All right, first post on the “new and improved” blog! 🙂Â
Title:Â Kick Ass Red Lipstick: Rebel Women Unite
Author:Â Cat Cantrill
Genre:Â Women’s Issues/Feminism
Trigger warnings:Â Domestic abuse
Back Cover:
What you thought you knew about yourself was wrong, so very, very wrong…
Our world is ready to explode with a the help of this one thing. We have chapters forming all over the country and world. The author went from a trailer park with two kids to the owner of her own burlesque studio.
Women are given the opportunity to make a real difference
You do not have to settle. You do not have to accept someone treating you poorly. If your husband or boyfriend/girlfriend is a jerk, leave them.
I give you permission to stand up for yourself and do some housekeeping. We, as Kick Ass Red Lipstick, will stand behind you and support you, lipstick ready when you decide that nobody can tell you not to wear lipstick.
There is some adult language in this book. Are you woman enough to deal with that?
Review:
I found this book laying on my boyfriend’s sister’s coffee table over spring break. Any female empowerment message is attractive to me, so I picked it up – and blitzed through it in about 45 minutes, it’s not long.
Overall, the message is good. It’s pretty simple:
- You don’t have to settle for bad, or even “meh”
- Follow your passions
- Take care of yourself – as a priority, not an afterthought
Which is really a message I can get behind, especially since that last point is something I’ve really been getting lately and it’s done wonders for my physical and emotional health.
But anyway.
The only thing that keeps me from giving this book my wholehearted seal of approval is Cat’s approach to empowerment. The book is 50% empowerment and 50% “here’s how you do it, my way is the only way.”
Her biggest thing was the lipstick. Doesn’t matter if you don’t wear makeup at all ever, doesn’t matter if you loathe lipstick with a white-hot passion, you HAVE TO BUY THE LIPSTICK and you HAVE TO WEAR THE LIPSTICK if you’re going to be an empowered woman. Which annoyed me. First of all, part of your message is being true to yourself and if I hate lipstick, forcing me to wear it is the exact opposite of what you’re telling me to do. Secondly, wearing lipstick will have exactly zero effect on anything you’re telling me to do in this book.
*sigh* Okay, rant over.
But besides that, it was a really great book, and it makes a lot of awesome and important points. And if you’re new to the whole empowered woman thing, it’s a good starting point. Just know that Cat’s way is not the only way, no matter how much she thinks it is.