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I feel like I've slowed on reading this because I just... am frustrated with the way the story is written. Like, it's not bad. It's just annoying that some characters don't seem to know what they're on about.

I still have a lot of book left, but I'm still trying to work out how this one narrative thread is being used? Because the author, in the press for the book, keeps pointing at a historical case that this fiction is based on... and it's just making me go "Yeah, but you said there wasn't a lot of press on this case. And that was a core feature of why the court was able to get away with treating her so badly... because what press was there wasn't sympathetic and there wasn't much of it at all, including from Cypriot press. So why not build that instead of... this form of malicious press? Which is also real but doesn't match the rest of the story, where the core focus is how she's being neglected by everyone and that neglect is assisting the court in assuring her guilt and later her death."

The absolute worst part of this specific version of this specific novel is Chuck Palahniuk's introduction. I don't know why you'd ask him, of all people, to write a 'feminist intro' (or maybe he did that of his own accord, who knows)... But he failed miserably and engaged in misogynistic insult throwing while failing to understanding how structures of patriarchy, classism, and white supremacy intersect. (And he couldn't even recognise varying elements of queerphobia that were at play, either.)

Which is confusing considering Levin does a decent job at highlighting the horror of the 'feminist backlash'. Because it's much easier to see the backlash coming from the people in the middle- and upper- classes, this book is positioned well. It's still interesting to see that at least two of the women feel safe and secure with their "supportive" husbands, even though they have been steadily walking towards a tighter patriarchal structure right under their noses.

As long as you're behaving "correctly," according to them, they're happy to let you have the world you think you live in.

So much of this resonates strongly because we still see it, across a range of political views. Much like the characters in the book, many people of marginalised genders are still gaslit about their experiences and feelings and thoughts on the regular. Even within relationships with "radical" cishet men who "are feminist," many of us still struggle to have them actually listen to and care about our concerns only for them to tell us that they're "one of the nice ones."

Overwhelmingly, this book is able to portray a lot of the issues that women (and, if we're honest, people of all marginalised genders) face. Ironically, even the concerns of Chuck Palahniuk's introduction are addressed in the form of the woman who is a psychiatrist that the protagonist sees at her husband's behest; she tells her that there's nothing inherently wrong with Stepford, that the protagonist is overreacting to the fear and frustration of moving to the suburbs from the city... She doesn't listen to the concerns and only tries to say that they are solvable via her, that she has the answers. She's unknowingly working towards supporting patriarchal values and notions simply by denying the protagonist's feelings and explaining them away.

There are some undercooked concepts and discussions (like race and class), I think. But overwhelmingly, this just reminded me of the recent trend of trad wives. I think we've socially replaced the concept of the 'Stepford wife' with the concept of the trad wife.

Reading Chuck Palahniuk's introduction... and it feels off because it doesn't seem to recognise an accurate directionality of oppression.

In the end of it he says:

Nevertheless, it's odd how the bookshelves are filling with pretty dolls. Those glazed pretty dolls wearing their stylish designer outfits—Prada and Chanel and Dolce—swilling their martinis and flirting, flirting, flirting in their supreme effort to catch a rich husband. Always a rich husband. Instead of political rights, they're fighting for Jimmie Choos. In lieu of protest, they express themselves through shopping. And men, they're no longer the oppressors—these days other women are, older women. In The Nanny Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada and Confessions of a Shopaholic, in this new generation of 'chick lit' novels, men are once more the goal. It's successful women who torment our pretty, painted narrators. Brassieres are back, as are girdles, eyelash curlers, perfumed and meticulously shaved underarms. The speculum and the cervix are forgotten. This it seems is progress: women may now choose to be pretty, stylishly dressed, and vapid. This is no longer the shrill, politically charged climate of 1972; if it's a choice freely made, then it's... okay.

and then:

Now everyplace is Stepford, but it's okay. It's fine. This is what the modern, politically aware, fully awake, enlightened, assertive women really, really really wants: a manicure.

... And the problem with this is that it's recognising symptoms as opposed to causes. It's not looking at capitalism and overconsumption, it's not looking at the structure of patriarchy, it's not looking at white supremacy, it's not looking at classism. It's missing everything for, like, some strange misogynist hits at women and their apparently willful desire to give up political rights... But it's the whole problem to miss these things.

There's another line that says: "Women are the ultimate threat to women." And while this is true in some contexts (the glass ceiling, reinforcing misogyny, engaging in transmisogyny and transphobia), it's not... the full reality. It's flippant.

Grading is, surprisingly, not a uniquely American experience. The way that teachers in the US grade is not exactly that different from teachers elsewhere, either.

Also, the off-handed comment about "as well as God to Abraham" really hits weirdly and makes it feel like he's trying to find ways to add religious beliefs where they don't really belong (which I say because this book as been pushed into a lot of public schools for teachers to engage with, and his LLC makes a pretty good amount of money from US public schools). His intent is to make money using his "equitable grading" ideas (and most of that money is coming from schools), so it feels weird to just wedge this in where it's not necessary or even needed.

Granted, I think the average person in the US would be less annoyed about this than I am (because I'd guess they'd nod along as a result of their own beliefs), but I've always found it problematic when this happens in things supported by "public" institutions. The author knew what he was doing.

This is not only a false statement (a book cannot be a dialogue because a book or its author cannot respond to me in a bidirectional conversation), but it is patronising as well.

Leading up to this quote is a bunch of explanations about why it is "so hard" to talk about grading, which has not been my experience in schools. As much as I despise the practice of grading and applying any arbitrary measurement to "how much has this person learned," it is also easy for me to point to the fact that I have spent a lot of time in conversations with other teachers discussing grading, what policies to adapt, how to make it better, etc. Perhaps if Joe had spent more than three years as a teacher, more than a few years as a principle, and more than a few years as a district administrator... He might have experienced that.

Or he probably did but chose to ignore it... or spent all of his time sitting in a classroom alone, away from everyone else and not in the staff room. But I have never worked in a school where grading wasn't a central conversation at least twice every year (usually around the first week and any reporting period).

This doesn't mean those conversations were good or productive, but they did happen. Unlike his central thesis, people are not afraid to talk about grading.