Welcome to the audio book club. I'm Hannah Rosen sitting in for Dan Coy's today, and I'm joined by Slate Writers, Jamal Bowie. Hi, Jamal. Hello. And Katie Waldman. Hi, Katie. Hey. Today we are discussing Bad Feminist, a book of essays by the novelist and English professor, Roxanne Gay. As always, we are hoping you've already read the book because we like to talk

about it in detail. And if you haven't and still want to listen, then you're going to have to

forgive all of our spoilers because we'll talk about all of it. So Roxanne, and I feel like I can

call her that because her voice in this book is very inviting of conversation and very self-aware and sort of friendly.

And also she watches lots and lots of bad TV and is kind of proud of it, writes essays about gender, race, politics, and pop culture.

She mixes, often in a single essay, confessional writing with cultural criticism, which is unusual.

We'll talk about what she means by being a bad feminist,

why she hates Tyler Perry and most portrayals of black characters and movies, and why she loves

Scrabble, which is her most surprising obsession in the book. I hope it's okay with you guys.

I'm going to start with that typical first year professor chapter. I'm going to read something

from page 20, partly because I think it's an incredibly professor chapter. I'm going to read something from page 20, partly because I think it's

an incredibly charming chapter. It talks about her first year as a professor, and she's gotten her

first job and just what a surprise that is after years and years of graduate school. And I think it

gives you a sense of her distance from herself, but also her warmth. And it's where she first starts to ease

into some of her issues like class and privilege, but she does it very gently in this essay.

I'm going to quote something that Katie quoted in her slate review of bad feminist. She says,

when I walk into the classroom, the students stare at me like I'm in charge.

They wait for me to say something.

I stare back and wait for them to do something.

It's a silent power struggle.

Finally, I tell them to do things, and they do those things.

I realize I am in fact in charge.

...