they could do that to a total stranger, to a professional athlete passing by on a dogsled, what were they doing to the women in their lives, in their schools, in their houses?...And just like Jeff and Aliy, she would swallow the invasive, pervasive fear and keep going. But unlike Jeff and Aliy, Sarah wasn't attacked at random. She was attacked because she was a woman. And the thought of what those men could have done to her if they had succeeded in pulling her off her sled would haunt me all the way to Nome." (p. 300-302)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Books & Banter book club)
Pachinko follows one Korean family through four generations. Each generation have their own struggles, but the earlier ones struggle through war and having to leave their homeland. For the majority of the book the family is living in Japan and seen as outsiders. Sunja, the only surviving child of Hoonie and Yangjin, shames her family by becoming pregnant by a married man. In a strange twist of events that situation would end up saving her and her family's lives. This unique novel explores not just the struggles of Koreans living in Japan, but also the struggles of a family. What does it mean to provide? What does it mean to receive help? Can someone bad do good things? How do you cope with so much loss? Sunja, her younger son Mozasu, and her grandson Solomon show that no matter the loss or hardship family is a strong thread running through your life. And life, like the Pachinko gambling machines, is always a risk - sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but you still keep playing.
This is one of those books that I would have NEVER picked up if not for book club. But, it was really good. My only complaint is that the last section of the book had some REALLY weird sexual scenes that just didn't seem to add to the story much at all. I have a really hard time believing the scenes in the Japanese forest too. I could have done without some of that when it wasn't very relevant to the storyline or main characters.
Some quotes I liked:
"Every morning, Mozasu and his men tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes - there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game? Etsuko had failed in this important way - she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not." (p. 412)
"In the moments before her death, her mother had said that this man had ruined her life, but had he? He had given her Noa; unless she had been pregnant, she wouldn't have married Isak, and without Isak, she wouldn't have had Mozasu and now her grandson Solomon. She didn't want to hate him anymore. What did Joseph say to his brothers who had sold him into slavery when he saw them again? 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.' This was something Isak had taught her when she'd asked him about the evil of this world." (p. 427)
This is one of those books that I would have NEVER picked up if not for book club. But, it was really good. My only complaint is that the last section of the book had some REALLY weird sexual scenes that just didn't seem to add to the story much at all. I have a really hard time believing the scenes in the Japanese forest too. I could have done without some of that when it wasn't very relevant to the storyline or main characters.
Some quotes I liked:
"Every morning, Mozasu and his men tinkered with the machines to fix the outcomes - there could only be a few winners and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones. How could you get angry at the ones who wanted to be in the game? Etsuko had failed in this important way - she had not taught her children to hope, to believe in the perhaps-absurd possibility that they might win. Pachinko was a foolish game, but life was not." (p. 412)
"In the moments before her death, her mother had said that this man had ruined her life, but had he? He had given her Noa; unless she had been pregnant, she wouldn't have married Isak, and without Isak, she wouldn't have had Mozasu and now her grandson Solomon. She didn't want to hate him anymore. What did Joseph say to his brothers who had sold him into slavery when he saw them again? 'You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.' This was something Isak had taught her when she'd asked him about the evil of this world." (p. 427)
Chefs' Fridges: more than 35 world-renowned cooks reveal what they eat at home by Carrie Solomon
I wasn't familiar with these authors first book Inside Chef's Fridges, Europe, but when I saw this one it sounded interesting. Like these authors you might think do famous chefs really cook super fancy meals at home? Will there be soda in their fridge? etc. In the Introduction the authors talk about how they both have lived in Paris for a long time, but were both raised in North America, so in this book they wanted to focus on American and Canadian chefs. But, there were a LOT of chefs that were not American of Canadian, so that seemed odd to me. There are hundreds of well-known chefs throughout North America and yet they still ended up including a lot of European chefs. It just seemed to go against the premise of the book. But, each chef had an introduction about how they go into cooking, what they became known for, etc, then pictures of the inside of their fridge with a numbered list explaining the contents, then a Q&A, and finally one or two recipes. Overall, it was interesting, but not amazing.
Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover (Evening Edition book club, re-read)
The first time Tara Westover heard of the Holocaust she was in a college classroom. Westover grew up the youngest of seven children born to survivalist Mormon parents. Westover's father owned a scrap metal yard and sometimes worked construction and her mother was a midwife and herbalist. They didn't believe in public education or modern medicine - all the children were homeschooled, but mostly that meant working either in the scrap yard or in the kitchen (but only for Tara and her sister since women belong in the kitchen). This is the life Tara sees herself living as an adult since she knows nothing else. But when her older brother Tyler gets into college he opens the door to her as well. He encourages her to take the ACT and after teaching herself enough math to pass she is accepted to BYU. Once in college Tara begins to see that almost everything she was taught by her parents was wrong, but by reading and studying Tara begins to open more doors for herself through education. But, going home between semesters gets harder and harder as she begins to see her family and life growing up through new eyes - her father is very likely bipolar and her brother Shawn is violently abusive to everyone in his path (and it's excused away by her family time and time again). Finally after Shawn repeatedly threatens to kill her she is cut off by her family - she didn't cut them off THEY cut her off as she is obviously demon-possessed for wanting Shawn to address his issues. She is able to maintain a relationship with two of her brothers - both of whom are educated and aren't financially tied to the family businesses. In the same vein of The Glass Castle, it's a miracle that Westover is able to get out of her family and graduate with a PhD, but Westover's childhood was much more abusive. It's really a miracle that all seven children lived into adulthood with the horrific accidents and injuries that happened to most of them - only going to the hospital with the direst of injuries and often not even then. Westover shows the value of education through her life story and is an inspiration.
Notes after re-reading August 2020:
I was really looking forward to re-reading this book, but it was much harder to read the second time around. This time because I already knew it was coming it was harder to read about all the physical abuse from her brother Shawn and how Tara herself tried to explain it away or make it her own fault. It was also more obvious when reading it again how much Tara doubted herself and was torn between her family and herself. I feel like if she had reached out to Tyler earlier things would have been much easier for her. He grew up the same way and went to college and thrived, but somehow she continued to think the problem was her - not the abuse and lack of education and care from her family. I think the first time reading it the story is so bizarre at times that you aren't paying as close of attention, but reading it again it was much sadder and harder to read. Tara accomplished so much with NO HELP from almost anyone in her family, yet she continued to see herself as less than everyone else. I'm glad she has relationships with two of her brothers and some other extended family, but I doubt her parents or other siblings will ever come around.
Some quotes I liked:
"'I know you think we're being unfair,' she said. 'but when I was your age I was living on my own, getting ready to marry your father.' 'You were married at sixteen?' I said. 'Don't be silly,' she said. 'You are not sixteen.' I stared at her. She stared at me. 'Yes, I am. I'm sixteen.' She looked me over. 'You're at least twenty.' She cocked her head. 'Aren't you?' We were silent. My heart pounded in my chest. 'I turned sixteen in September,' I said. 'Oh.' Mother bit her lip, then she stood and smiled. 'Well, don't worry about it then. You can stay. Don't know what your dad was thinking, really. I guess we forgot. Hard to keep track of how old you kids are.'" (p. 137)
"...I had finally begun to grasp something that should have been immediately apparent: that someone had opposed the great march toward equality; someone had been the person from whom freedom had to be wrested. I did not think of my brother as that person; I doubt I will ever think of him that way. But something had shifted nonetheless. I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others - because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward." (p. 180)
"'I have been teaching in Cambridge for thirty years,' he said. 'And this is one of the best essays I've read.' I was prepared for insults but not for this...I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it. I wanted the professor to shout at me, wanted it so deeply I felt dizzy from the deprivation." (p. 240)
"I'd never heard anyone use the word 'feminism' as anything but a reprimand. At BYU, 'You sound like a feminist' signaled the end of the argument. It also signaled that I had lost." (p. 258)
"Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn't a demon: it was me." (p. 304)
"I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now, but there was something nourishing in setting aside that time each week, in the act of admitting that I needed something I could not provide for myself." (p. 316)
"Now I thought about it, I realized that all my siblings, except Richard and Tyler, were economically dependent on my parents. My family was splitting down the middle - the three who had left the mountain, and the four who had stayed. The three with doctorates, and the four without high school diplomas. A chasm had appeared, and was growing." (p. 326)
Quotes to highlight after re-reading August 2020:
"Dad's mother worked for the Farm Bureau in town. As an adult, Dad would develop fierce opinions about women working, radical even for our rural Mormon community. 'A woman's place is in the home,' he would say every time he saw a married woman working in town. Now I'm older, I sometimes wonder if Dad's fervor had more to do with his own mother than with doctrine. I wonder if he just wished that she had been home, so he wouldn't have been left for all those long hours with Grandpa's temper." (p. 26)
"'It's time to go, Tara,' Tyler said. 'The longer you stay, the less likely you will ever leave.' 'You think I need to leave?' Tyler didn't blink, didn't hesitate. 'I think this is the worst possible place for you.' He's spoken softly, but it felt as though he'd shouted the words...Tyler stood to go. 'There's a world out there, Tara,' he said. 'And it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear.'" (p. 120)
"I wanted to believe him, to take his words and remake myself, but I'd never had that kind of faith. No matter how deeply I interred the memories, how tightly I shut my eyes against them, when I thought of my self, the images that came to mind were of that girl, in the bathroom, in the parking lot. I couldn't tell Dr. Kerry about that girl. I couldn't tell him that the reason I couldn't return to Cambridge was the being here threw into great relief every violent and degrading moment of my life. At BYU I could almost forget, allow what had been to blend into what was. But the contrast here was too great, the world before my eyes too fantastical." (p. 242-43)
"Only then did I understand where the shame came from: it wasn't that I hadn't studied in a marble conservatory, or that my father wasn't a diplomat. It wasn't that Dad was half out of his mind, or that Mother followed him. It had come from having a father who shoved me toward the chomping blades of the Shear, instead of pulling me away from them. It had come from those moments on the floor, from knowing that Mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears to me, and choosing, for that moment, not to be my mother at all." (p. 273)
Notes after re-reading August 2020:
I was really looking forward to re-reading this book, but it was much harder to read the second time around. This time because I already knew it was coming it was harder to read about all the physical abuse from her brother Shawn and how Tara herself tried to explain it away or make it her own fault. It was also more obvious when reading it again how much Tara doubted herself and was torn between her family and herself. I feel like if she had reached out to Tyler earlier things would have been much easier for her. He grew up the same way and went to college and thrived, but somehow she continued to think the problem was her - not the abuse and lack of education and care from her family. I think the first time reading it the story is so bizarre at times that you aren't paying as close of attention, but reading it again it was much sadder and harder to read. Tara accomplished so much with NO HELP from almost anyone in her family, yet she continued to see herself as less than everyone else. I'm glad she has relationships with two of her brothers and some other extended family, but I doubt her parents or other siblings will ever come around.
Some quotes I liked:
"'I know you think we're being unfair,' she said. 'but when I was your age I was living on my own, getting ready to marry your father.' 'You were married at sixteen?' I said. 'Don't be silly,' she said. 'You are not sixteen.' I stared at her. She stared at me. 'Yes, I am. I'm sixteen.' She looked me over. 'You're at least twenty.' She cocked her head. 'Aren't you?' We were silent. My heart pounded in my chest. 'I turned sixteen in September,' I said. 'Oh.' Mother bit her lip, then she stood and smiled. 'Well, don't worry about it then. You can stay. Don't know what your dad was thinking, really. I guess we forgot. Hard to keep track of how old you kids are.'" (p. 137)
