"A wild, rollicking ride into the heart of horse countryâ??these essays get at what it means to love horses, in all that love's complexity." â??Anton DiSclafani, author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
A compelling and provocative essay collection that smashes stereotypes and redefines the meaning of the term "horse girl," broadening it for women of all cultural backgrounds.
As a child, horses consumed Halimah Marcus' imagination. When she wasn't around horses she was pretending to be one, cantering on two legs, hands poised to hold invisible reins. To her classmates, girls like Halimah were known as "horse girls," weird and overzealous, absent from the social worlds of their peers.
Decades later, when memes about "horse girl energy," began appearing across social mediaâ??Halimah reluctantly recognized herself. The jokes imagine girls as blinkered as carriage ponies, oblivious to the mockery behind their backs. The stereotypical horse girl is also white, thin, rich, and straight, a daughter of privilege. Yet so many riders don't fit this narrow, damaging ideal, and relate to horses in profound ways that include ambivalence and regret, as well as unbridled passion and devotion.
Featuring some of the most striking voices in contemporary literatureâ??including Carmen Maria Machado, Pulitzer-prize winner Jane Smiley, T Kira Madden, Maggie Shipstead, and Courtney Maumâ??Horse Girls reframes the iconic bond between girls and horses with the complexity and nuance it deserves. And it showcases powerful emerging voices like Braudie Blais-Billie, on the connection between her Seminole and Quebecois heritage; Sarah Enelow-Snyder, on growing up as a Black barrel racer in central Texas; and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, on the colonialist influence on horse culture in Pakistan.
By turns thought-provoking and personal, Horse Girls reclaims its titular stereotype to ask bold questions about autonomy and desire, privilege and ambition, identity and freedom, and the competing forces of domestication and… (más)
I think that people who enjoyed horses as children will enjoy this anthology of essays and short memoirs a little more than people who did not. The amount of memories that this book evoked sent chills down my spine. And I don't mean just "oh, that reminds me of my time with my horse" but uncannily similar situations and decisions that it seems like many young women experience in their horse life. This like finding confidence through horse riding, dealing with both gender and puberty through horses, the decision whether to go to a "real" college and have a "serious" career as opposed to following the love of horses --and of course enjoying model horses as a child. All of these experiences were things that I dealt with as well, with a surprising amount of similarity to the authors. I don't think, however, that this book would be enjoyable for readers who did not have horses in their youth--the myriad experiences and themes of youth, coming of age, growing up and reflecting on your past, will make interesting for many readers. It also has such a fabulous selection of writers with different styles, and also with different points of view, as Halimah Marcus has done a great job of including many others whose experiences are far outside of the stereotypical "horse girl". And yet between authors of different genders, cultures and colors, our experiences with horses are very similar. I read this with my sister and mother, also ex or current horse women, and they felt very much the same. ( )
"A wild, rollicking ride into the heart of horse countryâ??these essays get at what it means to love horses, in all that love's complexity." â??Anton DiSclafani, author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
A compelling and provocative essay collection that smashes stereotypes and redefines the meaning of the term "horse girl," broadening it for women of all cultural backgrounds.
As a child, horses consumed Halimah Marcus' imagination. When she wasn't around horses she was pretending to be one, cantering on two legs, hands poised to hold invisible reins. To her classmates, girls like Halimah were known as "horse girls," weird and overzealous, absent from the social worlds of their peers.
Decades later, when memes about "horse girl energy," began appearing across social mediaâ??Halimah reluctantly recognized herself. The jokes imagine girls as blinkered as carriage ponies, oblivious to the mockery behind their backs. The stereotypical horse girl is also white, thin, rich, and straight, a daughter of privilege. Yet so many riders don't fit this narrow, damaging ideal, and relate to horses in profound ways that include ambivalence and regret, as well as unbridled passion and devotion.
Featuring some of the most striking voices in contemporary literatureâ??including Carmen Maria Machado, Pulitzer-prize winner Jane Smiley, T Kira Madden, Maggie Shipstead, and Courtney Maumâ??Horse Girls reframes the iconic bond between girls and horses with the complexity and nuance it deserves. And it showcases powerful emerging voices like Braudie Blais-Billie, on the connection between her Seminole and Quebecois heritage; Sarah Enelow-Snyder, on growing up as a Black barrel racer in central Texas; and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, on the colonialist influence on horse culture in Pakistan.
By turns thought-provoking and personal, Horse Girls reclaims its titular stereotype to ask bold questions about autonomy and desire, privilege and ambition, identity and freedom, and the competing forces of domestication and
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