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Summary: An educated Female Voice is echoed in Musico's work.
Review: Females of all ages, especially those who are educating themselves or children, should aspire to, at the very least, expose themselves to such an intelligent and well versed point of view. Whether or not the reader agrees with the views espoused by Musico, the text and its bibiography is well worth expanding reading horizons and reaching an understanding of the true extent to which patriarchalist attitudes and anti-female acts can reach into women's construction of self and their very understanding of the world. She attibutes much to personal experience (i.e., causality: her mother's rape and how that effected who she and her sister are and how they live; her reeducation from knowledge of women from the past and present now available in literature to changing the course of her life). Her style is highly accessible to many levels of reader and even conservative women may come away with the knowledge that she has double checked her sources. (I.e., the title is from the source she says that it is.)
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Summary: wonderful book, even better when read in the authors voice.
Review: I read five pages. I was dragged to a reading Then I dragged others to a reading This is the best book I've read all year. The whole thing is filled with sections which make you sit back and think, "I can relate."
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Summary: an empowering commentary for women & an education for men
Review: Reading cunt, while not agreeing with all of the author's theories, I could relate to the feelings and actions in the book, and felt empowered and inspired by her thoughts and words. this book is excellent for men to read to understand some aspects of a woman's life, and as an example of a strong, intelligent woman.
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Summary: read it, go out and buy lots of copies for your friends
Review: while i do agree with the other los angeles reviewer who noted that the book is a little too centered around a simplistic dichotomy of dick=opressive power/cunt=beauty and all things positive, there is much in this book that is worth reading, worth mulling over, worth embracing. and, in a sense, thank god(dess) there are a few areas i couldn't wholeheartedly agree with (ie- why not lump all male artists into the category of phallic worshipping cuntfearing agressive oppressors?-like alice walker, i ain't about to give up john lennon..or james baldwin, or faulkner..)-because any book one finds oneself in complete fawning agreement with is suspicious as dogmatic and narrowly sectarian. let us argue over some sections, revere others, and value this book for what it is: an easy to read (though, for some, hard to swallow) discussion of so many typically ignored/negatively portrayed aspects of what it means to be a woman in a body. for that, i say go out and buy more copies, make sure your local bookstores carry this book: show support for ms. muscio and her efforts....read again, laugh here, dissent there, feel inspired there, relate there....
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Summary: A must read for all women and those that love them!
Review: I had not read a book that touched me in such a way in a very long time. Inga Muscio writes in a very poignant and honest style. I believe this should be required reading for all young women.
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Summary: Cunt rules and if you don't think so, you don't get it.
Review: When you read a book that changes something fundamental inside you, and you can't stop thinking about it for days, and you find yourself referring to it constantly, and you carry it with you in your backpack and relay specific quotes into your journal for safekeeping--then you know you've tapped into a literary archive of incredible genuius. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, is such a nugget. Ms. Muscio interviews influential, provocative women such as Diamanda Galas to point out how society has shaped our view of women. Although the section on Periods and Birth Control may make some twitch in their chairs, the humor and frankness with which she illuminates how society has reviled thse things for so long, makes you yearn for a world where periods are a monthly "blessing." Some may find the subject matter and language too provocative and blunt to handle. All the more reason, if you ask me, to read Cunt. As for the word itself, by the time you're done with the book, you'll have no problem screaming it from the rooftops or informing your neighbor on the train when asked what you're reading, "Why Cunt, of course!"
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Summary: my new bible
Review: This book really made a big impact on me. I honestly can't understand what those people were thinking when they criticized it soo harshly. this book is genius. But more than that, it's celebratoritory. It doesn't make excuses for either sex. It holds women and men accountable and it looks toward the future. The future, my friends, is bright. And with people like Inga Muscio leading us into the future, we will undoubtedly enter a new renaissance within humankind.
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Summary: If you have a cunt, you owe it to yourself
Review: I read this book for my all-woman book club, and the cunt meeting was, without question, our best meeting to date. We sat around as a bunch of cunt-lovers and laughed. More importantly, though, we spoke and listened. In a few hours, I made some great friends, and learned much about my self and the other women in the room. In the reading of the book, we learned so very much about our bodies and history. Granted, cunt does have some technical flaws, but it motivated me to protect myself and other women in my community, and it gave the BitchCakes the strength and will to organize a free self-defense clinic in the park. As one of the members of the book club said at the end of the night, "Doesn't it make you want to start a revolution?"
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Summary: Must buy for feminists or women who have any self respect
Review: This book has a totally different perspective on life than I had ever thought existed. It got me excited to be a woman. I laughed, pondered, cried, and got angry while reading Cunt. This book helped me understand myself and other women better than any other book out there. This is for ALL women, don't let the title scare anyone away. It is worth carting around and getting strange looks for!!!!
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Summary: Flawed, but Phenomenal
Review: It would seem that to date, reviews of "cunt" fall into two camps: those who unreservedly love the book (and likely were strongly predisposed to doing so before they'd ever seen the dust jacket), and those who hate it with an all-too-unsurprising virulence (expressed in generalities suggesting these critics may not have cracked the spine at all, or done anything more than peruse the description on the book's rear cover). A less strongly pre-agenda'd, although by no means 'objective', reading might prove more informative:On the one hand, there is much in "cunt" that is problematic. The book is far too prone to telescoping gender into the genitals, literalizing the cunt as an abstractly idealized and ontologically primary font of identity. This points to a larger confusion, namely that the book is frequently unclear on the differences between the cunt as anatomical materiel and as metaphor. Additionally, and despite a clearly demonstrated lack of misandrony ("cunt" is in no way, shape or form a male-hating screed), Muscio frequently reduces the world to a dichotomy of dick/male=arrogated power vs. cunt/female=site of oppression and resistance. "cunt"'s approach thus precludes the book from addressing how patriarchy deeply and systematically exerts control over people with dicks as well, even (and especially) those who haven't thought to spend a single second recognizing how patriarchal relations twist both their conceptions and lived realities. Thus, "cunt" has little to say about how males and females are reciprocally culpable in the continuing, self-repressive reproduction of patriarchy itself and, in this silence, largely fails to grapple with how any effective and durable response necessitates that we all participate, regardless of whether the sperm-derby stuck us with a double-x or an xy. These critiques aside, however, the book willfully veers between the hilarious (in a laugh-with, not laugh-at, way), the deeply touching, the instructive, and the joyously celebratory, all the while remaining well attuned to significant differences within the category of 'female' itself. Muscio enthusiastically, relentlessly, and with unfailingly outrageous good humor points out the ludicrous double-standards yoking females from without and within, double-standards that've become so commonplace as to leave most folk immobilized beneath the assumption that it's "just the way things are." And, beyond this act of recognition, Muscio offers a treasure trove of prescriptions, many of them outright fun, for what to do about it. Thus, "cunt" is a powerful arsenal against the relegation of more than half the planet's population, generation after generation, into second-class-citizenship, and for this "cunt" is a must-read.
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