"...I had finally begun to grasp something that should have been immediately apparent: that someone had opposed the great march toward equality; someone had been the person from whom freedom had to be wrested. I did not think of my brother as that person; I doubt I will ever think of him that way. But something had shifted nonetheless. I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either willfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whose sole purpose was to dehumanize and brutalize others - because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward." (p. 180)
"'I have been teaching in Cambridge for thirty years,' he said. 'And this is one of the best essays I've read.' I was prepared for insults but not for this...I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it. I wanted the professor to shout at me, wanted it so deeply I felt dizzy from the deprivation." (p. 240)
"I'd never heard anyone use the word 'feminism' as anything but a reprimand. At BYU, 'You sound like a feminist' signaled the end of the argument. It also signaled that I had lost." (p. 258)
"Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind. I had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn't a demon: it was me." (p. 304)
"I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now, but there was something nourishing in setting aside that time each week, in the act of admitting that I needed something I could not provide for myself." (p. 316)
"Now I thought about it, I realized that all my siblings, except Richard and Tyler, were economically dependent on my parents. My family was splitting down the middle - the three who had left the mountain, and the four who had stayed. The three with doctorates, and the four without high school diplomas. A chasm had appeared, and was growing." (p. 326)
Quotes to highlight after re-reading August 2020:
"Dad's mother worked for the Farm Bureau in town. As an adult, Dad would develop fierce opinions about women working, radical even for our rural Mormon community. 'A woman's place is in the home,' he would say every time he saw a married woman working in town. Now I'm older, I sometimes wonder if Dad's fervor had more to do with his own mother than with doctrine. I wonder if he just wished that she had been home, so he wouldn't have been left for all those long hours with Grandpa's temper." (p. 26)
"'It's time to go, Tara,' Tyler said. 'The longer you stay, the less likely you will ever leave.' 'You think I need to leave?' Tyler didn't blink, didn't hesitate. 'I think this is the worst possible place for you.' He's spoken softly, but it felt as though he'd shouted the words...Tyler stood to go. 'There's a world out there, Tara,' he said. 'And it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear.'" (p. 120)
"I wanted to believe him, to take his words and remake myself, but I'd never had that kind of faith. No matter how deeply I interred the memories, how tightly I shut my eyes against them, when I thought of my self, the images that came to mind were of that girl, in the bathroom, in the parking lot. I couldn't tell Dr. Kerry about that girl. I couldn't tell him that the reason I couldn't return to Cambridge was the being here threw into great relief every violent and degrading moment of my life. At BYU I could almost forget, allow what had been to blend into what was. But the contrast here was too great, the world before my eyes too fantastical." (p. 242-43)
"Only then did I understand where the shame came from: it wasn't that I hadn't studied in a marble conservatory, or that my father wasn't a diplomat. It wasn't that Dad was half out of his mind, or that Mother followed him. It had come from having a father who shoved me toward the chomping blades of the Shear, instead of pulling me away from them. It had come from those moments on the floor, from knowing that Mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears to me, and choosing, for that moment, not to be my mother at all." (p. 273)
The #MeToo Reckoning: facing the church's complicity in sexual abuse and misconduct by Ruth Everhart
Ruth Everhart works as a Presbyterian pastor, but she is also a victim of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Long before the #metoo movement sexual assault and harassment victims struggled to tell their stories and receive compassionate responses when they did. You would think that the Church, a haven for broken people finding healing through Christ, would be better in handling this issue. But, unfortunately that is not always the case. Everhart shows some of the reasons why the Church hasn't handled sexual assault and harassment well and gives current and Biblical examples. Unfortunately the Church has tended to shy away from discussing sexuality overall, which tends to lead to shame for victims and easy targets for predators. Everhart gives solid tips for how Church leaders can do better and be more aware of these issues, how to prevent them, and how to better deal with them when they happen. While parts of this book are hard to read, Everhart does give hope that the Church can do better with this issue. So, while it is a hard read, it is also a hopeful read.
