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The Furies
- Three Women and Their Violent Fight for Justice
- Narrated by: Mia Hutchinson Shaw
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
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The Furies
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
A stunning narrative investigation into three women who rewrote stories of disempowerment into stories of resistance, and wielded violence to fight back against their oppressors
Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, killed a man she said raped her in her own home, but was denied the protection of a self-defense argument. Angoori Dahariya led a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, that was dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse. And Cicek Mustafa Zibo fought in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria. Each woman has been criticised for their actions by those who believe that violence is never the answer; yet each has transmuted a story of pain into power.
In The Furies, award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock examines the lives of three unforgettable women who chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect them - government, police, courts - utterly failed to do so. In luminous prose, Flock asks searching questions about cultures in which violence seems like the only means of survival, where deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity and women have helped breed the violence that women face. Can women's acts of vengeance help to create lasting change in misogynistic and paternalistic systems, or will they ultimately hurt their cause? The novelistic accounts of these three women offer profound insights into the quest for understanding what a society in which women have real power might look like.
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Critic reviews
'These stories of women's vengeance are both harrowing and thrilling. Rosa Parks' defiance was a carefully planned political act; these begin as the opposite - sheer rage. This gripping, inflaming book, itself an act of fury, shows how revenge can transmute into politics or be crushed by it.' (Larissa MacFarquhar)
'The Furies is a remarkable and important exploration - reported with deep rigour and care - of what justice looks like for women who have been stripped of power and are trying to reclaim it.' (Rachel Aviv)
'The Furies is a glorious excavation of women's rage. But it is also a cautionary tale of how the world treats women who dare to fight back, to assert their rights, to scream into the dark void of endless discrimination and inequality. These three women will fill you with hope, despair, and yes, fury.' (Rachel Louise Snyder)
What listeners say about The Furies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- TDH
- 08-09-24
3 Extraordinary Stories
3 Extraordinary stories about three woman from America,India and Syria.Who find themselves confronting a brutal world in quite different circumstances yet each make the difficult decision to stand their ground. Well worth reading.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Christopher
- 04-08-24
Disappointing book
Flock is one of those journalists with literary ambitions who can’t help “embellishing” their prose with “poetic” images. These “lyrical slips” are so irritating that they often interfere with the flow of the narration. Of the three stories, only the last is worth reading. The first, that of Brittany Smith in Alabama, is quite interesting as long as the author quotes from reports and figures and doesn’t offer her own very superficial “understanding” of the murderer and her environment. The second, the story of Angori, an Indian Dalit woman, shows no insight whatsoever into the complexity of issues like caste and the position of women in Indian society (the issue of ethnicity is completely ignored, for instance). The quotations from Indian creative writers are completely random as if she has chosen a couple of books on the basis of their titles only. The third story of the Syrian guerrilla fighter Cicek is the only compelling story in the book. Firstly because the woman herself is a very complex human being and hence more interesting than Brittany and Angoori, and secondly because Flock did a lot of background research on the Syrian civil war. In fact, this is the only section that reads like “proper” journalistic writing (with only the occasional lyrical slip). The biggest problem with this book is that it is very uneven and the reason for choosing these three “furies” in particular are never explained beyond a very generic “they all fought patriarchy” and the like. But this not enough, especially considering that the book is presented as a meaningful contribution to the topic of gender and violence, which is not. The Epilogue, once again, shows how the author is a well-intentioned, decent, human being but somebody who is also extremely superficial in her judgement. Overall, this is a very disappointing book: many important matters are ignored or glossed over and too many controversial issues are reduced to straightforward, simplistic, remarks. In any case, despite of its flaws, the book deserves 2 stars for bringing the stories of these women and their predicament to the attention of the general reader.
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