Book Review: Unspeakable Things by Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny’s Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution is a thoughtful, inspiring and revolutionary book and I would recommend it to anybody even the slightest bit open to the idea that society’s structure maybe needs changing a bit.

In a fiery, urgent style that makes it sound like she’s furiously getting her reasoning down so everyone can just read it and stop bothering her with the same old objections already, Penny lays out the need for activism (not necessarily feminism) because of the problems with the status quo – problems of sex, gender, and love that hurt women and “outsiders” like the queer community or those (including many men) excluded from mainstream society due to poverty or ethnicity.

More generally, the central thesis of the book is the positioning of feminism as a key tool against general inequity and structural problems that affect all of society, against neoliberalism that treats all life as a search for economic efficiency and a docile workforce.

In the ‘Anticlimax’ chapter on sex and marriage, for example, this unification of an anti-woman and pro-capitalist system is summed up in society’s attitudes towards single mothers:

“Single mothers are not just sluts, they’re bad entrepreneurs, lazy workers, dissident subjects who have failed to supply the demands of capitalist patriarchy and now demand that the rest of us pay for it.”

The current cultural system is bad for women, Penny argues, in the same way it is bad for queer and transgender and poor groups, and as it is bad for men working within the system. Feminism and activism like student marches and the Occupy movement are all, in fact, fighting for the same thing – true freedom for individuals to choose how they live. This is not a prescription for change – nor is it a requirement that all the people wanting societal change, even focused on women, need to identify as feminists. Rather it is a crystal clear view of the baseline, of what is wrong now, how it damages women, and how the change needed will be fundamental and touch every aspect of our lives.

Penny’s linking of economic and political problems with feminism specifically has a strong resonance for me. But then I am, perhaps, the target audience for this book. I am a woman (I’m also white, middle class and otherwise privileged. I have blind spots and am trying to fix them and be a better ally). I came out of academia relatively recently, to see the much more obvious problems of capitalist society from being in “big corporation” white collar jobs where being a “good girl” is exploited and having an opinion is enough to get you classed as “difficult” even if you plaster on a smile while giving it. (Not that academia doesn’t have its own problems, as well as being part of the entire neoliberalist structure. But inside it there’s more pretence that it’s different and the economic calculus is deliberately hidden). I also haven't read as much as I should about feminism and activism - some of this stuff may be conventional, but it's new for me.

The chapter on "Lost Boys" goes into some detail on how neoliberalism and the current economic climate are also bad for men: how despite the promise of power, men are also limited in the roles and attitudes they may display. Penny’s experience at writing online and dealing with commenters allows her to layout and address objections and arguments, and to make clear the assumptions behind some arguments from both sides.

A friend somewhat provocatively took part of this chapter out of context – a quote that goes  

"Let's be perfectly clear: we have created a society in which it is structurally difficult and existentially stressful for any male person not to behave like a complete and utter arsehole." 

Unsurprisingly, the quote attracted comments and criticisms that attack feminism in general and Penny in particular. The remarkable thing for me is how this chapter, read as a whole, addresses and disarms all of those criticisms. It sets up the “structural” argument – reading it one is left in no doubt that Penny has thought through exactly what she is asserting, has evidence to back it up, genuinely has compassion for men who are having and will continue to have a tough time dealing with society that has not followed through on its “promises” of power to them, but is resolute in forcing the change anyway. Many men – those without power or marginalized in some way - are already hurting in the “patriarchy”. Compassion is needed as (some) men react with fear and anger to a system that is hard for them too, and in looking for someone to blame light on the women and minorities getting slightly more power: compassion like that of 

“a doctor who looks at a suffering idiot who waited too long to get an oozing wound checked out and says, firmly and accurately: I’m afraid this is going to hurt.”

For me one of the most interesting chapters is the one on love – especially on Love™ as Penny dubs it, the heterosexual-soulmate-romantic love that has become the main theme of the stories we tell and are told, which have women as sidekicks-cum-facilitators of dreams-cum-prizes. Penny points out that for a girl reading these stories you have models that tell you love is the goal, while men can aim at changing the world or being an artist or accomplishing great things. It’s an interesting topic because I don’t think Love, as distinct from Sex, is as commonly addressed in the literature, at least as a feminist issue. But exploitation and power are not just about sex. It is a common, if false, presumption that women are meant to be able to “get” any man and have power over him by being able to refuse sex and thwart his animal desire. Not only does this deny women’s lust and desire, as Penny discusses in earlier chapters, but it also ignores that Love™ is meant to be the aim of everybody, and the key metric of success for women. That means that not getting it – being single, or falling short of Love™ – is a damaging attack on women's identity. Men do have the power to withhold this love and Penny writes about how devastating that is, particularly when it seems that Love™ is more withheld when women do not make themselves “lovable” – when you "get" a boy by being more a helpmeet and ideal, and less an angry, real person who has their own work and goals. I’ve been there too, and it hurts like hell to feel you’ve been rejected for exposing too much of yourself and not sufficiently fitting the mould.

However, I think because there’s been less work on Love (as opposed to sex) this chapter’s arguments seem more introductory and less fully formed. It’s also a more complex question – the stories we tell about Love™ shape expectations for men and women, but love is also, obviously, intensely personal and it is probably impossible to disentangle socialized preferences from one person just being “not into” another. I have a sense that individual break-up anecdotes aren’t enough (although unlike some reviewers I had no problem with the personal anecdotes illustrating other chapters), and while Penny’s discussion has certainly touched me and made me reassess some of my own romantic history, and to be able to frame it in the context of the stories and expectations, I think that as a piece of reasoning this chapter is weaker – more of a foundation or a pointer for where more work needs to be done at a broad theoretical level. I did come away convinced that rejection of the common tropes of ideal romantic love and the creation of new stories is just as key to long-lasting and true freedom as political change or tackling misogyny from strangers – I’m just not sure that someone reading defensively (some men, for example) will be so accepting.

Overall I finished Unspeakable Things feeling enlightened, both as to things happening in the world now and about what to look into next - Penny is clear about bringing no definite answers to the world's problems, but pointing out the questions is a vital first step in itself. I'm very happy that Laurie Penny and people like her are persisting in writing (well) and having a public voice despite the vile misogyny and personal threats that go along with a woman (or other non-privileged person) having an opinion in public. I'm late to feminism and activism and have a lot more learning to do, but part of the goodness of this book is that it explains even that - Penny argues that women are taught by our social structures to change and blame themselves, rather than looking outward for the causes of problems, and that certainly feels true in my case. This book makes me want to seek out the connections between the personal and the political, and use that understanding for wider change. It is a starting point, in the best sense, and I highly recommend it.