Fight Like a Girl

Words such as ‘sexism’, ‘feminism’, ‘support’, ‘consent’, and even more aggressive ones such as ‘rape’ are not just words. They are concepts and constructs that inspire, influence, and even manipulate –in a very Panoptic way- individual and societal behaviours. Simultaneously, they are the creators and the destroyers of problems and solutions. This, amidst a myriad of other ideas, issues, and societal damnations, is something that Clementine Ford tackles in her debut book, Fight Like a Girl. 

A strong-voiced work of non-fiction, this book discusses, debates, and damns the elephants in society that are just not being addressed as much as they should be. Beginning with recounts of personal experiences of body-shame, eating disorders, sexual shame, and mental health, it then escalates into a wonderfully detailed and considerable scrutiny of gender inequality, racism, sexism, feminism, and rape culture in contemporary society. 

Ford’s gloriously vocal and argumentative prose crackles with opinions and charismatic flare as well as researched and carefully structured discussions and inner narratives. The blend of both works beautifully to create a read that is both captivating and eye-opening. I think what I liked best about this book was the voice that Ford herself creates. Here is a woman, like many, who has copped a lot of crap from people over the course of her life and has learnt to stay upright and fight back against it. 

Over the course of the book she builds a tower of personal experiences of some form or other of abuse (with the tower continuing to rise as a fair portion of it proves to be recent and fresh) and the way in which she describes the abuse, her opinions of it, and her behaviours towards/against it creates this glorious sense of being seated across from this woman and having a good rant. 

The voice of the book is what kept me reading, but Fight Like a Girl is not a mere memoir of a ‘bitter feminist’. It’s a close look at a far-from-perfect society where inequality of all forms continues to run rampant. Not only does it look at where society is completely unbalanced and screwed, it clasps the reader by the back of the head and holds their eyes open like that scene from A Clockwork Orange until they see the problem too. I know this sounds brutal and hostile, but if I have learned anything from my 20+ years on this earth it’s that this is the type of strength that is needed to chip away at the cement that binds us to our deeply entrenched ideas and beliefs about gender roles and attitudes. Some of the narratives that Ford details are confronting and a fair portion of her discussion and addresses to the readers (both men and women alike) can be easily construed as being too blunt and telling-it-like-it-is, but it’s these shocks to the system that are the chisel that can eventually chip away the patriarchy as well as stagnant, deep-seated societal attitudes. 

In her review of Fight Like a Girl, Katherine Brabon (The Sydney Morning Herald) comments that, “introducing this book both to girls and boys in schools could begin this long road through conversations and awareness”* and she’s exactly right. Ford’s is a voice that gains attention on both gender fronts (as is evident from the amount of women who share their stories with her and the men who send her abuse over social media) and this is an important quality because a) it’s getting focus on both sides and b) the focus-givers are taking something away from it. And when you close the cover of Fight Like a Girl, you do feel that you’ve taken something away from it. 

Author: Clementine Ford 

Published: 2016, Allen & Unwin. 

* Katherine Brabon. ‘Fight Like a Girl review: Clementine Ford’s snapshot of contemporary feminism’ The Sydney Morning Herald. 2016. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/fight-like-a-girl-review-clementine-fords-snapshot-of-contemporary-feminism-20161122-gsuq35.html