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The Indignities of Being a Woman  By  cover art

The Indignities of Being a Woman

By: Merrill Markoe,Megan Koester
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Preview Indignities of Being a Woman!

Indignities of Being a Woman - Marriage and Family Sample
  • Indignities of Being a Woman - Marriage and Family Sample
  • By: Merrill Markoe, Megan Koester
“In the language of the Sumerians, the word for "love" literally meant to ‘mark off land’“.
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Indignities of Being a Woman - Beauty sample
  • Indignities of Being a Woman - Beauty sample
  • By: Merrill Markoe, Megan Koester
Lead, urine and crocodile dung: some of the ingredients of women’s makeup over the centuries.
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  • Indignities of Being a Woman - Marriage and Family Sample
  • “In the language of the Sumerians, the word for "love" literally meant to ‘mark off land’“.
  • Indignities of Being a Woman - Beauty sample
  • Lead, urine and crocodile dung: some of the ingredients of women’s makeup over the centuries.

Publisher's summary

It’s the 21st Century. Why the hell are women - 51% of the population - being treated like second class citizens?  

The Indignities of Being a Woman candidly traces the history of womanhood and investigates how much things have really changed for womankind. By carefully x-raying areas such as body image, marriage, mental illness, fashion, and politics, this audiobook examines what it was like to be a woman in the past versus what it’s like now, when women are constantly told equality between the sexes exists but reality proves otherwise.

It’s the brainchild of two childless comedians, Merrill Markoe and Megan Koester. Markoe is a multi-award-winning comedy writer whose credits span television, magazines, and books. She has four Emmy Awards, one for each of her dogs. Koester has written for VICE, Jezebel and the Guardian and has one basic cable acting credit. The two writers—one a comedy veteran, the other an emerging talent—intersperse their dry wit with their own experiences of being long-suffering feminists in the modern world.

Chapter 1: Inequality
Chapter 2: Beauty
Chapter 3: Sex
Chapter 4: Religion
Chapter 5: Marriage and Family
Chapter 6: Body Image
Chapter 7: Crime
Chapter 8: Fashion
Chapter 9: Hair
Chapter 10: Medicine
Chapter 11: Entertainment
Chapter 12: Politics  

©2018 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2018 Audible Originals, LLC

Editorial Review

Oh, the inhumanity

As the title so eloquently suggests, this Audible Original chronicles the inglorious experiences and situations that women have been subjected to throughout the ages, in everything from marriage to medicine to politics (and then some). Co-narrated, co-authored, and co-improvised by self-defined "childless comedians" Merrill Markoe and Megan Koester, TIOBAW seeks to explore the origins of gender inequality—while throwing in some marvelously improvised dark humor to keep things from getting too dour. It’s part history lesson and part biting comedy performance, one that will give you plenty of bits to repeat at your next rowdy cocktail party. Also, it bears noting that Markoe has herself experienced firsthand some high-profile indignities of being a woman—notably being erased from comedy-writing history by her former boyfriend (and titular host of) The Late Show with David Letterman. Wouldn’t you be pretty indignant, too? —Courtney R., Audible Editor

What listeners say about The Indignities of Being a Woman

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Insert Political Joke Here

Let's start with the good. The narrators are quite entertaining. The acidic humor is always delivered with a wink. And now for the bad - it's very repetitive. They continually shoehorn Trump jokes throughout, which takes the whole audiobook from genuinely entertaining to cringe-inducing as a little goes a long way. "Here it comes. Yet another Trump/Russia/grab, etc. joke." In each chapter topic, they cover indignities women faced but never in significant detail. There is no time to stop and investigate the unfortunate roses on this speedy tour. Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir are significantly better choices if you really want to dig into the indignities of being a woman.

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188 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Okay

Enough with the Trump Admin jokes. I knows he’s terrible, I just don’t need to be reminded about him at every break.
Otherwise pretty good content. Sometimes sounds like it wanted to be a podcast instead.

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115 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Not for,everyone..but I laughed A LOT!

