Let’s Talk about It

Thirty years ago, when Elizabeth Renzetti was an editor at the Globe and Mail, the paper launched a new column, simply called “Men.” At one point, it featured an “absurd” argument that “pop-feminists” would be responsible for an “explosion of male violence and of men oppressing women.” Furious that women’s struggles for equality were blamed for male rage, Renzetti —who “was not a writer, at that point”— offered an inspired response. Readers answered with a deluge of letters, and she was promptly given her own weekly column.

What She Said can be read as a continuation of that column: an exploration of the home, government, filmmaking, journalism, and more. Feminism is not about ruining things for men, Renzetti writes; it’s about making sure that women’s lives are not diminished or destroyed by restricted opportunities, low pay, and, too often, violence. Across ten chapters, she engages with the director Sarah Polley, the Gitxsan journalist Angela...