Some quotes I liked:
"Let me be clear about another thing: I am not a liberal feminist. I am a radical feminist. Which is to say, it's not enough that individual women can thrive in a patriarchal culture. As long as women as a group are treated as less than men, it doesn't matter that individual women can experience success. Inequality is not what God intends for human society. Inequality is certainly not what Jesus modeled. My love for Jesus is why I embrace the #MeToo movement. As imperfect as it is, this collective action highlights the ways that inequality breeds abuse. It has garnered the power to push back against that abuse, pushback that is long overdue. I feel frustrated when Christians treat #MeToo as a sinful movement dripping with the venom of feminism. Feminism is not a hateful ideology. It's the belief that women are people too." (p. 6-7)
"While complementarians insist that these gendered roles are equal in value, in practice they are not. From my childhood, I know that the roles do not feel equal. Certainly the dynamic created is one of unequal power. This is an enormous problem. Sexual abuse is always the abuse of power. I am not alone in connecting the dots between a conservative view of gender roles and increased harm from sexual abuse." (p. 12)
"Making an untimely push toward so-called reconciliation is a way religious people commonly deal with wrong doing. Real reconciliation lies at the end of a long road and is rarely achieved. It involves the pursuit of accountability and justice, which takes time and intentionality." (p. 68)
"I learned that many people equate healing with silence. I sometimes receive messages from people who hope I will finally find healing. While I don't believe they intend to convey condescension, what they unintentionally echo is the premise at the heart of my memoir: that when a woman is raped, she is viewed as permanently damaged. To some people, the rape stain has apparently lingered on me some forty years - since I'm still writing about it. The implication is that when I'm healed I will stop writing about sexual assault. In other words, their goal is my silence." (p. 106)
"Since the story line involves David having sex with Bathsheba, David's sin is often labeled as adultery. But adultery is an odd label for a king who's polygamous and has access to dozens of concubines. What marital bond has he violated? David's targeting of Bathsheba is altogether different from a modern-day husband stepping out on a spouse. More precisely, what David did with Bathsheba is an abuse of his power. David exploited the enormous power differential that existed between men and women in general, and between himself and any vassal, in order to have sex with a particular woman. The word for that crime is rape....When I was a child, David's 'downfall' was blamed on Bathsheba's beauty. This is a cunning interpretation. It sidesteps the question of identifying David's sin - adultery, theft, or rape - and simply makes Bathsheba responsible for it. The victim is to blame for being victimized." (p. 122-23)
"For instance, the concept of consent is intrinsic to sexual activity, yet it is totally absent from purity culture. The emphasis on the submission of a wife to a husband downplays a woman's ability - or need - to exercise agency. If she must submit, how can she consent? Paradoxically, a woman is often seen as responsible for her own victimization." (p. 127)
Some quotes I liked:
"Let me be clear about another thing: I am not a liberal feminist. I am a radical feminist. Which is to say, it's not enough that individual women can thrive in a patriarchal culture. As long as women as a group are treated as less than men, it doesn't matter that individual women can experience success. Inequality is not what God intends for human society. Inequality is certainly not what Jesus modeled. My love for Jesus is why I embrace the #MeToo movement. As imperfect as it is, this collective action highlights the ways that inequality breeds abuse. It has garnered the power to push back against that abuse, pushback that is long overdue. I feel frustrated when Christians treat #MeToo as a sinful movement dripping with the venom of feminism. Feminism is not a hateful ideology. It's the belief that women are people too." (p. 6-7)
"While complementarians insist that these gendered roles are equal in value, in practice they are not. From my childhood, I know that the roles do not feel equal. Certainly the dynamic created is one of unequal power. This is an enormous problem. Sexual abuse is always the abuse of power. I am not alone in connecting the dots between a conservative view of gender roles and increased harm from sexual abuse." (p. 12)
"Making an untimely push toward so-called reconciliation is a way religious people commonly deal with wrong doing. Real reconciliation lies at the end of a long road and is rarely achieved. It involves the pursuit of accountability and justice, which takes time and intentionality." (p. 68)
"I learned that many people equate healing with silence. I sometimes receive messages from people who hope I will finally find healing. While I don't believe they intend to convey condescension, what they unintentionally echo is the premise at the heart of my memoir: that when a woman is raped, she is viewed as permanently damaged. To some people, the rape stain has apparently lingered on me some forty years - since I'm still writing about it. The implication is that when I'm healed I will stop writing about sexual assault. In other words, their goal is my silence." (p. 106)
"Since the story line involves David having sex with Bathsheba, David's sin is often labeled as adultery. But adultery is an odd label for a king who's polygamous and has access to dozens of concubines. What marital bond has he violated? David's targeting of Bathsheba is altogether different from a modern-day husband stepping out on a spouse. More precisely, what David did with Bathsheba is an abuse of his power. David exploited the enormous power differential that existed between men and women in general, and between himself and any vassal, in order to have sex with a particular woman. The word for that crime is rape....When I was a child, David's 'downfall' was blamed on Bathsheba's beauty. This is a cunning interpretation. It sidesteps the question of identifying David's sin - adultery, theft, or rape - and simply makes Bathsheba responsible for it. The victim is to blame for being victimized." (p. 122-23)
"For instance, the concept of consent is intrinsic to sexual activity, yet it is totally absent from purity culture. The emphasis on the submission of a wife to a husband downplays a woman's ability - or need - to exercise agency. If she must submit, how can she consent? Paradoxically, a woman is often seen as responsible for her own victimization." (p. 127)
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