Georgia A NeSmith

Women who changed the world in spite of patriarchy

Revisado: 12-08-19

I am as passionate about this title as Marie Curie and Herther Ayrton were about their science. I had heard of Curie of course [who hasn't--she's about the only female scientist most science textbooks menion], I had not heard of Ayrton. Their discoveries and inventions are embedded one way or another in our daily lives.

Of course they were suffragists. Ayrton spent time in jail for the cause. Curie fought for women in science by being herself and following where her intellect led her no matter who tried to stop her. And so many did. Because of her affair with Paul Langevin, also a physicist but unfortunately married, she was almost prevented from showing up at the Nobel Ceremony to be honored for her SECOND Nobel prize because of the "shame" her affair. Of course, Paul attended without opposition. Thanks to the support of her dearest friend Herther, she showed up anyway, and made a point of stopping at each table full of guests to thank them graciously for her prize.

Kate Mulgrew [Marie] and Francesca Faridany [Herther] offer outstanding performances. It feels as if they are channeling the two women. They are as passionate for their roles as Marie e& Herther werer fo their science, and for women.

Marie and Herther: two brazen, brilliant, strong women without whom our modern lives would be very different, with their passion for science, for exploration, for adventures of the mind, are the best role models for any girl or woman interested in making her mark on the world, whatever field of endeavor that might be.

Oh, my. How I dearly wish I could have heard or seen this play when I was 14 & trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Make sure the girls & women in your lives receive copies for Christmas.

Every daughter, every mother, every granddaughter must listen to and/or see this play. It brings me to tears of gratitude for these women.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

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I hate the ending.

Revisado: 12-08-19

Interesting mystery but by the time we got to the end it just seemed way too pat. And frankly letting xxxx get away with murder...

I guess these days laws just don't matter any more. Not even when it's about a woman's life. And I don't care if she wasn't some ideal person. Murder is murder & you have to take the consequences. Think of how many men have killed women & got away with it.

But when a president can look the other way when a reporter, a naturalized US Citizen, can be murdered by being butchered while still alive, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that an author would let the law go to h-e-l-l.

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The difference experience makes

Revisado: 06-27-19

Before I offer my own evaluation I feel I must address some of the issues brought up in the review just before mine by NMWriterGal.

1st, I gather that NMWriterGal has never had to cope with memories of abuse arising late in life after decades of suppression. Or any childhood sexual abuse at all. If I am wrong in this assessment, I apologize, but so much of her assessment seems to be based on lack of experience and understanding.

For instance: "But what really bothered me... is that on try number 3 at psychoanalysis, she goes back to someone she saw on try number 2 and spends the next 8 years not knowing if she can trust him and thinking he is going to ask her for a particular sexual act. What? What? What? He never does anything inappropriate, but the fact that she spent all those years not trusting him (thus not telling him what was going on with her, lying, etc.) got really old when listening."

First of all, this is a memoir, not a novel, and while you can interrogate a novel's protagonist as "not quite believable," this is the reality of Epstein's life. Most importantly, it is the reality of anyone who's had to sort out what's real & not real, and the problem of trust, especially of a woman in re: a male authority figure, is often a lifelong struggle. You doubt yourself constantly. One day you believe yourself and even an hour later you might doubt. One day you trust, and the next you don't. A child abused early in life whose experiences are not validated by ANYONE she is surrounded by will suffer constantly not only from not trusting others, but not trusting HERSELF.

Re: she worries about whether Dr M will ask her to engage in the very sexual act her "grandfather" forced her to do is in fact quite realistic. It doesn't matter if he's not done anything inappropriate. We are dealing here with a completely irrational experience in childhood. Recovery will inevitably involve questions like that, no matter how seemingly irrational they may be to an outsider.

As tiresome & repetitive as this book might seem to an outsider, as a woman who started recovering memories at the age of 45 after 10 years of questioning but fearing being disbelieved [in fact, one therapist said it wasn't possible for me to not remember something that terrible], I found this book hugely enlightening. And I've read countless other books on the same subject, including Judith Herman's mentioned, as well as The Courage to Heal, which was the first validation of the possibility/likelihood of suppressed memories of abuse I encountered. Indeed, my own trajectory [I am one year younger than she] has been very similar. While structurally similar [what would be "plot" in a novel], the details, however, are very different.

I have spent my whole life searching for memoirs and biographies that could help me comprehend my own story. So far, this one comes the closest. I'm still writing my own.

There are hundreds books like this, but we could have thousands and it still wouldn't approach what is needed by survivors. This one is particularly helpful because she incorporates her knowledge & experiences of holocaust survival families. Since, as noted in the book, 1 in 3 women have experienced some form of sexual abuse/assault in their lifetimes [this figure includes adult as well as childhood experiences], we are talking about 1/6th of the country's population and 1/3 the women. That is MILLIONS, and ongoing. And I've not included the male population.

While an outsider might find these books somewhat repetitive and tiresome, it is clear from that reviewer's response that she still has a lot to learn. This is why memoir matters more than fiction, because whatever one notices that may seem unrealistic, is in fact very real. So rather than challenge the author on her struggle with lack of trust toward her analyst, one should ask: what does this teach me about how survivors experience recovery?

Lack of trust -- especially of authority figures charged with caring for the child -- is at the very heart of childhood sexual abuse. It is a defining feature of the survivor's life & identity.

The worst aspect of being sexually abused by a family member or by a family member surrogate is that the person who is hurting you is supposed to be taking care of you. And that extends to the family members not paying attention or taking action. So not only can you not trust strangers, you can't trust ANYONE.

I have listened to this book twice and I will go through it a third time!

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