If you don't at least have a feminist flag stored in your closet somewhere, if you are a Donald Trump fan and/or apologist; or if you are troubled by some pretty raunchy language..this may not be for you. I day "may not" because I detest bad language but I still laughed a lot as I listened. if you need a good laugh and some female comiseration, I highly recommend!

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103 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Not for Me

I stopped listening after a half hour. I found the facts interesting and agreed with things these ladies were saying but it was too hard for me to listen to. I kept getting lost in the side remarks and swearing. This would be a good book for someone looking for this type of humor but I wasn't. After looking back at the description I believe I probably should have expected this.

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74 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Hilarious history of people as seen through the eyes of the down trodden-us women!

For the 51% of the population whose job has been to procreate and do the laundry, this funny, insightful romp through history is payback for the macho male viewpoint we’ve all been force fed all of our lives. Enjoy, this is a treat. I personally would like to dedicate ‘The Indignities of Being A Woman,’ to my -ex husband, who would claim to have done the laundry but would have put his only clothes all the way through the wash and dry cycles leaving the rest of the laundry in the washer and dryer in various stages of completion. Well, he didn’t now where the sheets and towels went anyway. In a house with one small bathroom and one small linen closet, he would have had to figure out which shelf to put them on. Oh, and that would have required folding them before putting them in a shelf. You all know what I mean, cause we’ve all been there.

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55 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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snarky, cynical, snide and too damn true...

the chronicle of,as the title suggests... the inequities, indignities and out right horror of being a woman... from ancient times through to the modern age.

if you are a woman, know or like any women or have chance to ever encounter one... it might serve you or just humanity to brush up on the stunning accounts, details, facts and unavoidable misery of herstory... history of women-kind, especially since it is possible to have earned s masters degree in history and never crossed paths with any of these details.

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44 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Adult version of Horrible Histories

When I was in elementary school there was this book series called "Horrible Histories" and they had books on the Groovey Greeks, Rotten Romans and basically all the world empires. They used comedy in telling the myths and history and it was super fun to read.

This, is that series grown up. I loved the riffing between Merrill and Megan before and after the essays and I enjoyed the format of the book. It is a really fun listening experience.

The reason behind 4/5 is that you can listen to this with young listeners . Too much cursing and political jokes that'll go over their head. I do wish that they'd put out a version suitable for junior high age ladies because the content is great and want everyone to understand how history and culture all around the world have affected women.

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42 people found this helpful

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Full of political references and unfunny jokes

I really wanted to learn about the history of gender inequality and what it means to have been a woman in historical times, but quickly got tired of the political trump joke additions in places that were not even relevant to politics, if you weed through the narrator jokes and irrelevant commentary maybe you can listen to it.... Overall a painful and unfunny commentary peppered with a rare interesting fact

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40 people found this helpful

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Important and funny

Well researched and presented. Focusing on twelve aspects of life and civilization, the authors do a wonderful job of demonstrating the scope and severity of the ill-treatment and inequalities in the lives of women throughout history. I found the humorous tack they took in their writing and presentation just enough to keep me from crying. I can not recommend this title enough.

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34 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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This book...get it!

I have been a long time fan of Merrill Markoe and her humor/writing. I grabbed this one as soon as I saw it.
The flow between Merrill Markoe and Megan Koester is really great. It makes this come across as a podcast where two buddies are just chatting about history and all the horror that comes with it, and I really enjoyed that.
This goes through a lot of disturbing truths about women's history but thankfully, it also makes you laugh at the same moment you are horrified. If you want to learn some things, be horrified, and laugh until it hurts...all in equal measure-use a credit and get this one. It's worth it.
Some interesting facts I learned:
-hardened plug of crocodile dung was used as birth control. how? listen to this audible original to find out.
-women's makeup used to blind them and many more horrible side effects...EVEN DEATH but they still used it.
-the term hysteria comes from the greek word for uterus and obviously hysteria only effected women.
I could continue with interesting and insane things that I learned in this book but I'll just let you go listen to it and find out for yourself.

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33 people found this helpful