These essays on life and womanhood are poignant and thoughtful, exploring a variety of topics such as breast cancer, feminism, having a child, raising children, child fame, and forces which shape women's lives. I agree with most of what Orenstein has to say and I appreciated her nuanced viewpoints. ( )

I love this collection of essays. Some are tough to read but really worth your time; some are incredibly moving (!), and some are eye-opening. Highly recommend! ( )

Don’t Call Me Princess is a collection of essays and articles written by Peggy Orenstein over the course of her career. Focused primarily on women and girls and the issues they face, there are twenty-eight different articles that reveal how her thinking and her priorities have changed over time. It is interesting when she revisits an issue such as the value of breast cancer support groups and her opinions shift over time and her own experience.

She writes about young women, dress codes, sexuality and sex education, about fertility, miscarriage, and parenting, and about cancer and survival. Throughout the years, most of what matters to women and girls in America have come under her scrutiny and been written about in her essays.

Peggy Orenstein is a good journalist. She writes well and is refreshingly candid. I enjoyed each essay individually. I think she organized the essays well, in clusters that make sense. She begins with a collection of seven profiles of very different women who made a difference. There are eight essays that focus on health issues five about mothering, and eight that focus more on side effects of misogyny, body image, lack of confidence, and the lack of intimate justice. Twenty-eight articles in all.

So, I think this book suffers from two very contradictory weaknesses. I simultaneously wish there were fewer articles and more. It is interesting when her opinion changes, but I would just as soon have the most recent article only with a short mention of her previous article. It just seems like a lot, but then, on the other hand, I would have liked to see more from after the election of Trump. Her article on Hillary is from 2008. Why not from 2016 when the misogyny was so strong from left and right? It feels like she side-stepped the issue of sexism in the 2016 election. The most recent article is shortly after the Access Hollywood tape, “How to be a Man in the Age of Trump” but really, I would love her thoughts on how to resist, how to avoid despair, how to hold on. Her introductions acknowledge his election, but ending before the election just feels like sidestepping the most immediate issue.

I received an e-galley of Don’t Call Me Princess from the publisher through Edelweiss

Don’t Call Me Princess at Harper Collins
Peggy Orenstein author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/9780062688903/ ( )