Sykes\u2019 collection of essays covers a surprisingly large amount of ground for a relatively short book. She turns her attention to a lot of the inner turmoils that seem to plague millennials\u2019 inner monologues, as well as broader societal issues: fast fashion, the \u201Ctrue self\u201D, instagram husbands, and work-life balance all feature. How do we know we\u2019re doing it right? clearly comes from a lot of careful conversations, introspection, and research but at times Sykes seems to lose herself under disjointed quotations of other peoples\u2019 words. When she does start to connect others\u2019 research to her own opinion, the two feel a little disjointed, which is a shame because both raise good points worth discussing.
I hadn\u2019t heard of Pandora Sykes before I saw this book in a local bookshop. I\u2019m a sucker for strong feminist essayists, and also for buying books on a whim so I picked this up. It turns out this is Sykes\u2019 first collection of essays, though she\u2019s a seasoned editor, journalist, and broadcaster according to her own website.
I was initially worried that I\u2019d bought a well-written book aimed at a more female more middle-aged more parent audience. The first couple of chapters spoke about parenthood and domestic life, and the environmental and psychological toles of fast fashion. Both of these things are issues that we should all be aware of, regardless of our role as child guardian or garment buyer, but both aren\u2019t things I spend a lot of my time being affected by[^1]. Not to brag, but I have practically no children and I\u2019m really trying to avoid shopping in H&M (or at least feeling appropriately guilty when I do). Though it was fun to have a well-spoken and funny woman complain about the state of a hypothetical husband and baby-daddy - some parts of the book definitely felt less relevant or less targeted at me. I could clearly see what was being said, I just couldn\u2019t relate.
[^1]: Men can be equally as targeted by fashion marketing which preys on insecurities - fortunately the algorithms that serve us adverts never place them in front of me.
And then something happened. Suddenly Sykes was talking my language: in talking about social media use and its effects on us, she spoke about her own very purposefully spent time unplugged not because it was \u201Cso good\u201D or \u201Cwell balanced\u201D but because she recognised it\u2019s what she needs for her brain to function in a way that makes her happy. Not because she wants to humble-brag or shame others, but because genuinely it is the right choice for her. This is something I\u2019ve had simmering at the back of my brain for a while: that the inner monologue a lot of creatives rely on is being pushed aside for this content. It\u2019s not even limited to creatives - everyone can benefit from providing their mind more unoccupied space move in, or less noise to speak above depending on your metaphor of choice.
She mentions, but I don\u2019t think does justice, to the constant input from, or demands made by, technology on our attention and time. She makes some really great points about Cultural Homework - about how there\u2019s always that series or film to watch. But this almost already feels outdated against the algorithm-run media platforms of Twitter, podcasts, YouTube, and Netflix. There\u2019s always more material, there\u2019s always something \u201Cwe think you\u2019ll love\u201D or something \u201Ceverybody\u2019s talking about\u201D even if no one you know ever actually speaks about it. These recommendations will be served up to you unless you actively stop it. This is a different point to the Cultural Homework idea, but I think it\u2019s got a lot more potential to destroy the internal conversations, meandering thoughts, and quiet moments that make us\u2026 us.
I\u2019m a software engineer by day but creative by night, and these are issues I think about a lot, so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to judge someone\u2019s work for not writing about things that I personally find very interesting. In all, Sykes does what all good essayists do: taken some nebulous thoughts and feelings and put them into coherent words.
It\u2019s also wonderful to hear the strong feminist currents through pretty much all the pieces. Sexism, like any other kind of prejudice, is plagued by the idea of a micro-aggression. While the right wing of the political spectrum have got a hold of this word and use is pejoratively to dismiss any discontent as an overreaction, Sykes is able to pinpoint specific examples and lay them in front of you. When she\u2019s talking about social media usage from a woman\u2019s perspective it becomes plain how female empowerment, voice, and worth still rely on external validation for their power, which often comes from their aesthetic beauty.
This slight shifting of the rules is not the same as the ground-up change that we need. Changing the standards of \u201Cbeauty\u201D is not the same as changing the \u201Csource of power\u201D. It\u2019s easy to be placated by a celebration of stretch marks and natural hair (looking at you, Kendrick) and Sykes reminds us that we still need to go further.
As a dude, I don\u2019t want to talk about why something might make me feel inexplicably icky, because often I am a witness not a participant, and often the last thing we need now is another dude speaking on behalf of women. This means that I don\u2019t have a lot of experience putting into words why something makes me feel icky - but this book gave me that. It gave me concrete examples and it gave me a well-considered viewpoint from both a participant and an observer perspective.
And she does all this without ever asking for, or demanding, you believe her. Perhaps if I came into this book without already agreeing with her, I wouldn\u2019t have found the arguments so convincing. But I don\u2019t think her intention is to convince or persuade so directly. I might as well score the book a 0 because it taught me nothing about the economics of wool in 1400s Morocco. Instead, the tone I got was of someone patiently and considerately explaining why they think and act the way they do, and let\u2019s stop for a second to realise that this is totally the ~magic of books~ and the wonder of reading.
While it\u2019s very clear that she has her own opinion on the matter, this often feels disconnected from the citations or research she puts in. She\u2019ll often throw in a bunch of quotes from books, or personal e-mail exchanges (which aren\u2019t published by the way, but I\u2019d 100% read that in a serialised newsletter, Sykes) and then in a paragraph move onto something which feels\u2026 sort of related? I got a lot of good book and author recommendations, but it felt like she had a quota for her bibliography? I\u2019d prefer to see these references linked better into the main body of text, or at least acknowledged consistently. Sometimes she\u2019ll come back to mention and author or a work, but a lot of the time it\u2019s \u201Cas [AUTHOR] says in [WORK] \u2018word word word\u2019\u201D and then we never hear about [AUTHOR] or [WORK] again in any detail.
With that said, I would recommend this book. I made a lot of notes in the margins - I got a lot of good further reading, and she gave me a lot of examples and words for things which I will use in the future. I look forward to anything Sykes write in the future and I\u2019ll definitely pick it up, as I think there\u2019s room for a tighter, more informed writing style. Alternatively, she can keep things just the way she is, and I can feel like my clever patient badass friend is explaining things to me and I\u2019d still read it. 3.5\u2B50
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