Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
“Is anyone shocked?” Picoult tweeted. “Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t male literary darlings.” Weiner’s addition was a variation on the idea she’d been articulating for years—“When a man writes about family and feelings, it’s literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same subjects, it’s romance, or a beach
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
As with trans people, the most socially acceptable way to be gay is for nothing, save the existence of your same-sex spouse, to betray your queerness.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Imagine, too, a woman whose dominance on the court leads to discussions of her skill, not her body. Imagine a scenario in which strength, manifest in physical and mental form, is figured as a pure testament to skill, not a means of distracting from it. Imagine a world in which female athletes do not provoke anxiety; in which black ones are not auto
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
I was happy, ostensibly, but every move was motivated by fear.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
As Weiner puts it, “Any woman who ever put pen to paper, or finger to laptop, has had to deal with sexism, discrimination and double standards, has had to fight harder than a man to get published, to get noticed, to get reviewed, to get profiled. I’m not saying that we all need to hold hands and sing Kumbaya, but I wish that there was some recognit
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
But after attending the reunion, and feeling none of the elitism or snobbery she’d expected, Weiner admitted that she might be mapping her own insecurity onto others: “The overall pleasant evening has led me to the painful realization that I’ve spent 15 years insisting that books like mine deserve a place on the shelf, and maybe I don’t entirely be
... See moreAnne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
The toned body, after all, requires even more work than the skinny one: it’s about constant self-improvement. And while women can and do take real enjoyment from the act of exercise, the maintenance of that body requires an incredible amount of time and labor—psychological and physical.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
A woman navigating the world with the confidence of a man is a beautiful, magnetic, and periodically unnerving sight to behold.
Anne Helen Petersen • Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
Women can consider themselves free, feminist, and liberated in so many ways—yet still be controlled by the notion of an ideal body of which their own continually falls short.